Nir EyalSpeaker on Behavioral Science, NYT Bestselling Author, Former Stanford Lecturer

Willpower only runs out when we believe it will #shorts

Name: Willpower only runs out when we believe it will #shorts
Uploaded: 2024-12-11T13:00:40+00:00
Duration: 50 s
Channel: Nir Eyal
Description: Nir Eyal argues that willpower is not an inherently limited resource (the ego-depletion model is false) except insofar as people believe it is — belief…

11 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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Nir Eyal argues that willpower is not an inherently limited resource (the ego-depletion model is false) except insofar as people believe it is — belief creates a self-fulfilling limitation. He cautions against adopting disempowering labels (e.g., "addicted," "slave") and references his book Indistractable to reframe temperament and self-control.

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Is willpower a resource that runs out? There is this popular notion that willpower is a limited resource. Turns out that this idea of ego depletion that we run out of willpower like gas in a gas tank, turns out not to be true, except people who believe that willpower is a depletable resource. And so I talk about this in the book Indistractable as a way that we have to reimagine our temperament, that if you believe you are spent temperament, you are. And so when you hear people saying things like, we're all addicted to technology, if you believe that stuff, of course that's the case. The word addiction comes from the Latin addictio, which means slave. So when you say to yourself, I am a slave, I am addicted. I have no more willpower. I'm spent, you're making it true. And so we have to be very, very careful about these labels and make sure that we only adopt the labels that serve us rather than the ones that hurt us.