“The Willpower Instinct” by Kelly McGonigal helps explain the science between willpower. The author uses a combination of medicine, neuroscience, and psychology to explain how we can increase our willpower to break habits and to create new and healthier habits. Willpower affects just about every aspect of our lives and it is important to understand what we can do to strengthen willpower. In the beginning, the author introduces the concept of the ‘I will, I won’t, and the I want power challenge. It was suggested to pick one of these challenges and apply it to each idea introduced in the book. She would continue to introduce topics that would help come up with strategies to develop self control and to further understand willpower. McGonigal not only gives us strategies to increase willpower, but she also helps us recognize how we lose willpower and being aware of that will further allow yourself to be prepared rather than giving into temptations and traps. Knowing how you fail, can help you prevent it from happening and prepare you for if failures of willpower do happen. This book emphasized the importance of being aware of your self control and willpower and how important it is to implement strategies to improve this strength. There were two parts of this book that I found interesting. First was the introduction of the power challenges and the way the author suggested using these to apply to the topics throughout the book. I found that this was a personal touch where I could pick one of these challenges and directly apply it to myself and how each of the topics would correlate with what I picked. This also made the book feel more interactive as I was constantly thinking about how each topic would help my power challenge. My other favorite part of the book were the willpower experiments at the conclusion of a topic. This challenges the reader to take what they just learned and try to implement in a small way in their life. One that I really liked was the “Dopaminize Your I Will Power Challenge.” This introduced the concept of trying to make something that is unpleasant or something that you don’t want to do more motivating by doing an activity that triggers dopamine. The combination of an undesirable activity mixed with something that triggers dopamine may help make a positive connection to this activity. For example, my undesirable activity was exercising, but when I paired it with listening to music and reading a book, it made me want to exercise more. These willpower experiments really helped me come up with my own scenarios and allowed me to further understand the topic that was just introduced.
(Implementing the Willpower Experiment)
In our class, we have learned about self-control and impulsivity and how these may influence procrastination. This class explained procrastination in a theory where we tend to choose activities that guarantee an immediate reward or outcome. This means pushing off the activities that may seem daunting or boring, hence being named procrastination. McGonigal also described why we procrastinate as wanting to feel good right now rather than wait longer. With school assignments, a lot of us would rather be doing something social or entertaining, which satisfies the present self, but will leave the future self scrambling. She gave some strategies that include your self control in order to help limit procrastination and help you notice when it’s happening. One of these was to imagine how your future self would feel if you don’t complete the task. This helps put the task into perspective. If you visualize that your future self is going to be stressed that the task wasn’t done sooner, then you would be more willing to get it done now so you are not stressed in the future. I think the strategies for self control in relation to procrastination can help a lot of high school and college students get assignments done more efficiently. Rather than waiting to do assignments until the last minute and then feeling guilty, we can introduce these self control strategies for procrastination to help students realize there are ways for daunting and boring tasks to feel rewarding, and this would be helping them in the future.
Reference
McGonigal, K. (2013). The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it. Avery.
I also choose this book, and it was a nice read as someone that is an experienced procrastinator and enjoyer of bad habits. I am the opposite of you, I enjoy exercising a little more than reading and like to combine walking on a treadmill with reading to make the reading aspect more enjoyable. I had not yet knew what to call this strategy until reading her book and your post. Dopaminizing an activity can definitely be an effective tool. I agree that this book offered some good advice, with supporting anecdotes and scientific evidence for how and why we make me choices and how we can manage our willpower to make better ones.
ReplyDeleteI didn't choose this book but I'm definitely going to add it to my list. The line “Knowing how you fail” is just a superb thought. I’m definitely a person that likes to prepare but always seems to struggle regardless. The idea of kind of setting up bumper guards in the areas of weakness is a really cool idea that I definitely have to look into more.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteBook Report: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal explores the science behind self-control, decision making, and motivation. The book explains how willpower works in the brain, why we often sabotage our goals, and how we can build stronger habits through self-awareness and mindful practices. McGonigal uses ideas from psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to explain why people delay tasks, overeat, overspend, or avoid hard conversations. All of these behaviors are tied to the same willpower struggles. Each chapter ends with exercises that help the reader apply the concepts in real life, making the book both informative and practical.
My favorite part of the book was the chapter on “The Power of a Pause,” where McGonigal explains how taking just a few moments to breathe and check in with yourself can strengthen your self-control. It stood out to me because it challenged the idea that willpower is about pushing harder. Instead, it is about slowing down and making more intentional choices. This was a powerful takeaway because it gave me tools I could apply immediately when I feel overwhelmed or tempted to give up on a goal.
This book ties perfectly into the topics we have covered in class around motivation and behavior. McGonigal’s discussion of the conflict between impulse and intention connects directly to concepts such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. It also supports what we learned about temporal discounting, where people choose short term comfort over long term goals. Understanding these psychological patterns helps explain why motivation changes and how we can build habits that actually last.
To add a creative element to my post, I watched and summarized one of McGonigal’s TED Talks titled “How to Make Stress Your Friend.” In the talk, she shares themes that align with the book, especially the importance of mindset. The video reinforced the message that awareness and self-compassion are powerful tools in improving motivation and decision making.
The ideas in The Willpower Instinct can be used far beyond school. From health and fitness to money and relationships, this book shows how people can change their behavior for the better. It proves that willpower is not something you either have or do not have. It is something you can train. I can see myself using these tools not only in academics but in parenting and personal growth. This book does a great job showing how psychology can be used to solve real world problems.
ReplyDeleteI also chose The Willpower Instinct for my book report and reading your post made me appreciate the book even more. I liked how you explained the “I will, I won’t, I want” challenge and how you applied it to your own habits. It made the science feel really practical and personal. I also found the willpower experiments helpful, especially the one you mentioned about pairing a difficult task with something enjoyable to boost motivation. I did something similar with studying by combining it with music or snacks to get through the tough parts.
Your breakdown of procrastination stood out too. The way you explained McGonigal’s idea of the present self versus future self really hit home for me. I thought about that a lot while working on assignments this semester. This book definitely gave us some real tools to work with, not just theories. It was nice seeing how someone else connected with the same ideas in different but meaningful ways.
Incentives
DeleteReading through the slides on incentives made me stop and think about how often I act based on what I might gain or lose, not just what I’ve learned from past experiences. Here are a few points that stood out to me:
1. Incentive value really matters
It’s not just about whether there’s a reward. It’s about how much that reward actually means to the person. Something small to one person might be super motivating to someone else. That really clicked for me.
2. Losses hit harder than gains
I never thought about this in such a clear way, but it makes so much sense. Losing ten dollars feels worse than the happiness of gaining ten. It explains a lot about why people hesitate to take risks even when the outcome might be positive.
3. Incentives are forward thinking
Unlike reinforcers, which are based on consequences from the past, incentives are about what we expect to happen in the future. That shift in mindset helps explain why motivation can change so quickly depending on what’s ahead.
4. Contrast effects are real
I’ve experienced this before. When I get used to something being really rewarding, even good things can start to feel disappointing if they don’t measure up. The slides helped me realize that this is actually a common part of how motivation works.
5. More and faster rewards usually mean more motivation
This seems obvious at first, but seeing it broken down really helped. The more frequent or valuable the reward, the more likely we are to keep going. Still, it depends on the individual and what they actually care about.
Overall, this material gave me a better understanding of how incentives shape behavior. It made me think about what really pushes me to act and how that might change depending on the situation.
Rewards
DeleteWhile reading about rewards and reinforcement, I started realizing how much of what we do is shaped by things we don’t always notice. One idea that really stood out to me was that a reward isn’t actually a reinforcer unless it leads to an increase in the behavior. That changed how I look at motivation. Just because something seems like it should motivate someone doesn’t mean it actually will. It really depends on the person and how they respond to it in that moment.
The breakdown of reinforcement schedules was also eye-opening. I had never really thought about how timing or the pattern of reinforcement could affect how strongly a behavior sticks. The variable ratio schedule made the most sense to me. It reminded me of how gambling works. People stay hooked because they don’t know when the next reward is coming, which makes them keep trying.
Another thing that caught my attention was how reinforcement is so personal. What works for one person might not work for another, and a lot of that has to do with someone’s background, environment, or what they’ve experienced before. That made me think about how important it is to consider those differences when trying to understand or support someone’s behavior.
I also learned about the Matching Law, which explains why we divide our attention between different choices depending on what each one gives us. That really clicked for me because it explains some of my own decision-making without me even realizing it.
This made me look at reinforcement in a deeper way. It’s not just about offering something positive. It’s about timing, personal meaning, and whether or not it actually leads to change. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else started thinking differently about their own habits after learning this.
Going through the slides on performance gave me a better understanding of how motivation connects to how well we actually do things. One idea that really stood out to me is the motivation sequence. It starts with making a choice based on what we want or need, and then we use our behavior to try to reach that goal. That breakdown helped me see how effort isn’t just random.It’s tied to something we’re trying to achieve.
DeleteThe slides also talked a lot about arousal and how it can either help or hurt performance depending on the task. That made me think about times when I’ve been nervous before doing something important. Sometimes that little bit of pressure helped me focus and do well, but other times it completely threw me off. The Yerkes-Dodson Law explained this perfectly. There’s a sweet spot where arousal boosts performance, but too much or too little can actually make things worse.
Another concept that I found relatable was the zone of optimal functioning. It reminded me that everyone has their own level of pressure or stress where they do their best work. It isn’t the same for everyone. For me, I need a little urgency to get going, but if I’m too overwhelmed, I shut down. The idea that this “zone” can shift depending on the situation made a lot of sense.
The Hull-Spence Drive Theory and the catastrophe model went even deeper. The catastrophe model especially made me think about how mental and physical pressure can build up. Once it crosses a certain line, it can feel like everything just crashes, even if you were doing fine a minute ago.
This section really helped me understand that performance isn’t just about skill or ability. It’s influenced by motivation, focus, stress, and how we respond under pressure.