The first step towards free will is to understand the underlying principles that are holding you back.

The first step towards free will is to understand the underlying principles.   Belief: An understanding about a given area of life or a situation.   Reaction: How you ''choose'' to react in different circumstances and to different experiences in life. Your reactions are completely determined by the kind of beliefs you have running in the background.   Justification: This is the story you build around a given reaction and your justification explains why you did what you did. In 9/10 cases your justifications are NOT the real reason why you reacted as you did, your beliefs are.   Let's look at some practical examples of how this model works in relation to your limiting beliefs, so that we don't get too caught up in the theory.  

You think you are in control, but in reality your beliefs are controlling everything. This isn't problematic in and of itself, because no matter what you do, your beliefs are always going to be in control   If we couldn't rely on our beliefs as a means of operating in daily life, we would never evolve or grow, because we would constantly have to learn the same thing over and over again. But how are we going to become the master of our experience, if our beliefs are always going to be in control? We are going to do so by choosing the beliefs we want to operate with.

The Mind-Made Prison: Radical Self Help and Personal Transformation by Mateo Tabatabai