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258 reviews for:
The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
Kelly McGonigal
4.1 AVERAGE
258 reviews for:
The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
Kelly McGonigal
4.1 AVERAGE
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
As a person who struggles with procrastination and self-discipline often, I found this book to be very insightful.
The parts that really struck a chord with me were chapters dealing with dopamine.In this digital age, the struggle with being off internet is real. So, I felt her advice was quite effective and explained social media/internet addiction well. In fact, the dopamine advice works great for just about any bad habit you're struggling with.
Another awesome feature of the book is that McGonigal provides actionable steps for you to follow along.
Overall, I honestly enjoyed reading the book. This may be the psychology nerd in me talking but I'm sure the book has something for everyone.
The parts that really struck a chord with me were chapters dealing with dopamine.In this digital age, the struggle with being off internet is real. So, I felt her advice was quite effective and explained social media/internet addiction well. In fact, the dopamine advice works great for just about any bad habit you're struggling with.
Another awesome feature of the book is that McGonigal provides actionable steps for you to follow along.
Overall, I honestly enjoyed reading the book. This may be the psychology nerd in me talking but I'm sure the book has something for everyone.
The start of this book annoyed me; McGonigal was too colloquial and informal for my taste. I also felt that there was nothing new in the early chapters, but she was just rehashing things I had learned in other pop-psychology books. It got a lot better, however, as she moved into experiments specifically designed to test challenges and aids to willpower. The most revelatory part of the book for me was learning specific ways our instinctual weaknesses (which were strengths in a hunter/gatherer society) have been exploited by advertisers and marketers. I liked that the author instructed the reader how to notice these manipulations, and at the end of each chapter gave excellent practical exercises (adapted from her Stanford course on the topic) for strengthening personal willpower.
I am a very disciplined person (if anything I am criticized for my lack of ability or willingness to let go), so I didn't personally take a lot from this book that I want to incorporate in my life. But I repeatedly found myself thinking that my daughter, who is a terrible procrastinator, would benefit so much from it! If only she had the willpower to actually read it...
3.5 stars.
I am a very disciplined person (if anything I am criticized for my lack of ability or willingness to let go), so I didn't personally take a lot from this book that I want to incorporate in my life. But I repeatedly found myself thinking that my daughter, who is a terrible procrastinator, would benefit so much from it! If only she had the willpower to actually read it...
3.5 stars.
How does willpower fail? Let me count the ways!
I was absolutely surprised by the underlying message of of this book. McGonigal (what a perfect Harry Potter-esque name!) posits that willpower is a problem of attention. It is a challenge first to notice when you are doing things that do not serve your greater purpose. And it is an invitation to observe where you fail and why.
This book started slow with things I already knew, and then, in the last 33% of the audiobook, really ventured into territory that blew my mind. Specifically:
1. Contagious willpower (Chapter 8 is amazing)- choose your tribe carefully, those in the USAF who hang out with people who are overweight are more likely to be overweight. The cadet with the lowest level of fitness in their squad was a better predictor of another cadet's fitness at the end of the year than that same cadet's own pre-USAF fitness level. When one of your family members or friends becomes obese, it increases your chances enormously. In an epidemiology sense, weight is literally contagious. And conversely, if you surround yourself with people who share the same goal, you are more likely to achieve it. This is true of more than just weight; it is true of alcoholism, abstaining from cigarettes, drug use, sleep deprivation, and depression. Also contagious is saving-- talking to a friend who invests her money increases your likelihood of doing so.
2. Ironic rebound- the more you try to control and suppress what you think, feel, or crave, the more you cannot help but think about it and the more you tend to give in, a la, the white bear effect. Or the don't eat chocolate/carbs/fats effect. What is the solution then? Per Gonigal, "Feel what you feel, but don't believe everything you think." Ironically, giving oneself the permission to really feel a craving, notice it and dissect its anatomy, gives you back the willpower to fight it. Specifically, smokers who are told to "surf the urge" to smoke- i.e. notice where in their bodies they feel the urge to smoke, rather than fight it, smoked 37% less than those who were not instructed to do so. Amazingly, the participants weren't even trying to or instructed to quit!
3. Change forbidden to explicitly allowed. Ironic rebound is so powerful, that McGonigal spends a long time talking about ways to combat it. Another way is to do so, is to create diets that stress what one explicitly should eat, rather than avoid, and to create activity plans that stress should do activities rather than "avoid TV". 2/3s of participants were able to keep off weight, compared to those who underwent the normal intervention. Another charming example was to change the script from avoidance, "I can't be late" to manifestation, "I need to be 5 minutes early".
4. Social accountability- using a class or a stranger to keep you accountable. At the end of McGonigal's class, the class was worried about losing ground on their willpower goals, and so McGonigal assigned everyone in the class a random stranger from the class who would follow up with them in a week. Anecdotally effective.
5. Future self- high identification/continuity with your future self is associated with better saving for the future and planning for the future.
6. Counteracting goal contagion- observing others behaving badly, seeing others splurging at the mall, or seeing someone fail to follow their diet increases likelihood that you will too. However, there is a way to counteract this. Studies have found that merely thinking about people with high willpower- commonly cited were athletes, professors, spiritual leaders, and politicians.
McGonigal does such an amazing job of collating the evidence, summarizing the case, and prompting actionable behaviors that, even though I normally borrow books from Libby's ebook library, I think it's 100% worth it to actually buy this book, which is, perhaps sadly, among my greatest compliments for a book.
I was absolutely surprised by the underlying message of of this book. McGonigal (what a perfect Harry Potter-esque name!) posits that willpower is a problem of attention. It is a challenge first to notice when you are doing things that do not serve your greater purpose. And it is an invitation to observe where you fail and why.
This book started slow with things I already knew, and then, in the last 33% of the audiobook, really ventured into territory that blew my mind. Specifically:
1. Contagious willpower (Chapter 8 is amazing)- choose your tribe carefully, those in the USAF who hang out with people who are overweight are more likely to be overweight. The cadet with the lowest level of fitness in their squad was a better predictor of another cadet's fitness at the end of the year than that same cadet's own pre-USAF fitness level. When one of your family members or friends becomes obese, it increases your chances enormously. In an epidemiology sense, weight is literally contagious. And conversely, if you surround yourself with people who share the same goal, you are more likely to achieve it. This is true of more than just weight; it is true of alcoholism, abstaining from cigarettes, drug use, sleep deprivation, and depression. Also contagious is saving-- talking to a friend who invests her money increases your likelihood of doing so.
2. Ironic rebound- the more you try to control and suppress what you think, feel, or crave, the more you cannot help but think about it and the more you tend to give in, a la, the white bear effect. Or the don't eat chocolate/carbs/fats effect. What is the solution then? Per Gonigal, "Feel what you feel, but don't believe everything you think." Ironically, giving oneself the permission to really feel a craving, notice it and dissect its anatomy, gives you back the willpower to fight it. Specifically, smokers who are told to "surf the urge" to smoke- i.e. notice where in their bodies they feel the urge to smoke, rather than fight it, smoked 37% less than those who were not instructed to do so. Amazingly, the participants weren't even trying to or instructed to quit!
3. Change forbidden to explicitly allowed. Ironic rebound is so powerful, that McGonigal spends a long time talking about ways to combat it. Another way is to do so, is to create diets that stress what one explicitly should eat, rather than avoid, and to create activity plans that stress should do activities rather than "avoid TV". 2/3s of participants were able to keep off weight, compared to those who underwent the normal intervention. Another charming example was to change the script from avoidance, "I can't be late" to manifestation, "I need to be 5 minutes early".
4. Social accountability- using a class or a stranger to keep you accountable. At the end of McGonigal's class, the class was worried about losing ground on their willpower goals, and so McGonigal assigned everyone in the class a random stranger from the class who would follow up with them in a week. Anecdotally effective.
5. Future self- high identification/continuity with your future self is associated with better saving for the future and planning for the future.
6. Counteracting goal contagion- observing others behaving badly, seeing others splurging at the mall, or seeing someone fail to follow their diet increases likelihood that you will too. However, there is a way to counteract this. Studies have found that merely thinking about people with high willpower- commonly cited were athletes, professors, spiritual leaders, and politicians.
McGonigal does such an amazing job of collating the evidence, summarizing the case, and prompting actionable behaviors that, even though I normally borrow books from Libby's ebook library, I think it's 100% worth it to actually buy this book, which is, perhaps sadly, among my greatest compliments for a book.
Very interesting and enlightening. I listened to this over the course of a month (Feb 2020) and it was a solid background read. Gave some great tips and ideas for people trying to take greater control of their habits. A lot of very good insight into the way the mind works in relation to addiction and to motivation in a very approachable writing style.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
This book has 10 chapters and each with a different powerful insight about your mind. It helps you understand your mind better and leads you to understand why you behave the way you do. This book is going to give you insights about self-control, self-indulgence, addictions etc. There were several aha moments when I read few theories which will look so counter-intuitive until author leads to scientific research explaining her points in detail. The best part about author is that she has not used a preachy or judgemental tone and used a workbook kind of style which let readers process the learnings which could be applied in their personal life. Should be read by anyone who is open to understanding their behaviour and willing to work to improve the same.
It's a useful books. Some ideas changed my mind. But the book is too rumbling.