The Willpower Instinct book report

    The Willpower Instinct written by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D was an educational read with many relatable situations. When I first chose this book, I was interested but no completely sold that I would enjoy it as much as I did. McGonigal wrote this book to express the importance of willpower and self-control in our lives, she gave facts about self-control itself and how we use it to our advantage to better our lives. She used language everyone could understand so that each reader could enjoy without feeling overwhelmed with a bunch of scientific words. She explains how your mind and body work together and how willpower and self-control is something that is learned and can be practiced throughout everyday life. McGonigal uses real-life situations in this book to express how these strategies for self-control can actually make you feel more in control of your life and make you feel better in all aspects. She provides so many helpful tip sand relatable stories to excite the reader and get them motivated to try these ideas out for themselves. She encourages readers to pick a current situation and try some of these strategies until they've found the one that they could work on to understand their problem, failures, and successes. It is an amazing book to try self-control and willpower strategies, especially if you have no experience with this kind of focus or thinking. 

    My favorite part of The Willpower Instinct was the personal stories and examples of people's problems or failures and how they worked through them by committing to practicing willpower and self-control. I also loved the interactive opportunities within the book such as the "under the microscope" and "Willpower experiments" which provided you to incorporate your life and struggles and put these methods to the test. I found myself taking a break from reading and thinking closely about current situations in my life before trying to use these strategies to change them. This book made me think more in depth about my own personal life, which I found so interesting because I do not examine my own life often. I enjoyed reading this book so much because it was not simply reading about others experiences or struggles, it actually gave you a closer looker at your own life, which is not always so easy. 

    This book related so much to this class as a while because of the way willpower and self-control are connected to almost every aspect of your life. We learned about drugs, food, and performance, and Endurance. As I read Endurance, I noticed all of Shackleton's crew members had self-control when it came to food, attitude, and behavior throughout their tough voyage. Self-control and willpower are not always something you can see; it is something within yourself that is so important. This was displayed in Endurance because of the way the men carried on even when it seemed impossible. Another way this book is connected to this class is the way self-control works, like the I won't, I will, and I want ideas. This is something that can be used when it comes to food decisions or drug use. Willpower and self-control can help you understand a problem or failure and help find a solution by using different strategies, such as I will make healthier food choices, or I won't use drugs today. This book can be helpful to anyone's life even if they think they have their mind and body completely under control. I would recommend this book to anyone, and I want to try more of these strategies in my personal life. 

Here are some helpful tips on willpower and self-control and a short video about how to increase willpower!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZdvsDhOkWY