As a health psychologist, Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s job is to help people manage stress and make positive changes in their lives. After years of watching people try to control their bodies, emotions, and choices, she realized that much of what they believed about willpower was sabotaging their success and creating unnecessary stress.
It became clear that many scientific insights about self-control had not yet become part of public understanding. This led to the creation of Kelly’s Stanford University course, “The Science of Willpower,” which has helped hundreds of people achieve their goals by understanding the science behind why we give in to temptation, and how we can find the strength to resist.
The course is now a book, The Willpower Instinct, which combines the newest insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine to explain what exactly willpower is, how it works, and why it matters.
