Well you’re right in that we have constraints based on stereotyped patterns of behavior and thinking that we’ve grown accustomed to.
How much we’re born with / how much we’re made of course is an open question, but it’s a matter of degrees.
I have a basic temperament. I have tendencies to think or act in certain ways, based on my biological limitations. I’m 1/2 deaf and 1/2 blind, born premature, yet nobody would know any different unless I told them.
Other biological limitations on how my brain is constructed may have to do with cerebral palsy. [they said I have it, and as a child they worked on my brain plasticity to overcome it].
I don’t know if I had it or not. There’s no way to tell unless they scan my brain and find a few spots that got re-routed, buried deep within somewhere. [probably around my amygdala somewhere I suspect].
So “willing yourself” has limitations. But not insurmountable. Just takes work.