PDF Summary:The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal

Most people think of willpower as a virtue, an admirable trait that we strive for but don't always achieve. But science tells a different story. Willpower—the ability to exercise self-control when you need it—is an instinct that's wired into our brains. Yet it seems like willpower vanishes at crucial moments, like when your coworker shows up with a box of donuts.

To harness your innate willpower, you need to understand what factors make you give up your self-control. In The Willpower Instinct, Stanford psychology professor Kelly McGonigal details how our natural willpower gets compromised by stress, distraction, lack of sleep and exercise, and a host of other factors. Using the latest psychology and neuroscience research, she offers strategies to help us defeat procrastination, control cravings, and achieve our goals.

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If you have tasks you want to accomplish that you never seem to get around to, see if you can schedule them for your peak willpower hours. For example, if you want to start a side business, work on your business plan first thing in the morning before you go to your job or run errands, and your willpower starts to wane.

Why Morality Doesn’t Apply to Willpower

Too often we frame our willpower struggles in terms of morality. We give ourselves credit for our perceived willpower successes, and we beat ourselves up for our perceived failures. But applying the labels of virtue and vice to our self-control choices sets us up to fall into several willpower-failure traps:

1. One common trap is "moral licensing," which means telling ourselves that being good gives us moral permission to be bad. We take a few steps in the right direction—perhaps we stop smoking or drinking alcohol for several days. Then we tell ourselves that because we've been good, we deserve a little "reward." By viewing indulgence as a treat for good behavior, we're sabotaging what we really want—our bigger, long-term goals. The classic example is a justification we’ve all heard (or said) at one time: "I just ran six miles, so I deserve to have a burger and fries for dinner."

2. A similar trap is giving ourselves permission to indulge as a reward for making a bit of progress toward our goals. Instead of thinking, "I've lost 10 pounds since January, so I'm going to eat this chocolate cake," we should be thinking, “I've lost 10 pounds since January, so I'm going to work on losing three more this month.” Progress should be our motivation for forging ahead, not for indulging.

3. Another common willpower trap is caused by the “halo effect.” This occurs when something that appears to be virtuous is paired with something that doesn’t, and somehow the combination still seems virtuous. It explains why people who shop for others at Christmastime almost always buy a few things for themselves. It's also why people who buy chocolate to support a charity feel perfectly justified in eating that chocolate, even if they wouldn't normally buy and eat chocolate. We tend to see our "virtuous" choices as canceling out our "bad" choices.

4. We can also fall into the "too much optimism" trap, in which we give ourselves credit for behaviors we believe we'll do in the future. It's our way of telling ourselves small, comforting white lies, like “I'll spend money at the mall today, but then I won't go shopping for the next two weeks,” or “I'll go hang out with my friends today, but then I'll definitely get to work on this project tomorrow.”

Willpower Hack: See the Future as Just Like Today

Part of the reason we deceive ourselves this way is because we wrongly predict that our circumstances will be different in the future than they are today. We can't fathom that tomorrow will most likely be much like today. We'll be faced with the same impulses, desires, and temptations. Instead of paying yourself today for the work you will supposedly do tomorrow, create a future-based framework that actually serves your long-term goals.

For example, if you're trying to give up your habit of snacking on candy bars, reframe the way you think of candy bars in the present and future. Don't ask yourself: "Should I have a candy bar this afternoon?" Instead ask: "Should I have a candy bar every afternoon for the next month?"

Your goal is to eliminate the mental crutch of believing that tomorrow will be different somehow—that tomorrow you won't “need” to have a candy bar like you do right now.

How Desire Steers Us Off Course

Ever since the days when humans were hunters and gatherers, we’ve been ruled by desires and cravings. Back in the Stone Age, if a cavewoman saw some beautiful ripe berries growing in a field, her brain would create a flush of desire, which would prompt her to walk over to the berry bush, pick the berries, and eat them. That helped to ensure her survival. Desire is an evolutionary adaptation designed to keep us from starving to death.

A neurotransmitter called dopamine creates our desires. When the brain senses the opportunity for a reward—like when it sees a patch of perfectly ripe berries—it releases dopamine, which causes a form of arousal. It tells the rest of the brain and the body to get ready for a reward that is coming soon. Dopamine makes us feel alert and excited. It directs us to take action.

Today, our brains release dopamine in response to all kinds of stimulating sights, sounds, smells, and tastes—like when we smell food cooking, see a sign in a shop window proclaiming "50 percent off," gaze at beautiful photos in a fashion magazine, or chat with a flirtatious co-worker.

Taking part in most of these dopamine-fueled activities is completely harmless, and they can make our lives fun and interesting. There’s nothing wrong with occasionally indulging in a freshly baked apple pie, buying something frivolous at the mall, or flipping through beautiful magazines. But too often dopamine can lead to addiction since it makes the brain crave a reward, but it never satisfies that craving. Dopamine tells us to keep wanting more, making us susceptible to temptations of all kinds. If we let dopamine rule our decision-making, we fail at self-control.

Willpower Hack: Keep Close Watch on Your Dopamine Triggers

It's worth considering which of your willpower failures are related to dopamine traps found in your everyday environment. If you find yourself heading to the nearest chic furniture or home-goods store whenever you're bored, it might be because your brain knows it's a reliable place to get a dopamine rush. This doesn’t mean you should never let yourself browse the beautifully displayed housewares. Life is better with rewards, and our brains’ reward system keeps life interesting and fun. The key is to figure out the difference between our real rewards—those that actually make us happy and give our life meaning—and false rewards that only serve to distract us (and wind up making us feel bad).

For example, let’s say you turn to TikTok when you’re bored or unhappy. Maybe watching a few funny dog videos makes you laugh, and you quickly feel better. But do you turn it off after enjoying 10 minutes of laughter, or do you keep watching until two hours have passed, the videos don’t seem funny any more, and you feel like you’ve wasted a beautiful afternoon?

How Feeling Bad Leads to Giving In

It's human nature to be filled with desire, and if we have long-term goals we want to achieve, we need to spend a lot of time and energy reining in that desire. But willpower has a tendency to sag when our lives aren't going perfectly. After a terrible day at the office and an argument with your boss, accessing your willpower can seem impossible. When we're stressed, we are far more vulnerable to temptation.

Stress Makes Us Give In

Nothing weakens our willpower more than stress. It makes us give in to short-term impulses without any thought for the future. By reducing our daily stress, we can put ourselves in the best position to stop giving in and start having more control over our actions.

According to the American Psychological Association, the best ways to relieve stress are exercising or playing a sport, praying, reading, listening to music, getting a massage, meditating or doing yoga, spending time outdoors, or spending time with friends or family. These methods actually boost the "happy chemicals" in your brain and diminish the stress response.

The worst ways to relieve stress are the strategies that promise a reward but don't actually deliver it—smoking, drinking, gambling, eating, shopping, playing video games, binge-watching movies or TV, and surfing the Internet.

Feeling Guilty Makes Us Give In

We often create our own stress as we sabotage our good intentions with ill-chosen behaviors. For example, we vow that we'll stop stretching our credit limits in online shopping sprees, but then we get an irresistible email from a favorite store offering 40 percent off if we shop before midnight. So we give in and buy that gadget we've been wanting. We feel great about our purchase for two seconds, but then we feel terrible because we’ve committed yet another willpower failure. To soothe our bad feelings, we check out a bunch of other shopping sites to see what's on sale, and we buy more stuff we don't need.

This cycle is known as the "what-the-hell" effect. It’s a way of telling yourself: "I already blew my diet, so I might as well eat this entire chocolate cake." To break the cycle, you must stop believing that one small setback means you're a dismal failure. When you criticize yourself this way, you wind up giving yourself an excuse to indulge more. Your brain feels the sting of your self-hate, and it wants to find immediate comfort, which drives you straight toward whatever temptation soothes you—food, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, and so on. It's a downward spiral that's hard to stop.

Willpower Hack: Forgive Yourself for Giving In

Researchers believe that instead of beating ourselves up, we should actually forgive ourselves for giving in. Encouraging words like "don't be so hard on yourself" can stop a full-on binge before it gets started.

How Instant Gratification Derails Us

Humans have amazingly complex brains, but all too often, we use them for rationalizing, not for making good decisions. Our brains did not evolve to respond to future rewards; they evolved to respond to what's good right now. As a result, we’re experts at inventing mental tricks to convince ourselves that right now matters a lot more than tomorrow or next month.

This is what economists call “delay discounting”—we’re hooked on instant gratification and not willing to wait for future gratification. The longer we have to wait for something good, the less we want it.

When you're trying to stay focused on your long-term goals, you need to stop discounting the future—or at least lower the rate at which you discount it. You have to wrap your mind around the idea that the future is just as important as the present—maybe even more so. Here's a two-step plan that can help:

1) Imagine that a long-term goal that you've been working toward is already yours. Maybe you've finished writing your novel and sent it off to be published, or you've completely given up alcohol, or you've been attending yoga class steadily for a year. Picture your future self enjoying the benefits of having achieved your willpower goal.

2) Ask yourself if you're willing to give up that image of “happy-future-you” for the fleeting impulse that's tempting you right now.

Future You Is Still You

We tend to think of our future selves as different people than we are today—like strangers or sometimes even like superheroes. The extent to which we see our future selves as separate from our present selves varies from person to person, but we all do it to some degree.

For some, the future self is basically a stranger—and why would anyone invest their energies in a stranger? If you’re disconnected in this way from your future self, you will be more interested in immediate gratification and satisfying fleeting impulses. For others, the present and future self are more closely paired. These people tend to have a stronger future orientation. They save more for retirement, take better care of their health, and invest in long-lasting relationships.

Willpower Hack: Make Your Temptation Hard to Get

Immediate gratification is alluring, so make it hard to access. Give your willpower a window of opportunity by making temptation a little more difficult to achieve.

For example, if you have to walk downstairs and down the hall to stick your hand in the candy jar, you'll be less likely to indulge than if you merely have to reach across your desk. Similarly, if you don’t carry your credit cards when you go downtown, you won’t return home with purchases you can’t afford. And you’ll be less likely to procrastinate on writing your novel if you invest in software programs like MacFreedom, Anti-Social, or ProcrasDonate, which limit your access to email, social networks, or even the entire Internet.

How Social Connections Influence Willpower

We think our behaviors are under our own self-control, but we're social animals, so we’re also subject to social control. No matter how independent we may think we are, we're influenced by the people around us. Studies show that obesity spreads through social networks—if your close friend becomes obese, your odds of becoming obese increase by 170%.

“Everyone else is doing it” is one of the strongest marketing messages in the world (even though most of us believe it doesn’t apply to us). We may brag about our independent thinking, but the truth is that the human social instinct is overpowering—and our brains are wired to find a way to fit in, which means doing what others do and liking what others like.

Fortunately the social influence also works in a positive direction. If your close friend quits smoking, you're much more likely to quit smoking, too. Willpower—and the lack of it—is contagious. Hang out with the right people, and your willpower will increase; hang out with the wrong people, and you'll give in to temptation more frequently.

It may sound like humans are merely lemmings, but our strong social instinct can be an advantage. Think about whether there’s someone in your social circle who has struggled with a willpower challenge and succeeded. It might serve you well to spend more time in their company.

Similarly, if you know someone who is currently working hard at a willpower challenge, do your best to support them. Your encouragement could help them succeed—and it might help you succeed as well.

Willpower Hack: Use Social Proof to Your Advantage

It’s tough to be under the influence of others, but this can also help us boost our self-control. If you imagine yourself being evaluated by others—especially people you admire—you may decide to make less impulsive choices. For example, if you know your eight-year-old wants you to quit smoking, imagine his disappointed face when he catches you sneaking a cigarette in the backyard. Or imagine how proud he will be to celebrate with you when you reach your one-year no-smoking anniversary.

Why Denial Backfires

Willpower works great for controlling our outward behaviors, but it can't control our inner thoughts and desires. If you try to suppress your thoughts or cravings, you'll be faced with "ironic rebound," a syndrome in which you'll become obsessed with the thing you're trying not to think about.

This concept is especially important for dieters who forbid themselves certain foods. Telling yourself that you can never eat carbohydrates is a sure way to spend your time day-dreaming about loaves of bread.

It's much more effective to graciously acknowledge a thought or a craving without giving in to it. Let your desires wander freely through your mind while realizing you don't have to act on them. If the brain is allowed to express a thought or feeling that it was previously trying to suppress, it stops obsessing over it.

Willpower Hack: Accept Cravings but Don’t Act on Them

Try this four-step plan the next time you’re craving chocolate, video games, or more time scrolling through Facebook:

1. Notice your cravings or thoughts about whatever is tempting you.
2. Graciously accept that craving or thought without trying to distract yourself from it or argue yourself out of it. “Surf the urge,” or pay attention to it without trying to change it or discount it.
3. Realize that cravings and thoughts come and go through your mind. You can’t control them, but you can control whether or not you act on them.
4. Hold on tight to your bigger goal. Remember what you’ve committed to do and why it matters to you.