Summary of The Willpower Instinct | Kelly McGonigal | Talks at Google

00:00:00 - 00:50:00

The "willpower instinct" is the impulse to do something that is difficult to resist. In this video, Kelly McGonigal discusses research showing that this impulse can be helped by accepting difficult thoughts and cravings as passing experiences. The video also discusses how to practice these techniques.

• 00:00:00 Kelly McGonigal discusses how willpower can be a challenge, depending on the situation. She discusses how different aspects of the brain can influence how a willpower challenge is met. She also discusses how willpower can be improved through understanding one's mindset.
• 00:05:00 The video discusses five experiments from Kelly McGonigal's "The Willpower Instinct" course, all of which demonstrate the benefits of small, repeated interventions to improve willpower. One of the experiments showed that increasing sleep time from 7 hours to 8 hours significantly improved resistance to relapse in recovering addicts, while another showed that 10 minutes of meditation per day improved willpower in non-meditating individuals. These findings suggest that even a few minutes of meditation or sleep each day can have a large impact on willpower and overall well-being.
• 00:10:00 The video discusses how sleep deprivation affects the brain's ability to use willpower, with meditation and exercise also having positive effects. The author also discusses how diet can impact willpower, with a plant-based diet being more effective than a low-glycemic diet that includes animal products.
• 00:15:00 Kelly McGonigal discusses research that suggests feeling bad about past willpower failures can lead to future failures. She provides an example of a study in which dieters who were given a message to remember that everyone indulges sometimes ate less candy than those who were not given the message.
• 00:20:00 The video discusses how the same biological mechanisms that motivate us to survive--such as guilt and shame--are what make it difficult to resist temptation or stick to a goal. The presenter suggests using compassion to overcome these tendencies. Participants are asked to put their hand up when they see their circle representing their current self, future self, and "normal" self overlapped. A majority of the participants' circles overlapped.
• 00:25:00 Kelly McGonigal discusses the research on the willpower instinct, which suggests that people who feel like their future self is a stranger are less likely to do things to protect that self's health and happiness, make ethical decisions, and save money.
• 00:30:00 The video discusses research showing that writing letters from your future self to your present self can help increase your willpower. It also discusses how imagining positive and negative futures can be helpful in motivating yourself to make changes.
• 00:35:00 Kelly McGonigal discusses a study that found that visualizing oneself failing is more helpful than imagining oneself succeeding in terms of increasing willpower. She also recommends keeping track of one's progress in order to maintain motivation.
• 00:40:00 In this video, Kelly McGonigal discusses the effects of pessimism on willpower and how optimism can be a useful tool. She also mentions a study that found that 75% of corporations that are investigated for fraud can be traced back to initial optimism. Finally, she recommends a small intervention that teaches people how to "ride out physical discomfort that gets in the way" of achieving goals.
• 00:45:00 Kelly McGonigal discusses two studies that show that using the willpower instinct - paying attention to physical discomfort and trusting that it will pass - can help individuals quit smoking or eating unhealthy foods. In the first study, smokers who were unable to quit were taught how to surf the urge - focusing on the physical discomfort of wanting a cigarette and waiting it out. The second study showed that teaching self control techniques, like surfing the urge, can reduce stress and make it easier to give in to temptation.
• 00:50:00 The video discusses the "willpower instinct" or the impulse to do something that is difficult to resist. It discusses research showing that this impulse can be helped by accepting difficult thoughts and cravings as passing experiences. The video also discusses how to practice these techniques.