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Kurt Hulhan: Why it takes more than willpower to achieve your goals. We've talked about the role that environment has, about how routines play into goal achievement and how we can use tools to achieve this goal achievement dance. So let's start with the willpower myth. And if you're failing at achieving your goals or doing things that you want to achieve, the problem is obviously that you just don't have enough willpower.

Between setting your goals and reaching your goals, there is a void that we assume willpower can fill. But to achieve success, it takes more than willpower alone. Thankfully there are some well researched tools that we can set in place to help us flourish.

Hosts of Behavioral Grooves Kurt Nelson and Tim Houlihan sit down for a succinct Groove Track episode summarizing the myths about willpower, what other factors are at play when striving for our goals, and the tools we can use to help us succeed.

Key takeaways:

Willpower is not enough on its own.
Your environment - both your physical and social contexts - influence your behavior.
Routines can help you achieve your goals.

And routines work best when they:

Fit into our lifestyle.
Focus on the steps to the goal.
Fuel consistency.
Provide intrinsic or extrinsic reward.

And tools are useful to:

Help remind and motivate.
Assist with planning and strategizing.
Track and measure our progress.

Links

Mazuch & Rona (2005), “Creating healing environments: humanistic architecture and therapeutic design”: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/creating-healing-environments-humanistic/docview/212385610/se-2

McMains & Kastner (2011), “Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21228167/

Wendy Wood, “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick”: https://amzn.to/3LTMlYl

Katy Milkman, “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be”: https://amzn.to/3pzBb3t

The Brain/Shift Journal - Scientifically Proven Guided Journal for Goal Setting and Achieving: A 13-Week Undated Planner, Organizer, and Notebook for Personal Productivity: https://amzn.to/42rjilP