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  • >>Presenter: I'm delighted to welcome to the Googleplex Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist

  • at Stanford University and the author of a new book, "The Willpower Instinct." So in

  • life, sometimes we struggle with choices and accomplishing goals and we often believe that

  • sheer willpower will get us there. But much of what we believe and know about willpower

  • could actually be wrong, or that's what Kelly discovered in working with students at Stanford

  • University where she teaches at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Stanford Center

  • for Compassion. So she created a course called the Science of Willpower at Stanford School

  • of Continuing Studies and it became one of the most popular courses at the school and

  • went on to be a hugely successful blog at Psychology Today and now a book which you

  • can get your hands on at the end of this talk. And Kelly said, if she has her way, it'll

  • soon be an action figure and an action movie, too.

  • [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Willpower! [Laughter]

  • >>Presenter: So today Kelly's gonna talk about how we can accomplish the array of goals that

  • we often struggle to get done. It might be a healthier lifestyle, it might be life of

  • greater productivity or sometimes something as simple as having waited for 6 months, finally,

  • finally, finally clearing out the closet. [Kelly chuckles] So please help me welcome

  • Kelly McGonigal. [Applause]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Thank you. Hello. I've been giving a lot of talks in this last month

  • and a lot about New Year's resolutions and I have to say this is the first place I've

  • talked where there's apparently a healthy code resolution going on. Is that right? Did

  • I see these signs right? So who's still keeping their healthy code resolution? Anyone? Good,

  • congratulations you've got some willpower. Um, why don't you tell me just to sort of

  • get things rolling, tell me something that has challenged your willpower today, anyone.

  • >>audience member: Getting up on time.

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Getting up on time.

  • >>audience member: Washing the dishes.

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Washing the dishes. Okay, so we've got two kinds of "I Will-Power" challenges.

  • Something you have to make yourself do even though it'd be a little bit easier to just

  • not do it. Something else? Yeah?

  • >>audience member: Doing yoga for back pain.

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Doing yoga for back pain, well, I'm glad to hear that. We're you at

  • my talk two years ago about yoga for pain? That's great. Another "I Will" challenge.

  • Something else, yeah?

  • >>audience member: [Inaudible]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Yeah, so an example of "I Won't" power. There's all these links you

  • could follow and you could just click and get lost down the link hole and you have to

  • find the ability to resist that temptation. Maybe one or two more?

  • [Pause] >>Kelly McGonigal? Anything? Back row, any

  • willpower challenges?

  • [Audience members shout] >>Kelly McGonigal: Lunch options for today.

  • Have you had your lunch yet?

  • >>audience member: [Inaudible]

  • [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: So

  • >>audience member: [Inaudible] [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Great, so we make lots of decisions everyday about what to eat and

  • what to do. Okay, well, these are all great examples of willpower challenges and I wanna

  • just start with a little definition, my definition of willpower or willpower challenge. And I

  • define a willpower challenge as something that is basically a competition between two

  • parts of yourself. Neuroscientists are famous for saying that even though we have only one

  • brain we actually have two minds and we are completely different people depending on which

  • mind is active or which systems of the brain are more active. So, a willpower challenge

  • is anything where those two versions of yourself have competing goals. So, for example, there

  • may be a part of you that really wants to eat a candy bar for your snack and then there's

  • a part of you that actually has some longer term goals, you're thinking health, you're

  • thinking weight loss, you're thinking bikini season, whatever, and maybe the banana seems

  • like the better snack. And, again, both of these choices you may be drawn to by different

  • parts of your mind or two different versions of yourself and one of the things that has

  • really influenced my work with willpower is thinking about it in terms of what's going

  • on in the brain. And we're gonna talk about that a little bit today, the fact that you

  • could be the very same person but depending on your mindset, depending on your energy,

  • depending on your stress levels, your brain is gonna meet this willpower challenge in

  • a different way and you're gonna end up making, you know, one choice today and one choice

  • tomorrow. So, as was mentioned, this book is based on a class that I teach at Stanford

  • called "The Science of Willpower" those are our actual students I'm not sure what I said

  • that was funny but those are actual Science of Willpower students. And I created this

  • course because I was going around trying to teach people how to be more productive, how

  • to improve their health and everywhere I went people said, "Oh, we know we're supposed to

  • do that stuff already, we just don't want to do it." And there was this really interesting

  • fundamental gap between what people wanted and what they thought they wanted. But as

  • people were very identified, you could say, with this version of the self. People felt

  • like deep down that they were the person who wanted the candy bar and this other person

  • that wanted the banana, "Like, who is that? That's not really me." I realized that people

  • didn't just need to know what is the right thing to do or what is the healthy thing to

  • do or tips for stress management or productivity, they needed to feel like this person. And

  • they needed to know how to be that person as the default rather than walking around

  • always feeling like they had to resist this core self that only wants immediate gratification

  • or never wants to do anything difficult. Okay, so that's how the class came about. What is

  • with my clicker? There we go, okay, great. So, I thought today, since this is a class

  • based on science, that I would share with you five of my favorite experiments from the

  • class and from the book and I chose experiments that I like because they use tiny interventions,

  • really, really small interventions to shape people's behavior and they have very large

  • outcomes. I think this is the kind of thing many of us are looking for, one small change

  • we can make, whether it's a change in how we think or change in the way that we're approaching

  • the willpower challenge that can have huge payoffs down the road making it easier to

  • do what it really is deep down that we want even when it's sometimes difficult, or part

  • of us doesn't want. Okay, let's start with the first experiment. How many of you sometimes

  • feel like this guy? I know at least one of you only had 3 hours of sleep last night.

  • So it turns out when you're this version of yourself, every willpower challenge is more

  • difficult. And the first intervention I wanna tell you about is actually a sleep intervention.

  • The main intervention was trying to help people sleep more or sleep better. And it was people

  • had a very serious willpower challenge, these are people who are recovering from an addiction

  • to drugs. And they were in a substance abuse recovery program. And half of the people in

  • the standard care were assigned to take a mindfulness meditation training that was designed

  • to help them improve their sleep or sleep more. So the first thing I want you to take

  • a look at on this graph, this is minutes of sleep per night and you're gonna think this

  • is insanely optimistic, I know, but everyone's starting around 7 hours and we're gonna improve

  • on 7 hours. That probably seems impossible dream. Okay, so everyone in the group was

  • starting around 7 hours and what the researchers found was that just doing a little bit of

  • meditation every day, breath focus meditation, increased sleep time to just over 8 hours

  • a day and the control group had a little bit of deterioration to slightly less than 7 hours

  • of sleep a night. Now that's not the interesting finding. I mean, it is nice to know that if

  • you meditate for a few minutes a day you will sleep better and get more sleep. So what's

  • interesting is that change in sleep time then made these recovering addicts impervious to

  • relapse, they were stronger against relapse and this is a very high correlation, .70,

  • the increase in sleep time predicted resistance to relapse with a correlation of .70. Getting

  • one more hour of sleep a night suddenly made it a lot easier for these recovering addicts

  • to resist the temptation of falling off the wagon. And interestingly, the number, I never

  • know where, it's gonna bounce off the screen right? I should point at the screen?

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: You guys are tech experts.

  • The number of minutes per day that people meditated also predicted resistance to relapse.

  • So there were really two things going on in this intervention, there was getting more

  • sleep and there was also something about the actual practice time and it wasn't a lot,

  • it was something like 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. And both of these things, sleep

  • and meditation, were giving people more willpower for one of the biggest willpower challenges.

  • So I want us to think together a little bit about why those two small interventions, an

  • hour more sleep or 10 minutes of meditation a day, might actually give us more willpower

  • for any willpower challenge. What you're looking at here is an image from an FMRI study about

  • what happens to the brain when you are a little bit sleep deprived. And most studies use less

  • than 6 hours of sleep a night as sleep deprived which may seem normal to you but for most

  • of us that's actually functioning far suboptimal. What you're looking at here is a composite

  • of a lot of different people's brains, some who are sleep deprived and some who are not.

  • And we're gonna slice the brain, so imagine me standing this way and we're gonna have

  • one of those meat slicers and we're gonna slice down the head and just start taking

  • sections off and look down the middle. So where you see these yellow spots, that's the

  • front of the brain, right about here or right about here, if that were my brain pointing

  • that way. And yellow means that this area of the brain is under activated when you have

  • less than 6 hours of sleep at night. This area of the brain is unable to do its job

  • as efficiently and the red areas are areas that are more activated, sort of midbrain

  • regions that are associated with basic impulses and instincts. So when you're getting less

  • than 6 hours of sleep a night your brain is actually unable to recruit the systems of

  • the brain that you need to be that better version of yourself. This area of the brain,

  • I love this image because it's like, here's where the balance is weighed, "Do I want the

  • weight loss or do I want the chocolate bar?" And this area of the brain right here is basically

  • keeping track of your goals and it's sort of hard job, its heavy lifting it needs to

  • do is to remember long term goals, core values and when it is unable to do that, when it's

  • under fueled or when it's under active, your brain thinks all it really wants, all you

  • really want is the chocolate bar or to procrastinate or to follow that link through, or to not

  • bother doing your yoga exercises. And so, in some key way, the ability to remember who

  • you are and what your big goals are is dependent on the ability of this area of the brain to

  • use energy well and sleep deprivation is one of the main things that can get in the way

  • of that. And I think that's one of the reasons why this small sleep intervention ended up

  • helping people resist relapse to drug addiction because they now have brains that were better

  • fueled to remember their goals to stay clean and sober. And it's not just sleep that impacts

  • the physiology of your brain, how well your brain uses energy. There are a couple of other

  • things that seem to really strengthen the ability of the brain's frontal regions to

  • do what they're supposed to do, to help you control impulses and find your motivation.

  • Here are the four things from the research that seem to do it, to make your brain a kind

  • of willpower machine. One is sleep, as I mentioned, and hopefully there's gonna be one thing on

  • this list that you're not currently doing that you're willing to do cause you don't

  • have to do all four. So getting a little bit more sleep makes the prefrontal cortex better

  • able to regulate those systems of the brain the direct you towards temptation and immediate

  • gratification. And meditation also, and both meditation and physical exercise have been

  • shown to make not only your brain more efficient at using these self control systems but they

  • actually make these systems bigger and better connected to the regions that they are supposed

  • to be controlling. And, again, it can be a very quick time course to see these benefits.

  • People who meditate maybe 10 minutes a day, after a couple months their brains look different,

  • these regions are bigger and better connected. People who work out on a regular basis who

  • used to be sedentary, again, studies show that in as little as a couple of months of

  • regular workouts, their prefrontal cortices are bigger and denser and better connected.

  • So these are two things that you can do that actually train the physiology of your willpower.

  • The last thing that the research suggests is what you eat has a very big influence on

  • whether or not your brain is able to be this better version of yourself. There's something

  • about having big, big spikes in blood sugar levels and then big drops in blood sugar levels

  • that really screws up how the brain uses energy and you need your brain to be like an energy

  • efficient machine if you're gonna be walking around the world in that kind of better-you

  • mindset rather than that basic-impulse-you. So, research shows that shifting to eating

  • a more plant based diet actually changes the way the brain functions and has a lot to do

  • with what's going on with your blood sugar levels. So these are things that we sometimes

  • think of as requiring willpower, right? We think, "Okay, I have to sit down and force

  • myself meditate. I have to work out. I have to say no to the donut and eat something that

  • has fiber in it for breakfast." But we rarely think about the fact that actually not doing

  • these things may be part of what makes it so difficult to begin and there's kind of

  • a curve where when we first start it feels like we're using willpower but everything

  • on this list that takes a little bit of willpower to begin with ends up giving you back far

  • more willpower than they take and not just for these challenges. It's not just that exercising

  • makes it easier to exercise, studies show that exercising makes it easier to eat right,

  • to not spend too much money, to stop procrastinating, to pay better attention, all of these things

  • have a kind of global training effect on what you could think of as your willpower muscle.

  • Was there a question up front or a comment? [Skips question]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: So the question was why does it say low glycemic and plant based?

  • There's actually more evidence that a vegan diet does this better than a diet that is

  • low glycemic and includes animal products but I'm not sure that that's entirely realistic

  • for everyone, so I think you can kind of pick which way you're willing to go with that.

  • Both low glycemic and plant based help. But if you look at just the physiology of it,

  • there's more evidence for the plant based diet. Okay, so let me go on to the next experiment.

  • So the first experiment was just get some more sleep. The second experiment, I want

  • you to think about a recent set back you had or kind of a will power failure. Maybe it

  • was not eating the healthy thing at lunch, maybe it was not doing your exercise in the

  • morning, maybe it was spending all morning long following links that had nothing to do

  • with your project. So I want you to think of a recent time when you had some kind of

  • willpower failure. [Pause]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Does anyone need to borrow one of mine?

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: You guys got one? Okay,

  • so my question for you is do you think that feeling bad about that, presumably feeling

  • maybe a little bit of regret, a little bit of guilt about it, a little bit of self criticism

  • about that, does that help us improve next time? Does that, can that be a real source

  • of future willpower? Raise your hand if you think that feeling bad can actually be a real

  • source of willpower to improve the next time. Hands up. And how many of you think that that

  • feeling bad is actually going to be a further drain on willpower? Yeah, great. Maybe some

  • of you have read that chapter in the book. So I wanna talk now about some of the research

  • that tends to surprise people the most. When I first started teaching this class, this

  • was the research people argued with, like literally couldn't get them to be quiet in

  • the classroom because they were so convinced this couldn't possibly be true. This is a

  • study looking at whether it's better to let yourself off the hook for your mistakes in

  • terms of preventing future willpower collapses. So this particular study, that I'm gonna talk

  • about in a little more detail, brought in people who were trying to manage their weight

  • and eat healthy. And they gave them an immediate willpower failure. They showed up for the

  • study and they were forced to eat a donut. And they even had to choose the flavor of

  • donut they were gonna eat so they would feel complicit in this willpower failure. And they

  • had to drink a whole glass of water too so they'd feel a little bit uncomfortably full.

  • Okay, so we have everyone, dieters here having, now, a willpower failure, they just ate this

  • donut and the next part of the study is a taste test where they are given a lot of different

  • types of candy and they're said, "You know, we want you to evaluate all these candies

  • so please just eat as much as you need to, as much as you want so that you can evaluate

  • these candies." And, of course, these candies were all pre weighed so that experimenters

  • could find out exactly how much candy the dieters ate after they had blown their diet

  • with a donut. And in this particular study the researchers had a hypothesis. They thought

  • that the guilt that dieters experience when they fall off their diet actually really undermines

  • future self control. So they wanted to create an intervention that would basically get rid

  • of the guilt and shame that people feel when they make a mistake. So in this study, half

  • the dieters were randomly assigned to receive a special "letting themselves off the hook"

  • message. So between the donut eating and the taste test, an experimenter came in and said

  • something very simple, they said, "By the way we've realized now that some people in

  • this experiment feel guilty after eating the donut." So there was an opportunity for people

  • to recognize they might be feeling guilty. Second part of the message, "We want you to

  • remember that actually everyone indulges sometimes and we asked you to do it." So there's a kind

  • of putting it in a broader perspective and the last part of the message was a simple

  • plea, "Please don't be too hard on yourself about it." Okay, so very simple. You might

  • be feeling guilty, remember everyone does it, don't be hard on yourself about it and

  • then they went on to the taste test. And what the researchers found is that the women that

  • had been given the self forgiveness message ate less than half as much candy as women

  • who had not been told, "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal" which is exactly

  • the opposite of what most people think, most people think you make a mistake, you have

  • a willpower failure and you start saying nice things to yourself about it that this could

  • only lead to disaster. It would lead to licensing even more indulgence and yet, that's exactly

  • the opposite of what was found in this study and not just this study but in a lot of different

  • studies now. This is one of the, sort of, strongest pieces of theory we have in willpower

  • research right now. That is, the harder you are on yourself when you have a willpower

  • failure, the more likely you are to have the same failure again and the bigger it's gonna

  • be when you do. For example, one study took a look at problem drinkers and had them keep

  • track of how much they were drinking and how bad they felt the morning after. What they

  • found is the people who were the most self critical and felt the most ashamed or guilty

  • about drinking the night before wanted to drink more immediately when they woke up and

  • also drank more that night and the next. There was something about the self critical nature

  • and the shame and the guilt that was driving people back to the very thing they felt bad

  • about. The same has been shown for addiction including quitting smoking, you know, you

  • have that first relapse and the more you beat yourself up about it the more you now need

  • to be comforted with something, probably the very thing that you're feeling bad about because

  • that's probably why you do it in the first place. The same has been shown for gambling,

  • the more people feel guilty and self critical about losing money, they more likely they

  • are to borrow money and try to win it back and end up losing more. And even for procrastination,

  • you may not have any kind of addictions but even for procrastination, researchers show

  • that the harder someone is on putting, the harder someone is for putting something off,

  • the longer they procrastinate the next time. And all this has to do with the basic fact

  • that when we are feeling stressed out and guilty and ashamed, that is a state that puts

  • us into the version of ourselves, the mindset that is much more susceptible to immediate

  • gratification, temptation and anxiety. It's basically the biological opposite of what

  • needs to be happening in your brain and body to remember your long term goals and to be

  • that other version of yourself. What we would call the willpower version of yourself. And

  • as soon as you start piling on the guilt and the shame, your brain switches into that other

  • mode in which now everything's gonna be more tempting including procrastinating or including

  • smoking or drinking. So I just wanted to give you a sense of what it would be like to give

  • yourself a self compassion message. Again, I said, this was a tiny intervention, this

  • donut study. And this is basically all it was. And there are a number of programs now

  • that are teaching people how to write these messages for themselves and literally have

  • them scripted for the moment they fail, for the moment that they procrastinated and they're

  • late again, for that moment when they had that cigarette when they hadn't smoked in

  • a week and to be able to whip this message out as a way of not falling down that hole

  • that we often fall into. So the three steps of this message are the first is mindfulness

  • of what you're thinking and feeling. Noticing that you're feeling guilty or noticing that

  • you're feeling self doubt or self critical, maybe angry at yourself and to actually allow

  • yourself to see those feelings because a big reason that people go from feeling guilty

  • to giving in again is they just want to get rid of that feeling, it's so kind of overwhelming

  • and they want to distract themselves from it with something that is gonna get them into

  • further trouble. And then the second step is this common humanity. One of the reasons

  • that it is hard to find our motivation and our willpower is we start to feel there's

  • something uniquely broken with us. There's something about who we are that is wrong and

  • weak and that mindset makes it very difficult to tap back into your motivation or your strength.

  • So this message of common humanity is basically saying to yourself, "You know what? This is

  • part of the process of change, this is how things get done. Sometimes we procrastinate.

  • Sometimes we fall off the wagon. Everyone is imperfect." And to recognize that this

  • is not saying anything about who you are, it's saying something about the process and

  • what matters is how you respond afterward, not the fact that it happened at all. And

  • then this last step is encouragement over criticism. And if you were to think about

  • someone you were mentoring, you know, some of you probably have mentees here or interns

  • or you think about a child that you care about or a dear friend, what would you say to them

  • when they had a set back? And to say that to yourself, it might be reminding yourself

  • of your goal, it might be reminding yourself of the big picture rather than the sort of,

  • the micro picture in which you feel like a failure. And to do that rather than the voices

  • we often have in our head that are saying things like, "Why did you do that again? You're

  • so stupid. You're never going to change." And to actually start to talk to yourself

  • a little bit in the second person as if you were a good friend. And research shows that

  • this particular approach, learning how to talk to yourself in this way is more effective,

  • for example, at quitting smoking than nicotine replacement therapy. That's how powerful being

  • able to respond to set backs with compassion can be. I want you to take a look at these

  • circles which go from being totally non overlapping to extremely overlapping and you're gonna

  • decide which of these sets of circles best represent how you feel about who you are today

  • and who you're gonna be, let's say, 30 years from now, 30 years in the future, or pick

  • a time period that feels right to you. Okay, so this is your current self and this if your

  • future self 30 years from now. This means who you are today is really very different

  • than who you're gonna be 30 years from now. Some overlap but actually a lot of change

  • is gonna be happening between now, who knows, then this last set of circles this is like,

  • you know what, who I am today is probably who I'm gonna be in 30 years, same me. Okay,

  • so you're gonna pick for yourself. Take another few seconds and think where you are on this

  • graph. Actually, let's do a kind of rolling wave cause I'm actually curious if there's

  • a trend here at Google. Just put your hand up when you see your circle highlighted. Who's

  • over here? Who's over here? Over here? Okay, over here? Oh you guys are normally distributed,

  • this is great, who's over here? [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Who's over here? And who's over here? Yeah, pretty good, pretty good.

  • That was great. Okay, so it turns out where you put yourself on this map has a lot to

  • do with some very important willpower challenges related to health and money and even moral

  • behavior. Don't feel too bad if you're at an extreme tail that is not associated with

  • willpower cause I'm gonna show you some strategies for being able to get to the end that is associated

  • with willpower if you need it. Okay, so let me start with the first intervention and this

  • was an intervention that was done here at Stanford University and this was using undergraduate

  • students who are very young and it was a virtual reality experiment where undergraduate students

  • came into the laboratory and the researchers had carefully created 3D avatars of the student

  • themselves. So if I came into the laboratory I would be meeting a 3D avatar of myself at

  • retirement age. It was a really great set up in which you got all their virtual reality

  • equipment on, hearing and seeing, and it feels like you are sitting across the table from

  • your future self and it's set up with cameras in such a way that if I move my left hand

  • like this it looks like my future self is also moving their hand and if I talk it looks

  • like my future self is talking back. And in the study the college students were invited

  • to interview their future selves, to say things like, "Hey future Kelly, what's going on right

  • now? What's really important in your life right now?" And then they had to answer the

  • question. So they would see their, I would see future Kelly describing what's important

  • in my life at retirement age. And this went on for about an hour, getting to know their

  • future selves. And the reason the researchers decided to do this intervention is because

  • they discovered that most of us feel like our future self is a stranger. And all of

  • you who are on that first half of the distribution, sort of you're thinking about your future

  • self and you don't really know who that is, they could be really an improvement on this

  • model or it could just be an older version of this model, we don't know. But what researchers

  • found is that the more you feel like your future self is a stranger, is different than

  • you, the less likely you are to do things to protect that future selves health and happiness.

  • Because why would you bother saving money for some stranger when you could spend it

  • today on someone you know and love? [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: So in this particular experiment after they had gotten to know their future

  • self, there was some time elapsed cause they didn't want it to be totally obvious what

  • was going on, there's some time elapsed and they brought people back and had them divvy

  • up $1,000 in a budgeting task. And they pretended like they were interested in how people made

  • budgeting decisions. But what they found is that the college students who had met and

  • interacted with their future self ended up allotting more than twice as much money into

  • a retirement account than college students who had not met their future self. College

  • students who had not met their future selves were more likely to want allot that money

  • to their present expenses or just to some fun splurge. And this research has actually

  • had a lot of impact in the world of retirement savings and banking. I just heard in an economist

  • recommend last week that we should be trying to Photoshop pictures of people's future selves

  • on every mortgage application or credit card application

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: So people would really

  • have to think about the implications of this. I mean, you can imagine an HR setting, right,

  • where people are a new employee and they're asked to make their retirement allocations,

  • well, what if they had to interact with their future self first? New college students coming

  • in to a first job, might make a very big difference in their retirement savings down the line.

  • Okay, so that was just one, that was the intervention, that was the experiment but I just wanna point

  • more broadly to some of the research, looking at that circle graph that I showed you, and

  • it turns out that people who believe that there is more overlap, that they are more

  • closely related to their future self have a lot more willpower for different types of

  • willpower challenges. Oops! I didn't mean to do that. The first thing is they're less

  • likely to procrastinate in general and less likely to be late. One of my favorite findings

  • from this research is that people who had, who felt like they were less similar to their

  • future self were also more likely to show up late for the experiment or skip it completely,

  • to just blow it off. That was a kind of interesting finding. They also are more comfortable, I'm

  • sorry, are more likely to make ethical decisions at work. So people who think their future

  • self is more different, like a total stranger, they're actually more likely to feel good

  • about betraying a colleague at work if it helps them advance in their career. They're

  • more likely to keep money that they found even when they might have an inkling who that

  • money belongs to and that's kind of an interesting finding cause we could understand retirement,

  • you know, future self, but it seems like this ability to disconnect from the long term consequences

  • of your choices actually primes you to be that more impulsive self even when it doesn't

  • really have anything to do with your own long term benefits. Then also, looking at real

  • world outcomes not just an experiment, but you look at what circle people choose and

  • how much money they have, their assets, their home, their debt, their wealth and people

  • who feel closer to their future self actually have more assets, are more likely to own their

  • home outright, more money in the bank, more retirement savings. So this is a real world

  • finding not just an experiment. And they're also more likely to do things that don't have

  • a payoff immediately, like flossing and exercising but that would be good to protect their future

  • self. So with that in mind, one of my favorite willpower boosting strategies that you can

  • do that doesn't really take any willpower at all, is to get to know your future self.

  • And there are, you, you, actually here maybe you can do 3D avatars, is that something,

  • is that a Google project somewhere? [Laughter]

  • >>audience member: We can't tell you.

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Can't tell you. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: So most people can't actually interact with their future self in that high

  • tech a way but it seems like there are other ways that work as well. One is to write a

  • letter from your future self to your present self and you can do this in a number of different

  • ways. One way is just write to your present self about who you are, what you're doing,

  • where you're living, what you care about. Or you could write a more closely defined

  • letter that looks at some challenge you're dealing with now. Maybe you're struggling

  • to quit some addiction or spend time with your family or just something that is seems

  • like it's just not working the way you would like it to. And you could write a letter from

  • your future self thanking your present self for doing it and describing what it was you

  • did and why it mattered. And research suggests that this kind of letter writing from your

  • future self can actually give yourself more willpower. Yes?

  • >>male audience member: Does this boomerang if you actually have low self esteem now telling

  • yourself you're gonna be more like you are now in the future?

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: That is probably not the letter you should write

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: So just for the people

  • who are watching this on the video the question was, if you feel really bad about yourself

  • now could this have the opposite effect where you think, "Oh my God, I'm never gonna change"

  • and if you're a loser now you're always gonna be a loser so the letter might be like, "Dear

  • loser, I'm still a loser. You're still a loser. Life sucks."

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: That is not the letter.

  • Actually, so research suggests it is better to be optimistic in this letter than to be

  • pessimistic. But at the same time, so the key thing about this finding is not so much

  • whether you think you're going to be exactly the same, but whether you understand that

  • it's going to be the same person having the future experience. And that, which actually

  • comes to the second point here, so that's actually a different thing. It's not like,

  • are you still going to have all the same problems and all of the same neuroses or have you fixed

  • them? It's not that kind of same self different self it's do you understand that, like you

  • know how real pain is right now if I were to come and punch you, how much that would

  • hurt? Do you understand that 30 years from now it's gonna hurt if someone punches you?

  • That seems to be the thing that people actually have problems with. When they think about

  • their future selves they don't have access to those emotions, they don't understand that

  • that future happiness is going to be as real and as important. So when you're doing this

  • kind of letter writing or doing this future self imagination, the actual critical part

  • is getting to feel like that future self is real and that it is in some way you. That

  • you are going to be the one having this experience. And it's not so much whether you think you're

  • going to be the identical person still listening to the same music you listened to in 1983

  • or not like that. Okay, so here's the second future self exercise that gets to that. And

  • I call this going back to the future. And this is the exercise of just imagining yourself

  • in the future. Studies show that just imagining yourself grocery shopping in the future, okay,

  • not like not anything even relevant to your goals but just grocery shopping then ends

  • up helping people make better decisions in the present moment that's going to lead to

  • pay off in the future because you can actually imagine it. You can imagine what would be

  • on the shelf and you know what it feels like to be pushing a shopping cart and there's

  • something about making the future real that gives us more willpower kind of independent

  • of the content, what you're thinking about. But there's also studies showing that you

  • can imagine specific futures related to your willpower challenge and both good sort of

  • future realities and negative future realities can be very motivating. So in one study they

  • had people who wanted to improve their health, to imagine the consequences of not making

  • a change, like really vividly, what's that gonna be like? What's it gonna feel like ten

  • years from now if you don't make this change? And they had another group thinking about

  • the positive consequences of making the change and what would that be like and how are you

  • gonna feel? And both of those sort of future thinking, ended up increasing the good health

  • behavior in the present. So you guys have seen Back to the Future two, right? You guys

  • have seen Back to the Future two? You know he goes into the future and there's like a

  • really bad future and a really good future, okay, at some point that reference is not

  • going to work anymore. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: Okay, here's, so we got two more interventions and this next intervention

  • I just wanna take a poll. So we're talking about visualizing things, if you had to guess

  • which would be more helpful for finding your willpower, do you think it's more helpful

  • to imagine or visualize yourself failing or is it more helpful to visualize and imagine

  • yourself succeeding? Raise your hand if you think imaging failure is gonna be more helpful.

  • Raise your hand if you think imagine success. You guys are such typical Americans.

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: Okay, that's what everyone

  • thinks. So, actually it turns out imagining failure is way more helpful than imagining

  • success. Not that imagining success is always bad but imagining failure is better. So let

  • me tell you about this one intervention and then some of the theory a little bit more

  • broadly. In this particular study they took women from young adult to middle age, a little

  • bit older adult all of whom were not exercising at all and all of whom had the goal to exercise

  • and some of those women were randomly assigned to your typical it's good to exercise, here's

  • why you should exercise, now think about your goal and imagine yourself doing it, very typical.

  • And the other half were randomly assigned to what they called an obstacle condition

  • where they had to imagine themselves failing. They had to ask themselves, "When are you

  • gonna not exercise? What is the obstacle going to be? When is it gonna happen? What are you

  • gonna do if that happens?" And they had people write about that every single day. They had

  • to write out, when are you gonna not exercise? What are you gonna say to yourself that allows

  • you not to exercise? When's it gonna happen? How's it gonna happen and what are you gonna

  • do when you start to recognize that stuff happening? So the women were becoming kind

  • of detectives of their own failure and every day they revised what they were writing based

  • on what they noticed. "I didn't exercise cause I told myself I'll do it later, I'll do it

  • later, I'll do it later, now it's time to go to sleep." Or, "I didn't do it because

  • I go so busy at work then I didn't have my sneakers so I didn't do it." And they became

  • very clear about how they fail and they were able to predict future failures from that.

  • Here's what the results were, it had an immediate effect of doubling the amount of time they

  • were exercising. So the very first week they started to predict their failures in this

  • way, they doubled to 102 minutes of exercise a week and that's getting pretty close to

  • the amount of exercise that you need to have very serious health benefits, both mental

  • health and physical health. There was a much smaller improvement here in the group of women

  • who were given the standard, "You wanna exercise. Exercise is great, let's do it!" And 16 weeks,

  • so 4 months after that study, the women who had been predicting their failure had maintained

  • and were exercising twice as much as the women who were in the basic 'let's exercise, here's

  • why it's good'. This is the thing that always blows people's minds. There is a lot of studies

  • that show tracking your success leads people to slack off in the long run but nobody believes

  • it. So you probably heard how important it is to keep track of your success because we

  • feel really good when we're able to write down that we did something, right? You know

  • you feel something really good and you're like, "Yes! Check it off!"

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: Some people make to do

  • lists just so they can check stuff off. And we know how good we feel when we're able to

  • write down and record our successes and we mistake that feeling good as motivation to

  • do more. But a number of studies show that when people are reminded of their success

  • and take note of their progress they are much more likely to then do something inconsistent

  • with their goal. So if you are somebody, for example, there's studies of dieters where

  • people come in and the experimenter says, "By the way, we wanted to let you know how

  • much progress you've made on losing weight. You're this close to your goal, you've been

  • doing great." And on the way out of the lab, "Would you like a chocolate bar?" And women

  • are much more likely to take the chocolate bar if they were reminded of their success.

  • The same studies been shown for procrastination. You have people that keep track and feel good

  • about their progress that they've made on a task and they're much more likely to choose

  • not to work on it. And this is the goal switching hypothesis. The idea is that any willpower

  • challenge is a competition between these two versions of yourself and they're both you.

  • And as soon as your mind realizes that one of you is satisfied because you made some

  • progress, the other goal becomes primed in your brain and it becomes more appealing.

  • So I don't wanna say don't keep track of your success cause I think, what I really wanna

  • encourage you to do is both. But let me just, let me point to a couple other ideas along

  • this line. Okay, so about why pessimism can be so helpful because it's profoundly un-American

  • to be pessimistic when you have a goal and I just wanna encourage you to think about

  • using pessimism as actually a source of willpower. So there's this kind of finding floating around

  • that people who are most optimistic about their ability to make a difficult change,

  • give up sooner and are most likely to fail and it tends to be because they are shocked

  • by their setbacks. So one of the ways that predicting failure can be helpful is that

  • when it happens it's not like some shock to your system where you can't believe it happened,

  • it must say something bad about who you are or about your likelihood of success in the

  • future. There's also interesting studies, as I mentioned that optimism, well this is

  • both progress and optimism, but studies show that if you have people making optimistic

  • predictions about what they're going to do, they're more likely to then not do it today.

  • So people who intend to exercise tomorrow are more likely to eat something unhealthy

  • today and skip the gym. Even just having people think about what they're gonna do in their

  • future makes people more likely to make a different choice today. So just knowing that

  • you're gonna be just as tempted tomorrow, you're gonna be just as busy tomorrow, just

  • as stressed out tomorrow turns out to be an important source of willpower today. Okay,

  • then this, I just had to throw this in cause I think this is one of the funniest findings

  • in the willpower research. That 75 percent of corporations that are investigated by the

  • SEC for fraud can be tracked by to initial optimism that then people were unwilling to

  • let go of. They were so optimistic about profit, their profit projections, that when they met

  • their first setback they didn't know what to do and they started to fudge the numbers.

  • And this is something that we all do with our own goals when we set very high ideals

  • and then refuse to adjust our expectations based on reality. This is something I run

  • into a lot at Stanford, people say they wanna make big change or they have a big goal in

  • mind and they aren't the least bit interested in setting a small goal or a baby step cause

  • how is that gonna ever get me where I want? So let's go big or go home. And then when

  • they start to run into problems with that huge level of success, they kind of hang on

  • to the ideal and yet end up doing nothing. So you can think of yourself as your own little

  • corporation with goals and if you find yourself hitting setbacks one of the most important

  • things you can do is adjust your expectations and take a really serious look at the process

  • of how failures working. So here is, um, here is an example form that exercise study that's

  • a little broadened out and this is basically the writing exercise those women were doing

  • that doubled the amount of time they were putting into their goal. And they were supposed

  • to do this writing exercise every day. The first is to identify your goal and what would

  • be a really positive outcome of that? So you gotta get your motivation on board, right?

  • Then what are you gonna do to take it? So you set some clearly defined steps and then

  • you spend some time thinking about how is this not going to happen. When and where and

  • why? Is there anything you can do in advance to prevent that failure? And when failure

  • happens, what are you gonna do about it? You don't actually have to make it 7 full steps

  • like this but it's a very basic exercise that you can do for any goal. I think of it as

  • being like stress testing a goal. You have a goal, you say you're gonna do something,

  • well now put it to the test and find out how it's gonna break, how it's gonna fail. Okay,

  • last intervention. Let's all do it together unless you have health problems and, you know,

  • I don't want anyone to pass out or have a stroke. So if you are willing to take this

  • challenge we're just gonna hold our breath for 15 seconds. Whose got a second hand? Great!

  • You're gonna time us. Okay, only if you wanna do this. Take a deep breath in. Look at your

  • second hand, go ahead and take a deep breath out, now exhale, exhale, exhale it out, stop

  • breathing. Time us. Remember you can breathe anytime you want to if you need to. I just

  • want you to notice how this feels. 3, 2, 1 breathe. Good, okay, so holding your breath

  • obviously that's a little bit of a willpower challenge. Some of you maybe need to hold

  • your breath for two minutes to feel it but I did not want anyone passing out. So would

  • you believe that this ability to hold your breath is one of the best predictors of people's

  • ability to succeed at difficult goals? It's kind of interesting. Psychologists call this

  • distress tolerance. The ability to stay put when things get uncomfortable. So I wanna

  • tell you now about a small intervention that teaches people how to sort of hold their breath

  • but not exactly, how to basically ride out physical discomfort that gets in the way of

  • making a difficult change. I'm gonna tell you about two different studies that are basically

  • using the same technique. So you can kind of pick your willpower challenge here. The

  • first I call the torture chamber and this is the study of smokers that wanted to quit

  • but had been unable to. And the researches asked the smokers to abstain from smoking

  • for 24 hours, sort of a first challenge and then to come into the laboratory with a fresh

  • unopened pack of their favorite brand of cigarettes. So all the smokers show up, they've got their

  • pack, they are desperate for a smoke, and they even like carbon monoxide tested them

  • to make sure they hadn't smoked, so they had all, they were ready for a cigarette. They

  • all get, they seated at a long table and asked to put away all distractions except for a

  • lighter or a match and their cigarettes. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: So you've got a bunch of smokers now they're ready. And then the experimenter

  • is about to begin the process of allowing them to smoke and she says, actually through

  • a microphone like that, you hear this voice that says, "Take out your pack of cigarettes"

  • And everyone does, they're all excited, "Woo hoo!" "Stop!" Okay

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: They have to wait 2 minutes

  • now and they're not allowed to do anything except look at their pack of cigarettes.

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: "Pull off the cellophane!"

  • "Okay, great, whew!" "Stop!" Two minutes they have to wait. "Pack it" Oh, there was pack,

  • I don't smoke so I forget some of these steps, they had to pack the pack, too and they got

  • the cellophane open, okay. "Take out a cigarette" "Finally!" "Stop!" They have to wait 2 minutes

  • and this goes on and every two minutes they're writing down how intense their cravings are

  • and how much they want to smoke but other than that they're not allowed to do anything.

  • "Take a cigarette out" "Stop!" Two minutes. "Look at the cigarette" "Stop!" Two minutes.

  • "Smell the cigarette." "Stop!" Two minutes. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: "Put the cigarette in your mouth" "Stop!" Two minutes. "Take out a lighter,

  • look at it." "Stop!" Two minutes. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: This went on for over an hour.

  • [Laughter] >>Kelly McGonigal: Nobody was actually allowed

  • to light the cigarette, okay. So here's what, I didn't tell you what the actual intervention

  • was yet, half of them before this happened had been taught a technique called surfing

  • the urge in which you learn to pay attention to the physical discomfort of wanting something,

  • you give it your full attention and you trust that you can tolerate those physical sensations

  • and if you just wait with patience they will go away. That any craving, any emotion will

  • eventually pass if you can just breathe and wait, wait it out. But you don't have to act

  • on every impulse or emotion. So that's the technique they were taught, they were surfing

  • the urge, they were imagining those cravings as a wave that they were getting on and they

  • were just gonna breathe and they knew that would eventually end just like a wave. Before

  • I tell you the result of this study, let me just give you the food one. The food one's

  • a little bit different. They took people who have had problems with self control around

  • food, especially sweets, gave them a clear container of Hershey's Kisses, a transparent

  • container and they had to carry that box of Hershey's Kisses around with them for 48 hours

  • and were not allowed to eat a single one and they were all carefully marked, little pin

  • scratch so the researchers would know if they ate them and restocked it which would not

  • be cool. [Laughter]

  • >>Kelly McGonigal: And they were taught the same technique about how to handle cravings.

  • How to surf the urge, allow yourself to feel the craving and yet remember you don't need

  • to act on it and the craving will go away eventually. Okay, so the results. In this

  • study, the smokers who'd been taught how to surf the urge in that one hour torture test,

  • they ended up reducing their cigarette smoke by 40 percent in the very next week even though

  • the researchers had not asked them to. The control group did not reduce their cigarettes

  • at all and interestingly in the people would learn to surf the urge, there was now no longer

  • a connection between psychological stress and smoking which is actually, that's the

  • main connection for most people who are trying to quit, they're stressed out, they're anxious

  • and so they need a cigarette. And in this particular group with this intervention, it

  • cut that link between stress and giving in probably because they had a tool for dealing

  • with difficult feelings and emotions. In this study, the people who had trouble with self

  • control around food, if they were taught to surf the urge, 0 had a single Hershey's Kiss

  • over the entire 48 hours whereas those who'd been given other strategies including distraction

  • ended up much more likely to give in and also really stressed out about it. So these are

  • just two different examples about how surfing the urge can give us a lot of willpower for

  • the things where we need willpower. You know, a lot of times I hear people talk about how

  • important it is to build good habits but the reality is sometimes you need strength to

  • do something difficult and there's no habit in the world that's gonna make you not want

  • a cigarette when you see it or want a donut when you see it or maybe you wanna avoid something

  • cause you're anxious. There's a real impulse and a real feeling that you need to deal with

  • and this power of acceptance seems to be the best strategy for dealing with these difficult

  • emotions, these difficult thoughts and these difficult cravings. And any attempt to kind

  • of push them away or get rid of them backfires but being able to ride them out and imagine

  • them as passing experiences that you don't need to act on has been shown to help a lot

  • of different willpower challenges including the kind of anxiety that leads us to not do

  • things we know we should do. Intrusive thoughts, you know, that's a real willpower challenge.

  • Sometimes our mind goes places we don't want it to go, to memories or to things we're imagining

  • or to negative thoughts about ourselves and others and research shows you can apply the

  • same technique to a negative thought without having to act on it. It's been shown to improve

  • weight loss, it actually, this technique of learning how to accept your own cravings,

  • tripled the long term one year weight loss success rate among people who were in a really

  • standard weight loss program. It helped substance abuse and it even helps people with schizophrenia.

  • I mean, talk about a willpower challenge when you have voices in your own head that you

  • cannot escape and you're trying desperately to have some kind of normal life and relationship

  • with the world when you've got these voices in your head that are telling you to do something

  • or not to do something. And studies show that schizophrenics who learn to accept their own

  • intrusive thoughts and hallucinations and delusions, like a craving, that's not real

  • and you don't need to act on it but it's gonna be there and eventually it will pass, they

  • actually end up being more likely to be out of the hospital, be dehospitalized and function

  • normally compared to people who have not been taught this technique. Okay, so if you want

  • to apply this technique to any willpower challenge yourself, here's what that small intervention

  • would look like for yourself. Here's what people were taught in both of those studies

  • and the first is this mindfulness to allow yourself to feel what you're feeling or think

  • what you're thinking and to actually attend to the experience rather than immediately

  • try to escape it. So if you're hungry, actually notice like, what does hunger feel like in

  • my body? Or if you're anxious, what does anxiety feel like in my body right now? And then to

  • actually just breathe, breathe it out, use the breath as a source of stability. You know

  • what you're feeling, take a few breaths and then broaden your attention out and look for

  • the first opportunity to recommit to your goal, that's what they were taught in both

  • the smoking study and in the Hershey's Kiss study and it's a technique that you can practice,

  • it takes like 30 seconds and it can help with any sort of willpower challenge. Okay, so

  • just to wrap up, 5 willpower rules and I would just invite you to think if you heard anything

  • today that might be relevant to your willpower challenge, to give yourself this short dose,

  • this small dose intervention and see how it works because that's actually the nature of

  • the class and the nature of the book. It's basically to become a willpower scientist

  • yourself, to get some ideas from the research and then test it out. I mean, you've got a

  • hypothesis you can see if it works or not, collect your own data. So those five strategies,

  • one is to train your willpower physiology by meditating, by sleeping, by exercising

  • or by eating a diet that's gonna sustain your energy. Forgive yourself the next time you

  • have a willpower setback. Make friends with your future self, kind of think about the

  • future in a way that feels real. Predict your failure even though it's really nice to imagine

  • success, really get interested in the process of how you fail. And then, finally, think

  • about surfing the urge when you are facing temptation. And thank you, boy you guys, you

  • waited it out, you showed a lot of willpower sticking around here.

  • [Laughter] [Applause]

>>Presenter: I'm delighted to welcome to the Googleplex Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist

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