Willpower

“So again, you don't have a willpower problem. You're not lazy. You have an equation problem. Willpower is really hard to scale. Equations, though, they can be solved.”

“Well, it turns out it's not true. That when we try and replicate those studies, and this happens in the social science, this is how science works. Science doesn't say anything. Science is the process of doing repeated experiments and seeing if they replicate, …”

“And what I found was that they are not the type of person who just has hardcore willpower. It's that they design an environment Where their willpower isn't tested.”

“In fact, I'm absolutely convinced the willpower doesn't exist. Free will doesn't exist. We have sort of a separate entity that makes, makes decisions that is not tied into the deterministic world. I'm very convinced that that is an illusion and it's a very, ve…”

“And it turns out that these studies around ego depletion could not replicate. We couldn't find the effect. And so there was one exception to this, and that exception was in a study done by Carol Dweck. She's one of my research heroes. She wrote the book Mindse…”

“Figuring out how to first do the important things that matter, second, do the hard things because those build willpower, and then third, do the efficient things because we all have to be humans paying bills and normal things like that.”

“I don't think that 40 years ago people had that much more willpower than they do today. I just think that the environment has gotten so much worse that you would need more willpower today to fight the gravitational pull Of this environment.”

“Our willpower is not, you know, an inexhaustible resource. We wake up in the morning, whenever our morning is, with more willpower than we'll have at the end of the day because we've tired it out. So we can't exclusively rely on our willpower. We have to reall…”

“Trying to win this game with willpower is a losing game. If you put yourself in a situation where you have option A and option B, you're probably going to lose 50% of the time or more.”

“It takes willpower to make good decisions. It doesn't take a lot of willpower to follow a schedule.”

“Long story short, willpower is not the fuel to use. If I use a willpower, I fail. Instead, I'm going to find a way to do this in a way that's enjoyable because when I like it, I'll do it.”

“Willpower. Grossly overrated. Yeah. Willpower. Good luck on that one. We all need help.”

“So in that study, there was a control group that learned about willpower and how important it is to, like, you know, use willpower to accomplish your goals, and then there was a neutral control group, and what we found is that the condition that increased acad…”

“I believe that no one is able to do this all by themselves. I don't necessarily believe in willpower as some people would call it. Some people might argue with me, but I think that most people need some type of support. I'm talking about those that are really …”

“They say when you're done with your decision-making energy, there's only two ways to replenish it. Number one is sleep, and number two is glucose, or anything that turns into glucose in your body.”