#531： How to Best Harness Your Willpower
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Summary
Many of our goals in life, from losing weight to saving more money, require willpower. But what is willpower anyway? Why does it feel like it often fails us? And what can we do to make better use of it? My guest today explores the answers to these questions in her book, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now, many of
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our goals in life from losing weight to saving more money require willpower. But what is willpower
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anyway? Why does it feel like it often fails us? And what can we do to make better use of it? My
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guest today explores the answers to these questions in her book, The Willpower Instinct,
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how self-control works, why it matters and what you can do to get more of it. Her name is Kelly
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McGonigal, and she's a psychology professor at Stanford University. We begin our discussion
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discussing what exactly willpower is, how it can be described as an instinct, and what goes on in
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our brains when we utilize willpower. We also unpack the idea that there are really three
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different types of willpower. I won't power, I will power, and I want power, and how these powers
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can be increased. We then spend the rest of our discussion digging into the limitations of
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willpower so we can avoid putting ourselves in situations where it's likely to fail us. We talk
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about how shame, the people who surround us, and even ironically, making progress with our goals
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can all lead to loosening our willpower. We enter a conversation with Kelly's best tips for getting
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the most out of our willpower. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash,
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you know it, willpower. Kelly joins me now via clearcast.io.
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All right, Kelly McGonigal, welcome to the show.
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So you are a psychologist that has spent her career, you've spent your career researching,
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writing about, teaching, I'd say about how to help human beings live a flourishing life.
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And one thing that's undergirded all that is this idea of willpower. In fact, you teach a class
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at Stanford about willpower and you wrote a book called The Willpower Instinct. That's what we're
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going to talk about today. Before we get into what willpower is, because I think a lot of people have
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a vague idea of what it is. They know it's the thing that helps them do good habits and stop bad
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habits. But how did you get started researching willpower? Was it one of those research is me
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search type things? Oh, yes, that's actually true. But the reason that I decided to teach a class
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about it originally is, you know, as you said, I'm dedicated to sharing science that psychologists
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maybe know about, but the general public doesn't. Science specifically that will help people deal
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with challenges or reach their goals. And, you know, I remember maybe about 15 years ago,
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there was a survey that the American Psychological Association did that asked people, what's the
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number one reason you aren't reaching your goals? And not having willpower was one of the most common
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responses. And I got really interested in that because there was a burgeoning field of research.
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It was actually on what researchers were calling willpower. And it seemed to be offering all of
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these fascinating insights about how it works. And more importantly, what we can do to get more of
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it so that we can reach our goals. And I thought this is science that the public needs to know. So
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that's what kickstarted the class that I taught at Stanford. And it's been a great process over the
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last 15 years of sort of working with real human beings to figure out what is the science that does
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help people. And how can we apply that science to our own lives?
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Yeah, I think it's interesting, just even the antidotes you gave in the book. And this, again,
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this was 10 years ago. What's interesting about willpower is that can go into different directions.
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You give antidotes to people who use the things you talked about in your class to get their eating
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in order, their finances. It can go in a whole bunch of different directions.
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It can. Actually, I would love to talk about this for a second because, you know, when I first taught
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the class and when I wrote the book, people were very reluctant to be, I think, honest about their
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biggest willpower challenges. And so, you know, I allowed myself to also talk about food mostly,
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money, finances, things that we commonly think of as being big willpower challenges.
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But I actually got an email this week from one of my students in this course and other courses at
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Stanford. And she was talking about using the ideas from that class to help her get through
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a medical procedure that without which she would not have been able to get a diagnosis that is now
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leading to serious treatment and having to deal with that panic of wanting to, you know, run out
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of the room because this is a terrifying experience. But I know I need to do this because it matters.
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This is a moment that matters. And I'm going to choose knowledge. I'm going to choose my health.
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I'm going to choose courage. And now that this book has been out there for a little while and I've
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been talking to more people, I am so heartened by the fact that actually people feel more willing
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to talk about willpower challenges that aren't the obvious things like, oh, it's so hard to resist
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cheese, which is, you know, the default everyone goes to and talk about things that sometimes are a
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real source of suffering in people's lives. It's that gap between who you want to be and what you find
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yourself doing and how you spend your time and who you are. And that's what I'm really interested in.
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It's really about, you know, how can you make choices? And this is how I define willpower.
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How can you make choices and take actions that are consistent with your highest values
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and your strongest goals, even when it's difficult and even when some part of you is exhausted or
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terrified or distracted? And that can include a lot of things beyond what we typically think of as
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Yeah. It could be your, like the, the, the health example is one, like having to deal with a health
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scare, but like a marital problem is another one. Something, if you're a parent, something's wrong,
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you know, the kid's got a big issue with school or they're doing drugs. Like how do you manage that?
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And you're often going to be relying on willpower to do that.
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Yes. In fact, actually I think caregiving and being a parent, parents are constantly using willpower,
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but because they so, they're so strongly committed to the goal and the value, they love their kids.
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It feels more natural. And sometimes we don't even give ourselves credit. People are not given
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credit for the fact that they're doing these amazing things that take courage, take energy,
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take strength, take self-control. But because it's in service of a role that we sort of expect people
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to be committed to, or that feel very important to us, we don't recognize that that is willpower.
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And part of what I try to help people do is figure out how to apply that same sort of natural instinct
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to do what matters most and to find the energy and the reserves to do it and apply it to your own
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goals as well. Well, so it's interesting. You called willpower an instinct and the book is called
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willpower instinct. And that word instinct, we typically associate with, in humans at least,
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like those impulsive desires that we have that are like animal-like, right? The instinct for sex or for
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food. We don't really think of willpower as an instinct. That's like, well, that's the prefrontal
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cortex. That's like human being stuff. You have to work for that.
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Well, yeah. But let's just be clear, the two instincts that you mentioned, food and sex,
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these are things that we need to survive. That's why we have those impulses. And we have a natural human
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capacity to do the things that keep us alive and that keep our tribe alive. And it turns out that
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willpower or self-control is one of those things too. And I use the word instinct because instinct
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means a natural capacity that is not necessarily always triggered, but it's part of what it means
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to be human. Humans are born with this capacity. We have a biological and develop a psychological capacity
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to think about the consequences of our actions and to remember our values and goals and to plan
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and to maybe, um, to suppress or repress other impulses that are getting in the way of our
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bigger goals. And again, that's part of what it means to be human. It's, it's one of the core features
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of the human mind and even the sort of the social nature of our species. You know, we have to learn
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how to tolerate conflict as part of what helps humans survive as we became a cooperative species.
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And one way to think about willpower is willpower is about applying that same instinct and capacity
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to negotiate a conflict when the conflict is in yourself. And part of you wants to do one thing
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like give into immediate gratification. And another part of you is thinking about maybe your long-term
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interests or maybe even a bigger than a bigger than self interest. So maybe, you know, thinking about
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your family or thinking about some cause that you care about and how do you negotiate that conflict
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so that you don't feel like you're totally neglecting either part of yourself, but that you're
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marshalling your most important energy and resources toward the thing that, you know, at the end of the
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day, you're going to be most glad you chose. So those instincts for like, you know, those base
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instincts for food and sex and whatever, those, they work in tandem, it sounds like with the willpower
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instinct. Yeah. And you wouldn't want one instinct to completely override the other. Sometimes hunger is
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the most important instinct and it's not self-control to deny hunger. If the consequence is you starve
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yourself. And I think that this is, you know, sometimes we get so hung up on these ideas about,
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um, about aspects of ourself that we judge, or we think we need to get rid of in order to be
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our best self or to live a good life. And I actually, I'm fascinated by all of the aspects of human
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nature, that even the things that we sometimes judge like aggression or hostility or the desire to
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give into immediate gratification, they're all survival strategies. And we get into trouble when we don't
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have a big repertoire of survival strategies, when one kind of overrides all of our other human
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impulses. So I think that's, that's one of the great things about taking a scientific lens on this
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is that it can also free us up a little bit to better understand what it means to be human
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so that we understand our willpower challenges. They don't reveal what sort of fundamentally broken
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or weak about you. They reveal that you're human and, um, we can study ourselves and better
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understand ourselves so that we can, we can use all of our aspects of being human to reach our goals.
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So what goes on in our brain when we exercise our willpower? Cause we've had guests on the podcast
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talking about, you know, dopamine, for example, that's the sort of the reward seeking neurotransmitter
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that that's what causes us that what, that's what makes drugs or surfing the web or, you know,
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eating that, you know, whatever that delicious thing is makes it desirable. Are there similar
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things going on in our brain that allow us to exercise our willpower?
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You know, this is a very complex answer. And I need to actually describe different types of
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willpower probably to, to go into what's happening in the brain, because I think most of us, our initial
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idea of what willpower is, is it's what I would call won't power. That is some part of you wants to
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buy something or drink something or say something that, that you might regret later. And so some other
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part of you has to override that impulse. And that's sort of what you're talking about and
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that you can see that in the brain actually. So if there's somebody who has a goal to not smoke and
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they see someone else smoking and they feel that craving, the brain will start to initiate this whole
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motor pattern of trying to reach for a cigarette and create the strong desire for a cigarette and
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even create in your brain stress and anxiety that it will maintain until you give in to the temptation.
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And in order to have won't power in that moment, you do need often it's areas of the prefrontal
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cortex, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which will remind you of your longer term goals, like
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living a healthy life and, you know, not getting lung cancer, being a good role model to others,
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whatever those values are. And the part of the brain, often the left side of the prefrontal cortex
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that starts to suppress the desire to reach for a cigarette or starts to calm down the anxiety in
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your brain. So that's one side of willpower. And what you see is this like this complex negotiation
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of different systems of the brain that have different goals, but won't power is just one
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side of willpower. And the other two powers that make up willpower are willpower as in,
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I will do this. I will do the thing that makes me scared. I will do the thing, even though I'm tired
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and I want to stop, I will do the thing, even though I'm not sure if I'll succeed. And so part
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of me wants to avoid it so that I don't make a fool of myself. I will do it. I will find the energy,
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the courage, the determination. I'll make it a priority. And when that's happening in the brain,
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it often looks a little bit different. So for example, you'll see more activation of the left
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side of the brain, which will be sort of pushing you or motivating you toward action. You will see
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increased levels of activation in the reward system that make you think if I do this, something
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good will happen. You might see increased levels of dopamine that are actually driving you toward
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positive action rather than driving you towards giving into your impulses. And it looks in the
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brain like courage. It looks in the brain like hope. Sometimes people refer to it as the hope
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circuitry of the brain. And that looks really different than when you're trying to suppress an
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impulse that you don't want to give into. And one of the things that you see in both of those
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types of brain patterns is the activation of what I call, I want power. And this is the thing that
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really drives our ability to exert, I will power or I won't power. And that is, it's the power to
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remember in moments of a conflict, what it is you really care about and what you really care about.
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If you were in a contemplative mood and you were thinking about your priorities in life and who you
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want to be. Because of course, you know, in moments when you're overcome, say, by a craving, you might
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say, what I really want is to give into it. So we have to sort of take a different time perspective
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here. And this turns out to be a strength as well. And it turns out to be a pattern of brain
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activation. When you ask people to remember what their values are, what their deal breakers are, what
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their long-term goals are, when people think about who they care about, which is often a great source
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of willpower, wanting to support others or wanting to be a good role model for others can be a tremendous
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source of willpower. You see this activation in parts of the brain that remind you of those values
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and goals. And it gives you a kind of energy that, that then drives whether you need to slow down or
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whether you need to step up and take action. And when you understand those as sort of the three
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fundamental powers of willpower, you realize that you can't exactly say this is what willpower looks
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like in the brain because willpower asks different things of us depending on whether we are trying
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to be the sort of brave version of ourselves or the restrained version of ourselves.
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And it sounds like too that someone could be really good at I willpower, but weak on I won't
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power. I'm thinking of artists, right? These are the kind of guys who can just spend all night
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days without eating or athletes, right? But then they have like, like sometimes they're
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alcoholics or they do drugs. Yes. They can't stop that, but they have that willpower to do what
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they really, really want to do. Yes. And I'm exactly the opposite, right? So my greatest strength
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certainly is the I won't power. I'm pretty good on that aspect of self-control and I've had to much
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more develop the other two aspects. And I think, again, this gets into, I mean, one of the reasons I
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think it's nice to, to talk about it in this way is that we all, we can all recognize our willpower
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strengths. So sometimes you might look at an individual and say, oh, that person is out of
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control with the way that they are free with their speech or their spending, or, you know, people will
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make these judgments and not necessarily know what's going on in their insides and how much courage it
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takes to get out of bed in the morning or how incredibly motivated and driven they are in some
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aspect of their work or their goals. We all have these different strengths and sometimes our struggles
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are a little bit more apparent than the strengths that we are implementing in our daily lives. And
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particularly because they might not be how we define willpower. You know, it doesn't take a
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tremendous effort for me, say to eat healthy. There's a lot of things sort of in me that naturally pull
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me in that direction, but boy, do I have to work hard to overcome things like my fear of flying. And somebody
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might look at me and my lifestyle and say, wow, she's got so much willpower. If they were using
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these measures of things like healthy behaviors, as opposed to, you know, in my life, the, when I'm
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out of control with my willpower, it's more about avoiding things that I don't want to do or that
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feel overwhelming. Gotcha. So this idea of we can have strengths in certain types of willpower,
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weaknesses and other, are we, does the research say that we're able to strengthen those weak parts
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of our willpower, whether it's won't power, I want power, I will power? Yes, absolutely. And it almost is,
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it depends on sort of where you are in your stage of life. Sometimes people ask about kids and like,
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how do you develop willpower in children? And then, you know, that might be a slightly different
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question than, okay, here I am at say midlife and I'm still struggling with X, Y, or Z. Is it too late
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for me to develop self-control in that area? And I like to kind of separate them out because if you
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think about willpower as an instinct, we know it's supposed to flourish in us. If the environment is
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right. And if we have all of the things in our context that humans need to thrive. So when you
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look at it from a developmental point of view, kids are most likely to naturally develop in their own
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time, the different willpowers when they're in an environment that supports their goals and that is
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relatively safe and trustworthy. I mean, not like being in a bubble or cocoon, but that in general,
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kids growing up feel like they don't have to be vigilant every moment to the possibility that they
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can't trust other people and resources are scarce and you better take what you can get now because
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who knows what's coming tomorrow. And in that context, kids typically naturally develop these
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different willpowers. And when you look at us as adults, often it's a result of what we've practiced
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and what's going on in our environment that may be pushing different buttons. So when it comes to
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strengthening willpower as adults, it may not necessarily be about having a, you know, a trusting
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relationship with your caregiver or being, you know, in a school environment where people encourage
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you to pursue your own goals, but it's about how well are you able to create that context for yourself
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and to be that kind of support figure for yourself. So to be like a leader of yourself in your own life.
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And then we know once you set that goal, there's lots of things you can do to develop the different
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Yeah. We'll talk about that here in a bit, but before we do, so like 10 years ago, there was this idea that
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willpower is like, is like a muscle that we have like this finite amount of willpower. And then
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recently there's been research saying, well, maybe not. Is that analogy still useful that,
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you know, we can strengthen our willpower like the same way we strengthen our muscle or what is your
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Yeah. I do think it's still an incredibly useful idea. And there's been a lot of debate in the field
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about specific methods and specific findings that are really about experimental research in the
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laboratory. You know, if you try to get people to deplete their willpower with a task that is never,
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it's never as hard as what we're dealing with in everyday life. You know, maybe it's like resisting
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a brownie that's on the table or it's about trying to tune out, you know, a TV that is in the corner of
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the room and you have to do some written task. There's a lot of controversy around whether this idea
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that willpower is limited, that when you use it, you get exhausted, but that if you use it enough and
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in the right ways and you are really taking time to recover, you know, for example, with enough sleep,
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which is really important for the whole willpower system, that actually you get stronger over time.
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That idea, I still find it to be one of the most useful ideas for people who are interested in
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increasing their willpower, even though there's been this interesting debate and some challenges
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with the experimental research. And I think this is, you know, people who pay attention to their own
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lives will immediately see how this is true in their own lives. The first tenet is that you can't
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control everything you think, feel, say, do, and consume. We don't have that kind of energy reserve
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to constantly be trying to perfect or suppress or plan every action to whatever, you know,
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some sort of ideal is. It's exhausting. And we know that people who, for example, work in professions
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where they aren't allowed to show what they're really thinking or feeling, thinking about people
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who maybe work in customer service or work in healthcare, where they're constantly trying to
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put on a good face and are dealing with a lot of stress and maybe even hostility from other people.
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Like that's exhausting at the end of the day. And anyone who's listening, who's ever worked in that
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sort of role, you know what I'm talking about. The same thing can be true for parenting or
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caregiving, when you're taking care of someone who's sick, or you're trying to sort of control
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your emotions so that you can be the best version of yourself as a partner, as a spouse, as a parent.
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It can be exhausting. And then if at the end of that experience, when you're feeling most exhausted,
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someone says, do you want a pizza or do you want a salad? It's not that surprising that sometimes we
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just want something that is going to make us feel good in this moment, that feels like a reward,
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that feels comforting. Or if we're asked in that moment now, do you want to do this next really hard,
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difficult thing? We might be like, no, because I've done the difficult thing and I don't have
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anything left to give. So I think that idea is incredibly useful for two reasons. One,
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because if you're interested in supporting willpower sort of in our culture, helping people be the best
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versions of themselves, we need to recognize how we may be undermining that through certain systems
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or policies or our culture and understand that if you want people to be the best versions of
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themselves, you can't constantly be asking them to sort of take on the challenges of others and
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suppress their own feelings or their own instincts and impulses. But the other is it can help us feel
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more human when we experience that type of exhaustion or what researchers would call depletion,
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that it doesn't mean that you are a failure of a human being because you can't do it all,
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And then the second aspect of the model, which is also super useful, is that if there's a specific
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willpower challenge that you're facing, like you're trying to quit a substance that you use
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regularly, it is not always going to be as hard as it is in this moment, that we do develop
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strengths and habits that support us in making a lasting change over time. And whatever is the
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hardest thing for you right now, if it's really important to you, what the strength model willpower
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says is your brain will change in ways that support this. Your nervous system will change in ways that
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support this. And you're going to be able to construct your home, your workspace, you'll build
00:22:27.240
relationships that support this over time. And it's this growth mindset that I think when you combine it
00:22:34.100
with an understanding that we can't control everything all the time, so you might need to make some
00:22:38.680
choices or you might need to let yourself off the hook and understand why certain things are difficult.
00:22:43.360
And at the same time, if you have an incredibly important goal to yourself, and this is a change you want to
00:22:48.700
make, and it is so hard to know it will not always be that hard. Those are the two ideas that are worth
00:22:54.300
saving from whatever is going on with this kind of replication crisis in the experimental research.
00:22:58.700
We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
00:23:04.140
Yeah. And I think the idea too, that you can strengthen your willpower, yeah, reiterate what
00:23:07.760
you just said, it gives you, it gives people a sense of agency, a sense of autonomy that they can do
00:23:11.280
something. Like if you're physically weak, you know, you can start lifting weights to get stronger
00:23:15.560
knowing that, Hey, if I sleep more, I'll have, I'll have the ability to sort of pause and plan
00:23:21.560
better. You talk about research that, you know, we've had researchers on about meditation that can help
00:23:27.540
self-control. It's not like a game changer. It's not like if you start meditating, you're going to be
00:23:31.320
like super disciplined, but it helps. It's something you can do. Other things, just exercising, physical
00:23:36.200
exercise can carry over to other aspects of our life. And we're trying to exercise willpower, whether
00:23:43.940
I know. And it's so funny because you've mentioned three things now, sleep, meditation, and exercise
00:23:48.100
that are often the willpower challenges people come to me with. So when I teach the class, I always have
00:23:53.060
people pick a challenge they want to focus on. And so I do feel a little bit guilty when
00:23:57.440
people are like, what can you do to most effectively strengthen your willpower? And I'm like, well,
00:24:01.780
you should exercise. And people are like, what? That's what I need the willpower for next. And
00:24:06.440
like, well, you can meditate like, Oh, please. Like, you know, so I understand that sometimes when
00:24:11.380
people hear those, of course, of course, one, we could add to that is eating a diet that helps you
00:24:16.020
keep your energy levels pretty solid. Like that also helps. And there's some interesting research that,
00:24:21.140
that a diet that maybe keeps your blood sugar levels steady or a diet that includes a lot of
00:24:26.160
plant-based foods actually changes the physiology of your nervous system to help you better handle
00:24:31.500
challenges and stress in a way that supports willpower. But once again, you know, you tell
00:24:35.240
people eat a healthier diet will give you more willpower. And it seems like a chicken and egg
00:24:39.140
problem. So often when it comes to these things that we know, I mean, one thing they all have in
00:24:43.220
common is they're changing our biology and they're changing our, whether it's our neurobiology or
00:24:48.280
biochemistry or what's happening with our cardiovascular system and immune system. They all play a role in
00:24:53.780
whether or not we have willpower. Inflammation in your body can suppress willpower because it
00:24:59.180
alters the way that your brain functions. You may know that exercise can influence your willpower
00:25:03.560
by altering your cardiovascular system and how that interacts with your autonomic nervous system
00:25:08.600
in ways that can give you more or less willpower. And there's something like, it's just profoundly
00:25:13.020
biological and physiological. And it's connected to the fact that human beings are biological creatures and
00:25:18.700
willpower is an instinct that's related to how our biology works. So I always tell people like pick
00:25:24.240
the thing of those things that I mentioned, get better sleep, be physically active on a regular
00:25:29.340
basis. I mean, there's some research showing that even five minutes on a treadmill will boost your
00:25:33.280
willpower. We're not talking about you having to dedicate three hours a day to exercise if that's
00:25:37.440
not realistic, eating a diet that, that to you, you can feel it's giving you energy or meditating for
00:25:44.420
again, a few minutes a day, which changes what's happening in your nervous system and your brain.
00:25:48.180
Just do the thing that seems less, the least difficult or the least aversive. And you're
00:25:54.000
starting this upward spiral, which then makes all of the other things easier to whatever degree you
00:25:58.960
want to engage with them. Right. You don't have to grit your teeth and just force yourself to do it.
00:26:03.300
You're actually saying, don't actually, actually don't exercise your willpower too much
00:26:06.520
to strengthen your willpower because it'll come with time. Although, you know, if you do,
00:26:11.760
it'll be as long as you view it. So this is the interesting thing. If you view something difficult
00:26:16.780
as in service of your general willpower, it's more likely to generalize. So even if you do have to
00:26:22.600
grit your teeth to go for a walk or to, you know, to sit down and meditate and breathe for five to 10
00:26:28.700
minutes, if you feel like you're gritting your teeth, but at the end of it, you acknowledge,
00:26:33.180
you know, I had an intention. There was a part of me that didn't want to do it. And I did it anyway.
00:26:38.340
And you acknowledge, huh? Like I just flexed my willpower muscle. Research shows that that type of
00:26:43.300
mindset helps us generalize our strength so that the next willpower challenge you face, which might
00:26:48.420
be trying to control your temper at work, or it might be choosing not to get drunk at an event,
00:26:55.960
whatever that willpower challenge is. In that moment, you're going likely to have remembered,
00:27:00.840
okay, this is what it feels like to feel that conflict. And I know I have the strength to make
00:27:05.500
this decision now as well. So what's interesting about the rest of your book, you know, the first part
00:27:09.640
you talk about what willpower is, what's going on in the brain, and then that we can strengthen our
00:27:14.220
willpower by some of the things we just talked about. But it seems like the rest of your book is
00:27:18.380
talking about the limits of willpower so that you can avoid situations where, you know, you're going
00:27:25.040
to set yourself back despite all the willpower you exercise. And it's some really interesting
00:27:30.760
research that comes out of that. For example, this idea of moral licensing, you have a whole section
00:27:36.560
to this, right, where our willpower can actually sow the seeds of our failure, right, because of moral
00:27:43.740
licensing. So what is moral licensing? And how does our willpower, like our efforts to be good,
00:27:50.640
can backfire and actually cause us to fall short?
00:27:53.900
Yeah. So moral licensing is an example of these funny cognitive traps that humans get into,
00:27:59.300
where we end up sabotaging our own goals. So moral licensing is basically, it's when you do
00:28:04.800
something that is consistent with a goal. And so you give yourself credit. And that feeling good,
00:28:10.020
like, oh, I did that thing. For whatever reason, human beings tend to want to then give themselves
00:28:14.740
permission to do the other thing. And people will often make a choice that is not in their best
00:28:20.500
interest, because it's like we're keeping some sort of scorecard. I was good this morning,
00:28:24.940
so I can be bad this afternoon. So an example would be, let's say I saved some money when I went food
00:28:30.920
shopping. So now I feel like I am licensed to splurge and spend a little bit more money at lunch.
00:28:37.260
Or maybe I went to the gym this morning and I feel really good about that, feeling like I'm a good
00:28:43.040
person. And I give myself the credit. And then I spend that credit by eating a second helping of
00:28:49.480
dessert. And the idea of moral licensing is it's not a problem to reward yourself for doing things that
00:28:55.360
are consistent with your goals. The problem is we so often, we try to like balance it out.
00:29:01.980
We forget what our actual goal is. And we engage in a reward that actually is sabotaging a goal that
00:29:08.120
is deeply meaningful. So I definitely don't want to imply that you shouldn't, you know, encourage
00:29:12.020
yourself when you make progress on your goals. You should just ask yourself, is this reward I'm
00:29:15.960
giving myself, is it literally taking me backward, sort of undoing the progress that I made? And part of
00:29:21.540
the problem with this is that we use these terms, like I was good. And so now I'm going to give myself
00:29:27.640
a treat, you know, as if we're children who need to be bribed for doing anything at all. And it really
00:29:33.620
takes us further away from that autonomous motivation that says, Hey, the reason I chose to
00:29:38.920
save money this morning is because I'm working toward financial stability and I want to get out of
00:29:43.620
debt. That's my actual goal. And when you're connected to that, you're less likely to say,
00:29:49.260
now that I've been good, I can let myself off the hook and spend a little bit more money here.
00:29:54.220
A lot of times it's about commitment. And do we actually understand what our commitment is?
00:29:58.220
Or are we engaged in this weird sort of moral accounting system where we like to go back and
00:30:05.580
forth between being the good version of ourselves and the naughty version of ourselves or the indulgent
00:30:12.360
And really this idea of moralizing our willpower. So like we tend to do that, particularly in America,
00:30:17.480
I guess it's that Protestant work ethic, Puritan roots that we have, right? A lack of exercising
00:30:24.020
willpower is a moral failure. But you highlight research that shows when you think of willpower
00:30:29.540
in terms of morality, right? If you don't exercise it, you are morally bad. It can actually make
00:30:38.020
It can. And one of the reasons is, is because it triggers feelings of shame.
00:30:41.340
So like use the example of exercise. You could think of any number of reasons that somebody might
00:30:47.260
want to be more active. Maybe they've heard that exercise is a really good treatment alongside
00:30:52.400
antidepressants for mental health, which is true. Maybe they want to improve their health. Maybe they
00:30:59.060
want to have more energy. Maybe they want to sleep better. All these different actual positive outcomes
00:31:03.840
you could get from exercising. And then as soon as we turn it into, so if I'm being good,
00:31:09.300
I will exercise. As soon as you don't have time, or as soon as you wake up and you're feeling sick
00:31:13.720
and you don't have the energy, now all of a sudden you're bad because you didn't exercise.
00:31:18.940
And then people can feel the type of shame that makes them say, what's the point of this? I'll never
00:31:24.480
be able to meet this goal. I might as well give up now. Shame is one of the most willpower depleting
00:31:30.660
physiological states in the mind and in the body. It's basically, it's like putting on all the
00:31:36.440
breaks. Anything good that could happen, shame is not going to happen now. And it also, it backfires
00:31:42.540
because it makes us forget what our actual motivation is. And there's so much research on
00:31:48.600
this. I'm not against morality. I'm not saying go out and try to be immoral. It's almost like it's
00:31:54.700
adjacent to what the conversation should actually be, that it should actually be about what you want.
00:32:01.100
Because if we're defining willpower as the self-control to do what matters most to you, it's not about
00:32:08.680
whether I think you should exercise or I think you shouldn't smoke, or I think you should be out of
00:32:13.340
debt, or I think you should control your temper. It's not about me outside. It's about you and what
00:32:18.620
you want in your life. And willpower is basically, are you able to make choices in the context of your
00:32:23.300
life that get you closer to the life you want to have and the outcomes that you want? And if you can
00:32:28.040
remember that, instead of going into this moralizing, there's this natural energy that can
00:32:34.520
support you in reaching your goals, even when you've had a setback, or even when you've made
00:32:39.300
progress and you're starting to fall into that trap maybe of moral licensing, you'll know what you
00:32:43.040
really want. And that's why I always tell people, of these three powers, if there's one you want to
00:32:47.340
strengthen first, strengthen the want power so that you don't fall into some of these cognitive traps
00:32:53.180
Yeah. The moralizing backfiring, you see that a lot with diet because people eat a cookie and
00:32:59.280
they're like, well, just ruined my diet. Might as well just eat that, I don't know, double the
00:33:04.180
quarter pounder with cheese. It's already ruined. That's kind of when you think about it that way.
00:33:09.640
What did you ruin? It's what you ruined is your sense of yourself as, I guess, a good person making
00:33:16.300
progress today. But if you actually look at every choice you have as a new beginning, which it is,
00:33:22.380
it's, you know, the outcomes we get are a consequence of the cumulative effect of our choices.
00:33:27.540
Every single choice you make is a kind of a blank slate where you can either get yourself closer to
00:33:32.180
or further away from your goals. This whole idea that like, what's the point? I've already messed up.
00:33:37.560
It, you know, that, it doesn't mean anything when you're really clear and rational about,
00:33:43.760
about wanting to make decisions that get you what you actually want.
00:33:49.060
And the other place that this stuff can trip you up at is why, when you think of things like,
00:33:53.000
oh, well, you know, I, I ate good food, therefore I'm a good person. Like just thinking about the idea
00:33:58.400
of doing those things can make you feel good, which will like somehow weirdly like cause you not to do
00:34:04.900
the thing you actually need to do. Yeah. There's a, this, there's a lot of weird
00:34:09.340
offshoots of the licensing literature, like vicarious licensing, where if you see somebody
00:34:13.740
else do something quote unquote good, like you feel virtuous too, even if you didn't do it. Like
00:34:19.180
if you see someone else exercise, you're more likely to eat more later as if you caught.
00:34:23.900
It's the whole thing is kind of ridiculous and silly, but I should say one other thing about why
00:34:28.600
moralizing is not a great idea is because it leads us to judge others as well in a way that is,
00:34:33.920
I think runs counter to how humans actually work. And so we look at others, we make judgments about
00:34:39.920
them based on their behavior or their health or their debt or their struggles with addiction.
00:34:47.300
We think we understand something about them because we're so used to blaming and shaming ourselves.
00:34:51.680
We project that out onto other people. And that, that in itself is an additional harm. It's like this
00:34:57.880
whole circle of shame and blame where we moralize ourselves and we judge others. And it's this whole
00:35:03.820
system we get stuck in where, where we are failing to recognize why a lot of these things are
00:35:09.820
difficult and not turning towards the resources that make change easier. So, you know, it's,
00:35:16.200
it's often what we're doing to ourselves and also what we're doing to others, including people we care
00:35:20.040
about. And the same things that don't work for you do not work when you try putting them out on other
00:35:25.560
people, like shaming other people for being bad, for not, for not being able to make a change in their
00:35:30.160
lives. So yeah, it sounds like the antidote to this then is, okay, focus on what you want,
00:35:34.960
right? What the ultimate goal is. But then it also sounds like practice some self-compassion and
00:35:39.120
only compassion for yourself if you slip up, but also compassion for others who have also slipped up.
00:35:45.060
Yes. And not only for people who've slipped up, but also for people who are clearly struggling.
00:35:49.600
You know, one of the things that, that if you spend any time with people who are recovering in recovery
00:35:55.880
for any sort of addiction, what you realize very quickly is that that person, when you get the height
00:36:02.760
of their addiction is able to stay sober for one day, one hour, one minute, that person has just now
00:36:09.340
exerted more willpower than someone who has never dealt with addiction in their lives may ever have to
00:36:16.680
exert in their entire lives. That, that often people who seem to be struggling the most, that
00:36:22.180
people are most likely to judge as having no willpower. If you actually look at what's happening
00:36:25.700
in their brains, what's happening in their bodies and the resources that they're spending or the
00:36:29.420
courage that they have, that they are exerting tremendous willpower. And so I think that that's
00:36:36.360
another, and this, this true for ourselves as well, and can help us have more self-compassion.
00:36:40.960
You know, the person who has the most anxiety or the strongest impulses or, you know, those,
00:36:47.920
those challenges, that is the person who actually is using the most willpower. And we need to give
00:36:53.460
ourselves some credit for it. Even if the ultimate outcome today is I didn't succeed or I gave in,
00:36:59.520
or I wasn't able to do that thing that I said I was going to do, but I got closer or I delayed giving
00:37:05.560
in for 10 minutes. Yeah. And I think this idea of self-compassion, I think a lot of men,
00:37:10.000
when they think of willpower for men, at least it's like, okay, discipline, you got to grit your
00:37:14.380
teeth, you got to self-flagellate if you fail. But the research actually says that's going to cause
00:37:18.440
you to actually fail at your ultimate goal. And by exercising some self-compassion, you can actually
00:37:24.400
get to where you want to go. And I think a lot of, I think the problem is a lot of men, when they hear
00:37:28.060
compassion, they think like, you got to take it easy, you're, you're soft or whatever. It's not like
00:37:34.140
that. Like the way, the way I think of it is like, I have a, I have a coach who does my barbell coaching.
00:37:38.580
And when I have a bad week, like he doesn't get down on me hard, but he's not there. He's also not
00:37:44.200
like, oh, you poor baby. It's like, it's not like, it's not like that.
00:37:48.320
This is, I'm so glad you're saying this. So I, part of the work that I do is research on self-compassion
00:37:53.440
and compassion. And it's very common in that field for people to describe self-compassion as self-soothing
00:38:00.400
and saying things like literally yesterday, I heard a psychologist say that self-compassion is when
00:38:05.500
you're able to say to yourself, there, there, sweetheart. I just like cringed on the inside.
00:38:10.900
I don't know. That's not what I want. It's, that's not my version of self-compassion. For me,
00:38:15.660
it's imagine that you can, that you believe in yourself, that you want to help yourself reach
00:38:23.240
your goals. And so what would you say to yourself? What would you say to someone you believe in,
00:38:27.540
but you know is struggling? How would you help a friend or a loved one, someone you care about?
00:38:32.320
How would you help them step up and reach their goals to get back on track? And I think it is
00:38:37.220
often like being a coach and it's like being a mentor. And it's not always about being about this
00:38:42.780
idea of treating yourself like you're an infant who needs to be soothed. It's about, it's about
00:38:48.500
support and that can be firm and it can be encouraging. And that's a form of compassion that often is what
00:38:55.160
we need when it's about reaching our own goals. I mean, you feel free to say to yourself,
00:38:59.600
they're their sweetheart in a moment when you're, you know, you're really ill and in pain.
00:39:04.140
But when it comes to willpower, sometimes the self-compassion we need is like, hey,
00:39:08.820
remember what your goal is. Like this is the time to show up and do it. And I know you can do it.
00:39:14.780
Let's remember that last time you did something really difficult. So you've demonstrated the
00:39:18.880
strength is available to you. So let's think about what the next step is. What would be the next
00:39:23.000
positive action you can take? That's self-compassion.
00:39:26.540
I love it. So in this, also this idea, um, tying in the compassion is also one thing to help your
00:39:32.560
willpower strengthen it is to surround yourself with individuals who will help you exercise your
00:39:40.180
Yes. So what's so fascinating is how social our brains are. And we are constantly being influenced
00:39:47.500
by other people in our environments in ways that, you know, are helpful and also sometimes harmful.
00:39:53.080
And one of the best ways, if you're looking to make a change in your life is to find other people
00:39:57.460
who share that goal. And we know that in that way, you can sort of outsource your willpower.
00:40:01.660
If you've got friends or you've got a coworker, or you've even got, you know, people in an online
00:40:05.640
community on social media who are with you on this. Sometimes when your willpower is the weakest,
00:40:11.600
they kind of carry you along. They remind you what your goals are, or maybe they make decisions for you,
00:40:16.300
like, okay, no, we said we were going to do this. So we're going to do this now that help you have
00:40:21.660
willpower. Even when that part of you that is in deepest conflict or most exhausted and drained
00:40:27.520
couldn't find it for yourself. And the same can be true in the other direction that, you know,
00:40:32.500
if you're trying to make a change and the people in your life are really the opposite of that,
00:40:38.400
sometimes you need to make choices about changing who you spend time with, or else you need to think
00:40:43.320
about giving yourself a kind of vaccine for when you're around them. If you can't find a way to
00:40:48.760
separate yourself from family members or coworkers or parts of your community. And research suggests
00:40:54.080
that one of the best sort of willpower vaccines against negative influences is literally in the
00:40:58.960
morning when you wake up, just tell yourself what your biggest goal is. And that you sort of like
00:41:04.440
plant this in your mind so that you're more likely to recognize when people are pulling you away
00:41:09.440
from that goal. So the last thing I like to talk about, which I think is interesting,
00:41:13.380
some of the research you've highlighted about these cognitive traps that when we exercise our
00:41:17.780
willpower can lead us astray is this idea of repressing. So this is, I guess, the exercising,
00:41:22.420
I won't power, but sometimes exercising, I won't power to say, I'm not going to do this
00:41:27.060
can actually make the thing we're trying to avoid like more tempting. What's going on there and how can we
00:41:34.220
avoid that? This is an interesting kind of paradox of the brain. So just imagine that you're going to set a
00:41:38.880
goal for yourself that you are not going to do something or you're not going to think about
00:41:44.440
something. So you've set this goal that is about not doing something. And if you're really clear
00:41:51.360
about that, your brain will start to become vigilant for any threat to that goal. And so it's going to be
00:41:58.160
paying attention to the environment. Is there an opportunity to do that thing I said I wasn't going to do
00:42:03.760
to eat it or to buy it or whatever it is. And you're also going to be monitoring yourself
00:42:08.480
internally for any signs that you're thinking about it or planning it or desiring it. So you set
00:42:14.520
up this kind of hyper vigilance that then any time there is a trigger for it, you may be hyper responsive
00:42:21.140
to it. This doesn't always happen. So it's more likely to happen when you're really stressed or
00:42:26.980
you're really distracted or you haven't gotten enough sleep. But there's this paradoxical effect
00:42:31.680
where you set this goal not to think or say or do or consume something that because you're then in
00:42:38.080
this heightened internal state of vigilance, it just primes you to give in or it amplifies any of
00:42:45.920
those impulses. And people can find themselves in this really weird trap where they're like,
00:42:50.720
I'm going to stop thinking about this. And the more they try to suppress it, the bigger and louder
00:42:57.740
it becomes. So there are kind of two solutions to this. One is to try to find a way to define your
00:43:04.720
goals so that you're looking for something to say yes to. So rather than what I'm not going to do,
00:43:11.120
what's the positive alternative to it? If you're not going to complain, that's like your goal. I'm
00:43:16.120
never going to complain. I'm not going to vent. I'm not going to criticize. Well, what do you want
00:43:21.080
to say? Maybe I'm going to look for an opportunity to thank someone. I'm going to look for an opportunity
00:43:25.340
to call someone out for doing something positive. You know, I'm going to look for a way to acknowledge
00:43:31.000
what somebody else has contributed. I don't know what it's going to be, but then you set that
00:43:34.520
vigilance to look for the thing you want to say yes to. And there are a lot of willpower challenges
00:43:38.840
that can be redefined in this way, not all of them. But the other thing that you can do is practice
00:43:46.080
paying attention in a really open and different way to whatever the impulse or the trigger is
00:43:53.120
so that it becomes a kind of strength to be aware of it without giving into it. And this is
00:43:59.240
where mindfulness comes in. Fantastic. Well, Kelly, there's a lot more we could talk about,
00:44:04.000
but I'm curious, like, what would you say based on your, you've been doing this for 10 years
00:44:07.880
and working with lots and lots of different types of people from all walks of life. Like what's like
00:44:12.480
one or two things that listeners can start doing today to get the most bang for their buck on
00:44:17.560
either strengthening or their willpower, or I guess, I don't know, managing their willpower in a more
00:44:22.620
effective way? Yeah. I think the first thing is something I've already said, which is about
00:44:27.760
strengthening your want power and to take a moment or take many moments and ask yourself what's most
00:44:34.740
important to you. Maybe identify the role that's most important to you or the goal or the relationship
00:44:40.480
and how you want to be in that role or how you want to be in that relationship. Is there a change
00:44:46.020
you want to make and get pretty clear about what those core goals and values are and to spend time
00:44:52.320
every day reminding yourself of them? I literally don't get out of bed in the morning if I can avoid
00:44:58.220
it without doing this value goal check-in. It takes less than 60 seconds and I've trained myself
00:45:03.780
to think of it first thing in the morning. The second thing is if you aren't getting enough sleep
00:45:09.500
to try to get a little bit more sleep, there's no fixed number, but we know that the way that
00:45:15.420
sleep deprivation affects the brain is it basically derails all of the neurological processes that make
00:45:21.900
it easier to have willpower and to use your willpower. So that's a lifestyle change. If you're
00:45:26.800
going to make one, sleep would be probably the number one. And the third thing I would say is if you know
00:45:31.540
what your goal is, there's something you're trying to change, or there's a goal that you're pursuing,
00:45:36.020
to get very clear about something you can do today that is consistent with that and to celebrate it.
00:45:43.080
It's the small thing. It's the one action. An example I sometimes give people, people like,
00:45:49.020
well, how would that apply to something like quitting smoking? And there's research that if
00:45:52.700
you can delay the first cigarette of the day by a few minutes, that that can lead to an upward spiral
00:45:58.080
that increases your chance of quitting in the longterm. And that's something that like anyone could do
00:46:03.700
today or tomorrow. Just delay it a few minutes and figure out what that is for your goal. What's
00:46:08.900
the one thing that you absolutely can do today that is consistent with your goal? Even if you don't
00:46:13.780
have any idea yet, how something that small could lead to the final success that you're dreaming of
00:46:20.320
and trust that often with change and with willpower, this is incremental. It's not all or nothing black
00:46:26.060
and white. Baby steps. What about Bob? Yes, I do.
00:46:33.020
Well, Kelly, where can people go to learn more about your work?
00:46:37.940
And you got a new book coming out pretty soon, correct?
00:46:40.340
I do. It's called The Joy of Movement. What I try to do is find the best research that people
00:46:45.260
aren't talking about that can improve people's lives. So I did a book on willpower, a book on stress.
00:46:50.140
And this next book is really about how to find mental health and happiness and community
00:46:58.800
I love that. That's right up my alley. I think we're going to have to have you back on the show
00:47:03.360
All right. Well, Kelly McGonigle, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:47:06.720
My guest today was Kelly McGonigle. She's the author of the book,
00:47:09.060
The Willpower Instinct. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out
00:47:12.780
more information about her work at her website, kellymcgonigle.com. Also check out our show notes
00:47:17.080
at aom.is slash willpower, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper
00:47:28.560
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at
00:47:31.880
artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives. There's over 500 episodes there,
00:47:36.020
as well as thousands of articles we've written over the years about things like willpower,
00:47:39.160
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00:48:05.740
As always, thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay,
00:48:09.260
reminding you not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.