Book Of The Week - Maximum Willpower by Kelly McGonigal

Hello Fellow Bookworms!

We are diving into a new reading adventure this week, with a quest in hand! I, as much as everyone else have struggled a lot with self-discipline and self-control in my life. Creativity, innovativeness, motivation, they are all there, yet somehow, I don’t push through and finish my goals and tasks.

There I am on a great, awesome start, and halfway through I drop my goals. Whether I rushed and got overly excited for a new goal and completely forgot on the old one, or I was just getting lazy and burnt out – I didn’t persevere.

And it’s so frustrating! That’s why I started to do research to discover what makes me tick, what is it in me that pulls the break on my achievements. That’s how I discovered Maximum Willpower by Kelly McGonigal, and my whole world shifted.

I understood that willpower is important to get you started but to push through on the other side of success you need to understand yourself better, and how your mind works. It’s an amazing book! So, what makes it so amazing?

Why should you read Maximum Willpower by Kelly McGonigal?

The book starts off with Kelly’s direct approach to the subject. No fluff, no bs, just straight to business.

She explains how all people struggle with being in control in their own lives, and one way or another at some point we all feel like we failed at life because we are not being persistent enough to achieve the fulfilling life we deserve. The book continues by breaking down the three principles/powers of willpower – I won’t, I will and I want powers.

First off she explains how these powers work, and how to make your willpower challenges by using one of your powers. Then, she encourages you to practice the weekly experiments she teaches in her class that has brought the most success to her students.

Basically she teaches you how to experiment on yourself, or to be more exact on your will each week, and to see which experiment works best for you. Although the book is the best-read and practiced at the same time, if you don’t have the patience to devote multiple weeks on it, you can also just read through it, and still, be wiser than when you started it.

Kelly is an amazing writer that explains even the most complicated concepts in a simple, understandable way so that you can make sure you push through on the other side – no matter how you choose to read her book.

Students who were harder on themselves for procrastinating on their first exam were more likely to procrastinate on later exams than students who forgave themselves. The harder they were on themselves about procrastinating the first time, the longer they procrastinated for the next exam! Forgiveness—not guilt—helped them get back on track.

Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

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