The Willpower Instinct

How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It

By: Kelly McGonigal

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Based on Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal's wildly popular course "The Science of Willpower", The Willpower Instinct is the first book to explain the science of self-control and how it can be harnessed to improve our health, happiness, and productivity.

Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, The Willpower Instinct explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. For example, listeners will learn:

• Willpower is a mind-body response, not a virtue. It is a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep.   
• Willpower is not an unlimited resource. Too much self-control can actually be bad for your health.
• Temptation and stress hijack the brain's systems of self-control, but the brain can be trained for greater willpower   
• Guilt and shame over your setbacks lead to giving in again, but self-forgiveness and self-compassion boost self-control.   
• Giving up control is sometimes the only way to gain self-control.   
• Willpower failures are contagious - you can catch the desire to overspend or overeat from your friends­­ - but you can also catch self-control from the right role models.

In the groundbreaking tradition of Getting Things Done, The Willpower Instinct combines life-changing prescriptive advice and complementary exercises to help listeners with goals ranging from losing weight to more patient parenting, less procrastination, better health, and greater productivity at work. 

©2011 Kelly McGonigal (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"The Willpower Instinct is a new kind of self-help book. Using science to explain the why and strategies for the how, McGonigal has created a must-read for anyone who wants to change how they live in both small and big ways." (Book Page)

"Each chapter could stand on its own as something helpful, but taken as a whole, this book could be downright life-altering. If you are trying to lose weight, become more successful at work, rid yourself of toxic habits...heck, if you're HUMAN, you need to read this book." (Library Thing)

“This book has tremendous value for anyone interested in learning how to achieve their goals more effectively. McGonigal clearly breaks down a large body of relevant scientific research and its applications, and shows that awareness of the limits of willpower is crucial to our ability to exercise true self control.” (Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, co-author of You Are Not Your Brain and author of best-selling Brain Lock)

Techniques that worked for me

Before I listened to the audiobook, I had watched the author's presentation on willpower through a Google Talk that was posted on YouTube. So I knew of the book long should. I took a lot of the information in that presentation to heart, and used it to help me cultivate a approach to eating that helped me lose over 110lbs over a three year period.

Then something changed. Along my journey -- motivated by my success and new information I learned about nutrition -- I wanted to get even better with my willpower. My mindset became more aggressive in what I was trying to accomplish, something more akin to a perfectionist. I wanted to mold myself into a "health nut," if you will. But what I didn't realize at the time is that in doing so, I was falling into several willpower traps. I started slowly gaining weight. A few months later, I hit a stressful part of life; without going into details, circumstances caused me to become much more exhausted. That's when things started to spiral. I was binge eating again, a habit I thought I had kicked years before. In total, I gained about 60 lbs back.

Needing to get my self control back --and fast -- I bought this book, knowing how helpful McGonigol's Google talk had been before. It was the best thing I could have done. Immediately I was reminded of the techniques that were working for me, and quickly made aware of the traps that I stepped into when I changed my routine. Virtually every chapter of this book is something I connected with. And it helped me plan and prioritize what I needed to do to right the ship. I'm happy to say I am back on track with my personal health journey.

I don't know if the advise here will work for everybody, but I will attest that they absolutely work for me. The material does seem to emphasize food habits over other temptations like smoking or social media addictions, but I think the ideas should translate easily enough. If you're on the fence, check out the aforementioned Google talk and see if it might apply to you.

For me, I loved this book so much, I bought a physical copy to study. These are concepts and techniques I don't just want to know, but want to master.

Narrator sounds like a robot

Kelly should have narrated this herself. The narrator sounds like a robot and it is distracting and takes away from the book's content.

WOW-Awesome! Play@.9X speed narration-It's perfect

ONE OF MY TOP FIVE FAVORITE AUDIBLE BOOKS FOR SURE...
Loved this-So much information, observations, anecdotes and actionable recommendations presented in a not-overly-scientific way and with some humor thrown in. For me, it was exactly what I needed to hear and feel so motivated and empowered with this new information. I listened in one day and will purchase the book for note taking and go through the chapters again. I agree the narrator sounded like a cold computer and spoke way to fast. I slowed it down to 0.9X and he sounded normal and quite easy to listen too. I wonder if they recorded a higher speed in error. Don't let that takeaway from a gem of a book like this.

What’s up with the narrator?

I hope I can find another copy of this book with a different narrator who sounds human. I can’t listen to this for 8 hours. Bummer!

Most People Use the Opposite Method than Effective

I love this book. I noticed Kelly McGonigal a few years ago, noting just how normal she makes neuroscience, and how easy it is to understand it when she talks about it. Reading this book first on paper, and now returning to it with a good narrator, I started thinking of willpower as a muscle. In her usual manner, Kelly McGonigal pairs science with easy to understand examples. I love her idea that there is both "will power"; and "won't power"; and her facts about limits to both, and ways to exercise and build these muscles.

In my memory, success in willpower is quite counterintuitive for most. The best way to improve self control is to know how and why you lose your control, and furthermore, if you are kind with yourself in a change, you actually do better! I love the paradox in this!

In this book, Kelly McGonigal follows a course that she taught at Stanford, I think, on the subject of Willpower. So this is definitely applied science, in that she has had numerous students try out her method.

Why is a man reading the book?

Great book! Awesome techniques... but why oh why is a male reading a book authored by a brilliant female???
4/5 on the book only because I think the author should have read it.

gGood listen

I had to come back to it at diffetent times but pretty bland voice and tone when it came to listening but i had to get use to it if i was going to be able to learn something from this book.

Overall good

I struggled to finish this book because of the way is set up, with a lot of reasearch studies and statististics that make it hard to keep engaged for long. But this is just my personal preference, however I still enjoyed most of it, and helped me a lot to have more self awareness

Powerful

It’s a bible of understanding how the mind works, why we do what we do, how to stop the cycle of problematic behavior, and what to do to practice to make lasting changes. I’m ordering a hard copy because it has so many useful tools and how to’s that actually work. At the end of each chapter is a summary of what you learned to use as easy reference for problematic behavior you see in yourself or to share with others when you now have the lenses to see into other people’s behavior. The reader is boring to listen to but hang in there because the science backed studies will blow your mind.

7 Reasons to Not get this Book.

There are no reasons to not get this great one.
After you get the information of this book you will achieve one more step to be that great person you want to be. And hey, that’s awesome.
Take action. Get it.

I have been listening to mind set, will power and “take action” books continuesly for the past 5 months.
This gem right here is a great compliance of all of the great information is available in other books, but this one takes the lead because of its multiple and accuarate examples.

But not all is glory.
I consider, again, my personal opinion is, that the author focus too much attention on the ‘quiting to smoke subject.’ Subject of course, I speculate, many people get the book for. I respect that. Where I am trying to go here is that the author could explode it’s great knowledge one the same subject but on a more ‘brain functions’ foucus, before turning more into a ‘Cravings Book’ and not really a Willpower Book. It almost did. But it didn’t. And this is what makes it a great one of this kind.

Now, the audio is perfect. The narration is smooth and makes it even more comprehensible. And it contains lots of key information to achieve great things in your life.

So if you get to complete this book, I’ll be proud of you, you are more close to that great goal. Don’t stop.