You realized you were facing a more difficult problem than you had thought. You didn’t have the willpower and self-control to decrease your intake of fattening foods enough to actually lose weight. You decided to get help!
Introducing The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.
The quiz below about losing weight is based on the first chapter in The Willpower Instinct, a self-help book written by Standford University Professor Kelly McGonigal. The book explains the components of willpower and how they work together, why self-control matters, and exercises you can perform to increase your willpower to overcome falling victim to unhealthy cravings and urges, such as, smoking, losing your temper, overeating, or having affairs.
Each of the ten chapters has “assignments”. One type of assignment, called “Under the Microscope”, asks you to pay attention to your mind’s self-talk. The second kind, called “Willpower Experiments”, are proven strategies for increasing your self-control and willpower.
To demonstrate how the book works, we have created a ‘warm up’ for you and a fictional character, Jim, for the first chapter. If you have difficulty determining the correct answer for a particular quiz question, the beginning sentence(s) of the next question will provide more information to help you.
We will provide you with “tips” from the remaining nine chapters and tell you how Jim fared with controlling his food cravings. The tips will give information to help you decide if you want to continue working on your will power by buying the book.
Chapter 1 – I Will, I Won’t, I Want: What Willpower Is, and Why It Matters
Jim spent one week reading and studying the first chapter.
He learned that we need will power to resist certain cravings or impulses that are: