The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

by Kelly McGonigal

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.

Self-knowledge—especially of how we find ourselves in willpower trouble—is the foundation of self-control.

One thing the science of willpower makes clear is that everyone struggles in some way with temptation, addiction, distraction, and procrastination. These are not individual weaknesses that reveal our personal inadequacies—they are universal experiences and part of the human condition.

As you read this book, don’t take my word for anything. After I’ve laid out the evidence for an idea, I’m going to ask you to test that idea in your own life. Collect your own data to find out what is true and what works for you.

To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want.

To exert self-control, you need to find your motivation when it matters.

Crocodylus anthropophagus (that’s Latin for “crocodile that snacks on humans”).

People who have better control of their attention, emotions, and actions are better off almost any way you look at it.

The answer appears to be the development of the prefrontal cortex, a nice chunk of neural real estate right behind your forehead and eyes.

It now takes up a larger portion of the human brain than in the brains of other species—one reason you’ll never see your dog saving kibble for retirement.

Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford University, has argued that the main job of the modern prefrontal cortex is to bias the brain—and therefore, you—toward doing “the harder thing.”

One region, near the upper left side of the prefrontal cortex, specializes in “I will” power. It helps you start and stick to boring, difficult, or stressful tasks, like staying on the treadmill when you’d rather hit the shower.

The right side, in contrast, handles “I won’t” power, holding you back from following every impulse or craving.

The third region, just a bit lower and in the middle of the prefrontal cortex, keeps track of your goals and your desires. It decides what you want.

How important is the prefrontal cortex for self-control? One way to answer that question is to look at what happens when you lose it. The most famous case of prefrontal cortex brain damage is the story of Phineas Gage.

“possessing an iron will and an iron frame.”

The explosion happened too soon, and the blast sent a three-foot, seven-inch tamping iron straight into Gage’s skull. It pierced his left cheek, blew through his prefrontal cortex, and landed thirty yards behind him, carrying some of Gage’s gray matter with it.

But by November 17, he was sufficiently healed to return to his regular life.

Sounds like a happy ending. But unfortunately for Gage, the story doesn’t end there. His outer wounds may have healed, but something strange was happening inside Gage’s brain.

Dr. Harlow described the changes in a follow-up to his original medical report of the accident: The balance . . . between his intellectual faculties and his animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires . . . devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned.... In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was “no longer Gage.”

His iron will—something that had seemed like an unshakable part of his character—had been destroyed by the tamping iron that blew through his skull.

deprived, or even just distracted—inhibit the prefrontal cortex, mimicking the brain damage that Gage sustained.

Even when our brains are well rested and sober, we aren’t fully out of danger. That’s because while we all have the capacity to do the harder thing, we also have the desire to do exactly the opposite.

Some neuroscientists go so far as to say that we have one brain but two minds—or even, two people living inside our mind. There’s the version of us that acts on impulse and seeks immediate gratification, and the version of us that controls our impulses and delays gratification to protect our long-term goals. They’re both us, but we switch back and forth between these two selves.

The part of you that wants to give in isn’t bad—it simply has a different point of view about what matters most.

You need to recognize when you’re making a choice that requires willpower; otherwise, the brain always defaults to what is easiest.

When your mind is preoccupied, your impulses—not your long-term goals—will guide your choices.

But over the last decade, neuroscientists have discovered that, like an eager student, the brain is remarkably responsive to experience. Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not only does your brain find these things easier, but it actually remodels itself based on what you ask it to do.

Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness.

The brain appears to adapt to exercise in the same way that muscles do, getting both bigger and faster in order to get better at what you ask of it.

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT:A FIVE-MINUTE BRAIN-TRAINING MEDITATION

Andrew found that even when his meditation felt distracted, he was more focused after practicing than if he skipped it. He also realized that what he was doing in meditation was exactly what he needed to do in real life: catch himself moving away from a goal and then point himself back at the goal (in this case, focusing on the breath).

Meditation is not about getting rid of all your thoughts; it’s learning not to get so lost in them that you forget what your goal is. Don’t worry if your focus isn’t perfect when meditating. Just practice coming back to the breath, again and again.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The Idea: Willpower is actually three powers—I will, I won’t, and I want—that help us to be a better version of ourselves. Under the Microscope • What is the harder thing? Imagine yourself facing your willpower challenge, and doing the harder thing. What makes it hard? • Meet your two minds. For your willpower challenge, describe your two competing selves. What does the impulsive version of you want? What does the wiser version of you want? Willpower Experiments • Track your willpower choices. For at least one day, try to notice every decision you make related to your willpower challenge. • Five-minute brain-training meditation. Focus on your breath using the words “inhale” and “exhale” in your mind. When your mind wanders, notice, and bring it back to the breath.

Science is discovering that self-control is a matter of physiology, not just psychology.

Researchers are beginning to understand what that state looks like, and why the complexity of our modern world often interferes with it. The good news is that you can learn to shift your physiology into that state when you need your willpower the most. You can also train the body’s capacity to stay in this state, so that when temptation strikes, your instinctive response is one of self-control.

To understand what happens in the body when we exercise self-control, we need to start with an important distinction: the difference between a saber-toothed tiger and a strawberry cheesecake.

The fight-or-flight stress response, which pushes you toward your most primitive urges, is exactly what you don’t need right now. Self-control requires a different approach to self-preservation—one that helps you handle this new kind of threat.

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE : WHAT IS THE THREAT?

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: BREATHE YOUR WAY TO SELF-CONTROL

Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that self-control scientists have discovered.

The next question everyone asks is, “What kind of exercise is best?” To which I respond, “What kind will you actually do?”

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: THE FIVE-MINUTE GREEN WILLPOWER FILL-UP

If you tell yourself that you are too tired or don’t have the time to exercise, start thinking of exercise as something that restores, not drains, your energy and willpower.

If you are chronically sleep deprived, you may find yourself feeling regret at the end of the day, wondering why you gave in again to temptation or put off doing what you needed to do. It’s easy to let this spiral into shame and guilt. It hardly ever occurs to us that we don’t need to become better people, but to become better rested.

Addiction researchers have even started to experiment with sleep interventions as a treatment for substance abuse. In one study, five minutes of breath-focus meditation a day helped recovering addicts fall asleep. This added one hour a night to their quality sleep time, which in turn significantly reduced the risk of drug use relapse. So for better willpower, go to sleep already.

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: ZZZZZZZZZZ

If you know you could use more sleep but you find yourself staying up late anyway, consider what you are saying “yes” to instead of sleep. This same willpower rule applies to any task you are avoiding or putting off—when you can’t find the will, you might need to find the won’t.

But just as with stress, we run into trouble when self-control becomes chronic and unrelenting. We need time to recover from the exertion of self-control, and we sometimes need to spend our mental and physical resources elsewhere.

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: RELAX TO RESTORE YOUR WILLPOWER RESERVE