How Willpower Really Works

January 25, 2012

Interview with Kelly McGonigal, author of the book The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

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Mike Carruthers:
Willpower is something that’s often misunderstood.

Kelly McGonigal:
Most people feel like they don’t have any willpower and actually willpower is something that everybody has. It’s a basic biological human instinct.
 

Kelly McGonigal, author of the book The Willpower Instinct...

And we all evolve this capacity to exert self-control as a way of over-riding those other impulses. And willpower does seem to be like a muscle that you can train it to get stronger so that things that were once difficult actually become second nature.

One reason our willpower fails us is because the goal we set is too high, for example…

People will often set an unrealistic goal of exercising an hour every day. And I might say, “Well what do you think is actually really possible to do?” And they might cut it down to something like an hour every other day. And then I would encourage that person to cut it in half even more, 15 minutes a day. I want people to have success experiences early on because it’s that success that motivates us to keep going.

Cravings are the enemy of willpower. So when you get a craving that is at odds with your goal Kelly says get busy.

If you can become active, take a walk around the block, even 5 minutes of physical activity seems to make the brain much less sensitive to any kind of cravings for cigarettes, for food, and that’s a strategy that a lot of my students will use.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here