Willpower Doesn't Work Quotes

“Context-Based Learning: Why Mentorship Is More Effective than Formal Education The military and several missionary programs use a learning and teaching method known as “context-based learning” to radically accelerate the learning process. Context-based learning occurs in a social situation where knowledge is acquired and processed through collaboration and practical use, not merely the dissemination of information from a teacher. In order for this knowledge to be acquired, a learner engages in a real-life task, not a theoretical task. The skills the learner develops clearly match and naturally translate into real-world settings.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“If you can get your head in that game, and actually believe you can “compete” at that level, you’ll see the “experts” work from a different angle. You’ll stop worshipping your heroes and their work. Instead, you’ll begin studying them. What exactly are these people doing differently? How was their work crafted and marketed? Where are the holes you could easily improve upon? What aren’t they doing and why? Rather than consuming your hero’s work as a spectator, you should see it as a tennis ball being sent over the net toward you. Your job now is to respond by sending something back even better.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“A cell is a machine for turning experience into biology.” Your current genetic makeup is the product of your environment and thus is always changing. Obviously there are limits (at least at this point) to the extent you can change your biology. You can’t make yourself seven feet tall. But psychologically, you can become a completely different person. And your psychology and biology are inseparable. Rather than “competing,” with people at your perceived skill level, compete with those who are where you want to be. In other words, always punch above your weight. Herein lies a fundamental difference between those who become successful and those who don’t. Unsuccessful people make decisions based on current circumstances while successful people make decisions based on where they desire to be.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Yes, you have a learning preference, or way of doing things. But “your way” will keep you stuck. Instead, you should mindfully assess the situation at hand and do what is required.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Even still, wealth, optimal health, incredible relationships, and deep spiritual maturity are all available to everyone. But there is a price to pay to have these things. The primary obstacle in your way is how you feel about what you need to do. Most people aren’t willing to feel difficult emotions on a regular basis. However, if you’re willing to disregard how you feel in the moment, you’ll have access to a world of opportunity unavailable to 99 percent of the population, who are only concerned about now. When you’re fully committed to something, the negative emotions and experiences along the way are expected. They are even welcomed, because you know rough emotions are the very speed bumps that will stop most people. You also know that those are the very experiences that are purging your old weaknesses. You’re releasing your suppressed emotions and evolving into a new and better person. And very quickly, the experiences that were once emotionally traumatizing become routine and sometimes even pleasant.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“A branch of psychology known as positive psychology was born around the year 1998. At that time, there were only 300 research papers on the subject of happiness. Before that point, most psychologists were primarily interested in psychological illness. In 2017, there are now over 8,500 research papers on the subject of happiness. Happiness, it seems, is hot. Which is ironic, of course, because this is the precise moment in human history when happiness often seems more elusive than ever.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“The moment you jump in with full commitment, you will realize it was much easier than you formulated in your mind. You will begin to adapt. But in order to do so, you’ll need faith that you can do this, and you’ll need to be a flexible learner. Even still, it will not be smooth sailing. Although exposing yourself directly is the fastest and most practical way to learn, it involves far more risk than the traditional and theoretical approaches. You’ll have to actually deal with your fears and emotions. Which brings us to the next skill you’ll need to master to become an adaptive person.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“If you have a growth mind-set, you operate with faith. You believe in something you can’t see. You believe you can actually get better at something, even though that growth is currently visible only in your mind. If you have a fixed mind-set, you aren’t operating with faith. You don’t believe in what you can’t see. You’re a doubter. You’re overconfident and overcommitted to a certain “cognitive commitment,” or way of seeing yourself. Because you don’t believe you can learn something, you actually can’t. You’ve put yourself in a box and you have no vision for the future in that area. However, psychologists and learning theorists have plenty of evidence now showing that you can learn any of the learning styles. But only if you’re a flexible and adaptive learner. This changes everything. It changes the notion of each person having fixed “strengths” and “weaknesses,” and instead paints a far more compelling picture.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“When you expose yourself to new ideas, new experiences, or things you’ve long feared, you will have what social scientists call a disorienting dilemma. This often occurs when people travel to foreign countries, but it can even happen by doing activities you’ve never done before. A disorienting dilemma is when your current mental model is somewhat shattered through exposure to new ideas or experiences that contradict your current way of thinking. Being disoriented and experiencing a transformational learning experience doesn’t mean you lose faith in everything you once believed, though. Rather, it’s about weeding out ineffective and unhealthy ways of thinking and seeing. For instance, when you travel to a foreign country, you may realize that you held prejudices against certain types of people that were frankly incorrect.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Rather than relying on willpower, you’ll need to create an automated response for how to deal with challenges. In other words, you’ll need to create a trigger for the trigger. Once you get triggered to self-sabotage, that very trigger triggers you to do something more positive. Sound complex? It’s not. This is called implementation intentions, and it’s a well-researched idea in organizational and motivation psychology. Once you’ve outsourced your proactive response to self-destruction to your environment, your level of rest and recovery deepens, because your level of internal consistency increases. At the most fundamental level, rest is about alignment and being in a state of peace and confidence. You can’t have confidence if you continually act in ways contrary to your goals. Here’s how it works.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“It will also require you to be honest about your values, beliefs, and goals. If you can’t be honest with others about who you are and who you want to be, your relationships will be shallow. You should surround yourself with people who love you enough to hold you to a high standard. Sometimes that means you’ll let these people down. But if you can communicate honestly, people are very understanding. There is absolutely nothing more important in life than other people. Nothing. Not even the brilliant and impactful work you will do. Especially with your spouse, children, immediate family, and close friends—those relationships are where your deepest joy and meaning can and should come. Those relationships are what drive you to be and do your best in life. They can serve as an incredible motivator. As for myself, my wife and three children are the reason I have purposefully shaped my life and environment the way I have. My primary goal in life is to provide well for them and to make them proud.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“You can’t overcome an addiction through willpower. You can’t change your life on your own. You need other people. You need to learn to trust others. Transformation can only occur through collaboration, which requires two or more people. The whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. Rather than trying to “author” yourself, you give yourself wholly to another person and dedicate yourself to a cause you believe in. Said psychologist Viktor E. Frankl:”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Real quicksand doesn’t suck you in and swallow you up; it kills you with dehydration. The reason people die from quicksand is because they are alone, with no one to help pull them out. As they struggle to pull themselves out, each movement shifts them deeper into the sand until only their head remains. Thus, grand attempts with willpower actually get them more and more stuck. Willpower doesn’t work. Neither does going it alone. Just as you need someone else to pull you out of quicksand if you want to survive addiction, you need social support to pull you out of even seemingly harmless addictions like social media and caffeine. Any attempts at doing it alone through white-knuckling will only sink you deeper and deeper in.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Unfortunately, when you’ve lost your confidence as a result of pleasure-seeking, it can be difficult to reach out and get social support. You’ll probably try to convince yourself that you must first kick your addiction before you can reach out to people. After all, who would want to be in a relationship with you right now? As a result, you resort to willpower in attempts of clawing your way out of your addiction, all the while remaining isolated from the very people who could help you.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“The opposite of addiction is connection. Actually, addiction is the manifestation of having a lack of healthy human connections. Addiction is the product of isolation and loneliness, and it creates a downward spiral that creates even more isolation and loneliness. Addictions therapist Craig Nakken describes the inner psychology of having an addiction: “There is little in the person’s life that is permanent and doesn’t pertain to the addiction. The person has become totally afraid of intimacy and stays away from any sign of it. Addicts frequently believe others are the cause of their problems. They think people can’t understand them. Thus, people are to be avoided…the aloneness and isolation create a center that is craving emotional connection with others…the Addict wants to be alone, but the Self is terribly afraid of being alone.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Less work-related fatigue and procrastination; Far greater engagement at work, which is defined as vigor, dedication, and absorption (i.e., “flow”); Greater work–life balance, which directly relates to quality of life; Greater marital satisfaction; and Greater mental health.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Increased depression, anxiety, and “daytime dysfunction” Decreased sleep quality Decreased psychological and emotional well-being Decreased emotional intelligence Increased distress Decreased academic performance among students”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Physical stuff; All distractions; Attractive but ultimately bad decisions; People who don’t make sense; Commitments you never should have made; and Working memory.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“When a baby chick is trying to break out of its shell, it struggles. If you watch, you can feel terrible for the baby chick. You may even be tempted to help that chick by breaking its shell. But if you do this, you won’t help the baby long-term. Actually, you’ll probably kill the chick, because the very struggle of breaking out of the shell is what gives it strength to survive. Without the struggle, the bird wouldn’t survive. It would remain weak and dependent. Similarly, you need to struggle if you’re going to break out of your shell. The gravitational pull holding you down is the struggle you must learn to transcend. It’s not supposed to be easy to detach yourself from the life you currently have. You wouldn’t be where you are if there weren’t benefits. Acknowledge those benefits. Acknowledge that you enjoy being where you are. If you didn’t, you would’ve changed your circumstances long ago. You’re comfortable where you are. Consequently, it will be hard, at least emotionally, to get rid of many of the things that make up your current identity. This includes your physical possessions, your relationships, your distractions, your expectations, your excuses, and your story. If you want to evolve to another level, you need to let go. There will likely be some withdrawals. You’ll be tempted to revert back. But if you do, you won’t make it out of your current atmosphere. You won’t leave your current environment and enter into one with far greater possibilities.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“Like the quarter, you are always acting in a role. The roles you play aren’t your fixed and unchanging identity. Rather, you are acting a particular way based on the rules of the situation you are in. Like the chess pieces, your role is relative to what surrounds you. In some situations, you may play the role of a parent. In other situations, you may be a student, or a firefighter, or a friend, or, if you’re playing with my six-year-old, you may be a trampoline to jump on. A friend of mine, Blaine, works as a manager of an industrial hose warehouse. Blaine told his friend Brad that he was just a “hoser,” which disturbed Brad, who thought it belittled Blaine. Perhaps it would be better for Blaine to identify himself as a manager? Although it’s common for us to overattach ourselves and to identify with the jobs we have, in reality, we are just acting in roles, whether that be a writer, a manager, a police officer, a lawyer, or a teacher. These roles quickly change as we change our context.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“If you’re close with some people, you could do brilliant and world-changing work. Among other people, you may be uninspired and dull, never fulfilling your deepest dreams (and, worse yet, never realizing what is missing in your life). Relating these ideas to the game of chess, former chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin explains in his book The Art of Learning (emphasis mine):”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“You’re willing to face your fears and inner demons head-on. You’re willing to give up your low living, your idleness, your wastefulness, your bad habits and addictions, your instant gratification, and your distractions. You’re willing to take up the responsibility required of you. You’re willing to be the person you must be. You’re willing to change your environment for the betterment of yourself and those you love. It’s time to be the person you know you can be. It’s time to put cheap and small living behind you. Your world needs you to rise up. Your situation is poised.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“You’re no longer running from the roles required by your situation. You’re no longer willing to allow yourself and those around you to needlessly suffer due to your lack of care. You’re no longer concerned about the consequences or risks involved in being completely honest with yourself and everyone else. You’re no longer willing to live a lie, and thus, you will no longer tolerate a mismatch between your convictions and your environment.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“When it comes to achieving goals, making committed decisions involves: investing up front; making it public; setting a timeline; installing several forms of feedback/accountability; and removing or altering everything in your environment that opposes your commitment.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

“According to psychological research, your willpower is like a muscle. It’s a finite resource that depletes with use. As a result, by the end of your strenuous days, your willpower muscles are exhausted, and you’re left to your naked and defenseless self—with zero control to stop the nighttime munchies and time wasters. At least, that’s what you’ve been taught. Clearly, the research on willpower explains human behavior. But only on the surface level. The very fact that willpower is required comes from several fundamental sources: You don’t know what you want, and are thus internally conflicted. Your desire (your why) for your goals isn’t strong enough. You aren’t invested in yourself and your dreams. Your environment opposes your goal.”
― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success