Everything you thought you knew about willpower, how you make decisions, and the best ways to keep your resolutions is wrong. At least that is what it feels like after reading this book. McGonigal goes over research on willpower and reveals the various traps we put ourselves in and why we find it so hard to keep certain goals and break certain habits.

Each chapter outlines an area of research and gives several ideas on how to gain a better understanding about your own particular weaknesses and how to overcome them. This is not a typical "self help" book that promises you success if you follow a certain plan. Instead, McGonigal offers suggestions on how to face our inevitable failures and how to make it more likely that we will meet with success.

The book is entertaining and easy to read. If there is a weakness, it is that McGonigal sometimes tries too hard to be humorous. There are notes in the back of the book that cite the research she employes, but sometimes it isn't easy to tell what research goes with which anecdote. These are minor caveats, though, to a very interesting book.