willpower summary

8/12/2019 Willpower Summary

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Willpower

is an

elusive

thing.

Somedays

you feel like

you have it,

and other

days you

simply cant

resist the

urges to eat

that second

piece of

chocolatecake. Dont

worry, you

are in good

company.


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Magician and endurance stunt madman DavidBlaine is able to will himself through feats thatwould literally kill most people, like living in aglass box and not eating for 44 days straight.But between stunts, he seemingly cant get hislife together and gains more than 40 pounds

with remarkable mix of bad food and alcohol.


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Many scientists believe that

there are only two things

worth studying so that

mankind could improve our

collective well-being:

intelligenceand

willpower.

But until recently, it was

believed that there was

nothing you could do to

improve either one.

However, in this remarkablebook, this myth is exploded.

If you are able to apply the

principles you learn here,

you might literally be able to

transform the trajectory of

your life.

But only if you have enough

willpower to pay closeattention for the next 12

minutes. So buckle up, and

get ready for a tour-de-force

on what science knows

about willpower, and what

you can do to use it.


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DEEPEST, DARKEST

AFRICA


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Our search for willpower brings us to the

African jungle where Henry Morton Stanley

uttered this now famous greeting after finding

the Scottish missionary after a long and

arduous journey. This was one Stanleys first

taste of the deepest, darkest Africa and the tollit can exact on the human body, and psyche.

Malaria, bouts of fever, and nasty run-ins with

the locals are par for the course.

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?


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REAL MAN ADVENTURE

SHAVING STORY #72

GILLETTE

A little later in his journeys, he

routinely did something that most

people would shrug offas the quirk of

a remarkable man (some would argue

a dispicable empiralist): he took a

shave. Imagine yourself in the middle

of the African jungle, leading a small

group of men with no food, water or

supplies. Day by day, more of your

men die of disease or starvation. You

wake up each morning knowing that

your turn might be next. While others

around you are literally losing the will

to live, you reach for your razor and

pretend you are being cast for the

latest Gillette commercial.

This seemingly insignificant act was a

window into the psyche of a man who

had mastered willpower, and would do

whatever it took to survive under

some of the harshest conditions ever

experienced by somebody who lived

to talk about it.


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WHAT IS WILLPOWER?


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Through hundreds of studies and thousands

of research subjects, scientists havediscovered 2 remarkable things:

1. You have a finite amount of willpower that

becomes depleted as you use it.

2. You use the same stock of willpower for all

the tasks you are doing.

In fact, your willpower can be likened to amuscle. Although you have a finite amount of

strength today, you can increase your

strength over time if you do the right

exercises. Similarly, scientists have shown

that you can also increase your stock of

willpower over time. This is exactly what

Stanley was doing every morning a small

exercise in willpower that gave him the

strength to survive the more difficult

challenges of his will.


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1. Control of your thoughts. Any time you try and regulate your

thoughts, you are using up some of your precious willpower.

2. Control of your emotions.Most often well use our willpower

when we are trying to remain positive in negative situations.

However, there are also situations where we are trying to avoid

appearing happy in a negative situation like a funeral.

3. Impulse control.This is the category that most people associate

with willpower. Its resisting the temptations of alcohol,

cigarettes, or whatever your vice of choice happens to be.

4. Performance control.This is focussing your energy on the task

at hand, managing time and persevering when you feel the urge

to quit.

You use your

willpower for

4 broad

things:


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Feed your mind

When you use your willpower, scientists would say that you are depleting your ego. In fact, any kind of stress will depleteyour ego. When you are in an ego depleted state, your ability to control your emotions, make decisions and curb yourimpulses decreases dramatically. Why this happens used to be a mystery, until 2 remarkable studies gave us the answer.

In one study, researchers gave a set of tasks to three groups of people one got a milkshake before the task, the other anon-appetizing glop of dairy, and the last group nothing at all. They hypothesis was that the group who got the milkshake

would perform best because they believed that willpower was replenished through an act of self-satisfaction. However, theresults showed that the dairy glop helped the test subjects just as much as the delicious milkshake did. This was puzzling tothem, to say the least.


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65%

In the other study, they looked at the parole decisions of judges in

the Israeli prison system. On the whole, they approved parole forabout one in three prisoners. But on closer examination, something

incredible was happening. Those who appeared early in the morningwere granted parole 65% of the time, and those later in the day less

than 10% of the time. Looking even closer, they found the samepattern right before and after lunch before lunch you

were out of luck, right after lunch and your chanceswere higher than 60%. People in for the same crimes

and same behaviour record were being treated differentlybased on the time of day their cases were heard.


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What was happening here? For the judges, denying parole was the same as making no decision at all, because

they knew that these prisoners would be up for parole again soon, but that making the tough call about

whether or not to let them out had serious consequences. Their willpower had been depleted, and only a

break (along with some food) put them back into a state where they could make proper decisions.


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So, there are two things that you should take from these studies. The first is that your willpower is regulated in some way by the amount of

glucose in your system. Youve heard numerous times that you should have small, frequent meals throughout the day in order to remain

healthy and lose weight. Now, in my mind, theres an even stronger argument. In a knowledge economy where your brain is your tool,

your will to do the things you need to do in order to succeed now literally depends on your brain getting the glucose it needs.


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WILLPOWER

STRATEGY #1:PICK YOUR BATTLES

David Blaine is world famous


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David Blaine is world-famousfor his acts of willpower. Hehas suspended himself in aglass case above Londonwhere he ate absolutelynothing for 44 days. He holdsthe record for holding hisbreath under water, a feat that

requires an enormous amountof self-control. He stood ontop of a pillar that was lessthan 22 inches wide, without aharness, 85 feet above BryantPark in NYC for more than 36hours. And you think you havea trouble concentrating?


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230

Yet, incredibly, he finds it nearly impossible to keep himself togetherin between these fits of self-control. His performance weight isaround 180 pounds, and he typically balloons up to 230 poundsshortly after. His apartment is a mess. And hes missed having his

name in the Guiness Book of World Records because he wasliterally too lazy to fill out the paper work.


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Because you

only have a limited supply of

willpower, you need to be aware of

how much you commit yourself to.

So, pick your battles and dont try to

transform your life in one day. Doing

so only sets yourself up for failure.If you need to do tedious tasks

throughout your day (which

deplete the ego), make

sure to limit them to

a specifc amount

of time.


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WILLPOWERSTRATEGY #2:

MAKE A TO-DO LIST


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As weve covered in a previous

Readitfor.me episode, the king oftodo lists is David Allen, the author

of Getting Things Done. Youve

heard it all before, but now you

have some scientific proof to back

it up todo lists actually help your

performance.


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When you try to ignore a task that you

have to complete, or simply forget to

write it down in a place youll be sure

to find it, your unconscious continues

to worry about it for you. Its called the

Zeigarnik effect, and theres simply no

way around it. You cant get rid of it by

procrastinating or willing yourself toforget it.

Of course, every moment you spend

worrying about the task depletes your

willpower. So it has the double effect

of distracting you from the task at

hand, and also making you less

eff

ective at that same task.Those of you who want to go full-bore

with this suggestion should watch the

GTD summary. But just remember

strategy #1 and dont bite offmore

than you can chew at one time.


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WILLPOWER STRATEGY #3:POSITIVE PROCRASTINATION


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Procrastination is usually a bad

thing, as weve just discussed.

However, when you are trying to

avoid things you know you

shouldnt be doing like eating

that chocolate cake or smokingthat cigarette procrastination is

a good thing. Simply telling

yourself that youll have it later

is much more effective than

trying to deny yourself

completely.


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WILLPOWER STRATEGY

#4: TRACK YOURSELF


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One of the biggest tricks in

improving your willpower isto be self-aware.

Even though self-awareness

is one of the traits that

makes us uniquely human,

most of us dont leverage

This self awareness to its

In

another

amazing study

it was found that

people were much

less likely to steal

halloween candy froman empty room when

there was a mirror

in the room. Why?

Because consciously or

unconsciously, those test

subjects became aware of

themselves and the act they

were about to commit.

fullest

potential.

Self-awareness helps in self-regulation against a set of


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Self awareness helps in self regulation against a set ofstandards that we set for ourselves. So, if you wanted totake this to the extreme, you would be acutely aware ofwhere you stood in relation to everything you felt wasimportant to you on a daily basis. You would have scores

for almost everything your weight, your bank account,your happiness level, and the list goes on.


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T E M P E R A N C E

S I L E N C E

O R D E R

R E S O L U T I O N

F R U G A L I T Y

I N D U S T R Y

S I N C E R I T Y

J U S T I C E

M O D E R A T I O N

C L E A N L I N E S S

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

C H A S T I T Y

H U M I L I T Y

Benjamin Franklin was famous for many things,

and one of them were his 13 virtues the

virtues by which he decided he would live his

life. A man ahead of his time, he knew that he

simply couldnt immediately take on a

transformation on such a grand scale. So, he

would practice one of these virtues every week,

but would also give himself a grade on each of

the virtues daily. His theory was that eventually

he would master each one and his daily score

would be perfect. Although he was never able to

attain perfection, he admitted that his daily

reflection on these things brought him much of

his success in life.


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You can do this by

monitoring your

finances with a

service like Mint,

monitor how many

steps you take

during the day with

device like Fitbit,

and even monitor

the quality of

your sleep.

The key here is that

youll be constantly

monitoring yourself

to a standard that

you choose, and

you will

automatically find

yourself altering

your behaviour

along the way.

So there you have it everything you need to


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know to get your willpower in shape and

working wonders for your life. But just one more

item before we go: understand the power of

precommittment. Make a decision right now

that you will do something, and make a

condition such that youll do anything to ensure

you dont fail. David Blaine did it by ensuring that

hed plunge to his death if we fell asleep on thepedastal above Bryant Park. Your consequence

doesnt have to be so dire, but make it strong

enough to ensure you get things done.

For more information about this book and our other

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