Willpower is a finite resource. This slide deck describes what scientists know about willpower, grit, and the ironic secret to become more resilient. (Hint: It's Habits)

1. True Grit:
How to Succeed
When WillPower Fails

2. Don’t Eat the Marshmallow
• 1960s - Walter Mischel
• Group of 4 year olds
• Brought into room to make a deal

3. Irresistible?
• If they could resist for 15 minutes… Double
• Results?
• Only 1 in 3 children lasted the full 15 minutes
• Average was only 5 minutes

4. Purpose
• The experiment’s initial purpose : How to resist temp.
• Results: They Distracted Themselves
Some thought of it as a picture
Some focused on aspects (ex: looks like a cloud)
Some simply looked away

5. As the years went by…
• Followed up with participants
• First by simply asking his own kids (in school with them)
• A larger pattern began taking shape
• Nothing short of amazing

6. The Importance of willpower
• Better willpower at 4 = better grades/ test scores
• Full 15 minutes:
Average 210 points higher on SATs
More popular with peers and teachers
Less trouble in school
Earn higher salaries
Less problems with drugs/alchohol
Lower BMI
BUT WHAT IS WILLPOWER AND HOW CAN WE STRENGTHEN IT?

7. Some Principles of WillPower
1. WillPower is like a muscle
Can exhaust it - (when do most people cheat on diets)
Can strengthen it over time
2. WillPower is Finite
Radishes vs. Cookies
Resist the cookies = Less Grit

8. Principles of WillPower
3. EGO DEPLETION
WillPower has four forms and using one depletes the
other
It doesn’t matter how you’re applying self-control to your
emotions: if you are using self-control, then you are
depleting your supply of willpower.

9. Ego Depletion 2
• Experiment 1: a group of strangers met, got to know each other and
then were separated.
• Either picked by all all or none (not true)
• Then have to take an IQ and reasoning test
• Expected = aggression scores increased in the rejected groups,
• Unexpectedly, the IQ scores dropped immediately by about 25
percent.
• Analytical reasoning scores dropped by 30 percent

10. Principles of WillPower
• 4 broad categories of willpower:
• control thoughts (e.g. ignore something, think about
nothing while meditating, etc)
• control emotions (e.g. escape a bad mood)
• impulse control (e.g. resisting a candy bar or alcoholic
drink that’s in front of you, or some other temptation)
• performance control (e.g. managing your effort, time,
speed and accuracy, etc)

11. Decision Fatigue
• 4. Making choices is exhausting.
• Researchers did an experiment where they showed college
students a various assortment of trinkets.
• One group of students was asked to think about which trinket they
wanted.
• The other group was asked to make a series of choices between
pairs of trinkets (“would you rather have the candle or the
toothbrush?”, “The brown candle or the red candle?”, etc).
• After - hold their hand in ice cold water for as long as possible

12. Glucose fuels Willpower
• Glucose = fuel
• Sugary foods provide quick hit, but slow burning sources
better

13. Hardwired For Success
• When Scientists Studied the Brains of Athlete Athletes
they noticed something surprising….
• Hypothesis: Brain Activity would be elevated during game
• Instead….

14. Plummeted
• Brain activity actually plummeted.
• Much less activity than amateur players
• Why?

15. Our Brain
• “The brain is constantly trying to automate processes,
thereby dispelling them from consciousness; in this way
its work will be completed faster, more effectively, and at
a lower metabolic level. Consciousness, on the other
hand, is slow, subject to error, and expensive.”
• Gerhard Roth, Neuroscientist

16. Automate
• The Human Brain hardwires everything it can
• Designed to make everything automatic
• Frees up room for high stakes decision making

17. How much is automated?
• How much of your behavior do you think is unconscious?
How much is done without a concentrated effort?

18. The 95 %
• Cognitive neuroscientists estimate it at 95%
• Most of decisions, actions, emotions and behavior goes
beyond our conscious awareness
• About 40 % of what we do each day are habits
• Our brain weighs 2% of total weight but actually burns
20% of calories and energy
• Our Brain is designed to save us from thinking

19. Who Brushed Their Teeth
This Morning ?
• WWII = “National Security Crisis.”
• Pepsodent - Claude Hopkins
• “Film. A Dangerous Coating that Robs Teeth of
Whiteness.” (Cue)
• So to get rid of film… Brush Your Teeth (Routine)
• Tingly Feeling (Reward)

20. Habits… Not WillPower
• Duckworth - 2015 (yes the Grit Lady)
• 6 Studies
• In Study 1, habits for eating healthy snacks, exercising,
and getting consistent sleep -increased automaticity and
lower reported effortful inhibition in enacting those
behaviors.
• Studies 2 and 3, study habits - motivational interference
during a work–leisure conflict and on greater ability to
study even under difficult circumstances.

21. • In Study 4, homework habits effect of self-control on
classroom engagement and homework completion.
• Study 5 was a prospective longitudinal study of teenage
youth who participated in a 5-day meditation retreat.
Habits mediated the effect of self-control on successfully
accomplishing meditation practice goals.
• Finally, in Study 6, habits on homework completion and 2
objectively measured long-term academic outcomes:
grade point average and first-year college persistence.

22. Habits not Inhibition
• Results suggest that beneficial habits—perhaps more so
than effortful inhibition—are an important factor linking
self-control with positive life outcomes.

23. All Habits Follow This loop
• MIT Scientists discovered the Habit Loop with Mice in
Maze
• First few times brain activity went through the roof as they
the mouse tried to get to end
• Then Brain activity slowed

24. Bad Habits (Read Behaviors)
Everything a child does serves a purpose
There is a payoff
A payoff = getting what you want
No payoff = not getting what you want

25. How to Build Habits
THE FRAMEWORK:
• Identify the routine
• Experiment with rewards
• Isolate the cue
• Have a plan

26. Step 1:
• 1) Identify the routine.
• Calling out in class

27. Step 2:
Experiment with Rewards
• 2) Experiment with different rewards. Rewards satisfy
cravings.
• But the tricky part is that we are often not conscious of
the cravings that drive our behaviors.
• This is why asking students “why” they did something is
often fruitless

28. Behavioral Rewards
Because it feels good (Sensory)
Candy…. Yeah Dopamine!
To get out of something (Escape)
Think of a student who doesn't like a subject
To get attention (Attention)
Calling out in class… Being defiant in front of friends
To get something (Tangible)
A grade

29. Step 3: Isolate the Cue
• 3) Isolate the cue.

30. Step 4: Have a Plan
• 4) Have a plan. Decide exactly what you will do when the
craving hits then follow your plan.

31. Tool to Use
• Routine: Quietly beginning warm-up
• Cue: Walking in the door
• Reward: Positive Feedback from Teacher / Positive
Points etc.
• The key to this is: Rewards are only necessary until the
routine becomes automatic.

32. Tools to Use: WOOP
• Wish
• Outcome
• Obstacle (Identify the Habit Loop here)
• Plan - Plan to overcome the inflection point

33. • Publicly Declare Goal - New Years Habits
• Track progress
• tracking bad habits (ex: calling out in class) reduces
• Find Small Wins and Reinforce them