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If you need help keeping your resolutions this year, Kelly McGonigal shares the key to harnessing your willpower in "The Willpower Instinct." Here's an excerpt:
INTRODUCTION: Welcome to Willpower 101
Whenever I mention that I teach a course on willpower, the nearly universal response is, “Oh, that’s what I need.” Now more than ever, people realize that willpower— the ability to control their attention, emotions, and desires— influences their physical health, financial security, relationships, and professional success. We all know this. We know we’re supposed to be in control of every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to what we do, say, and buy. And yet, most people feel like willpower failures— in control one moment but overwhelmed and out of control the next. According to the American Psychological Association, Americans name lack of willpower as the number-one reason they struggle to meet their goals. Many feel guilty about letting themselves and others down. Others feel at the mercy of their thoughts, emotions, and cravings, their lives dictated by impulses rather than conscious choices. Even the best- controlled feel a kind of exhaustion at keeping it all together and wonder if life is supposed to be such a struggle.
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As a health psychologist and educator for the Stanford School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program, my job is to help people manage stress and make healthy choices. After years of watching people struggle to change their thoughts, emotions, bodies, and habits, I realized that much of what people believed about willpower was sabotaging their success and creating unnecessary stress. Although scientific research had much to say that could help them, it was clear that these insights had not yet become part of public understanding. Instead, people continued to rely on worn out strategies for self- control. I saw again and again that the strategies most people use weren’t just ineffective— they actually backfired, leading to self sabotage and losing control.
This led me to create “The Science of Willpower,” a class offered to the public through Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program. The course brings together the newest insights about self- control from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine to explain how we can break old habits and create healthy habits, conquer procrastination, find our focus, and manage stress. It illuminates why we give in to temptation and how we can fi nd the strength to resist. It demonstrates the importance of understanding the limits of self- control, and presents the best strategies for training willpower.
This book combines the best scientific insights and practical exercises from the course, using the latest research and the acquired wisdom of the hundreds of students who have taken the class.
This excerpt was printed from THE WILLPOWER INSTINCT with permission from Avery. It is not to be reproduced or duplicated in anyway. Copyright Kelly McGonigal 2011.
© 2012 MSNBC Interactive
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