[video] Kelly McGonigal on willpower

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Author and Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD, talks about strategies from her new book "The WillPower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It" as part of the Authors@Google series. Topics include dieting/weight loss, health, addiction, quitting smoking, temptation, procrastination, mindfulness, stress, sleep, cravings, exercise, self-control, self-compassion, guilt, and shame.

I'm posting this because akrasia, procrastination and willpower are often discussed on LW. I haven't read the book, but for those that are interested "The Willpower Instinct" and "Maximum Willpower" are, from what I can tell, exactly the same books.

the video

Author and Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD, talks about strategies from her new book "The WillPower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It" as part of the Authors@Google series. Topics include dieting/weight loss, health, addiction, quitting smoking, temptation, procrastination, mindfulness, stress, sleep, cravings, exercise, self-control, self-compassion, guilt, and shame.

Defensive pessimism. Imagine how/why you will fail at your goal. Imagine concrete steps. Write it all down, revise when something different happens.

Gads, no. I've got a brain that sees things potential problems. I've concluded that spending your time picturing failure is a great way to invoke akrasia - by focusing on failure scenarios, you develop an availability bias for failure scenarios. I call that the "futility bias".

I need to spend more time imagining how things will succeed.

I hope you realize the irony in imagining yourself failing at the imagining yourself failing exercise.

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[video] Kelly McGonigal on willpower

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[video] Kelly McGonigal on willpower

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