Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / FOCUS: The Part of the Brain Responsible for Willpower. How it Differs in Size & Why it Determines your Level of Restraint (which can be changed)

Transcript

FOCUS: The Part of the Brain Responsible for Willpower. How it Differs in Size & Why it Determines your Level of Restraint (which can be changed) · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Now, why is it that some people can stick something
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: out longer? They can seem to push past adversity repeatedly
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: when it feels like for you or for not you
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: specifically listening where it might feel like for you or
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: for many people that you look at people who do
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that and you think, how are they doing it? When
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I come across the first hurdle or the first bit
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of adversity, I falter and I'm back at square one,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and then I can't push through. I get tempted. I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: don't have self control. I might have the drive to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: follow through with something, but when it comes to saying no,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I can't do it, why is that? Okay? What is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the difference between those people's brains and your brain? They
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: have this ingrained belief and this ability that when things
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: are hard and when things require effort, it is effort
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that they are willing to give. And that is where
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: willpower comes in. Willpower is this will require an effort
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: that I'm willing to give. People who struggle to stick
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: something out, or have no self control or can't resist
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: temptation see it as this requires more efforts than I'm
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: willing or able to give. So it requires more willpower
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: than I think I have, and therefore I cannot administer
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: said willpower, and therefore I want Okay. Now, the interesting
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: thing about going back to this part of the brain.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Athletes and people that are constantly, you know, putting themselves
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: in difficult situations and constantly of becoming new adversities and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: constantly testing themselves again and again and again, they have
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a larger area in the brain that anterior mid singular
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: cortex is larger than someone who doesn't do that all
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the time. Okay, so you're also starting to see that it's, yes,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you could look at it as a psychological thing, but
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: it's very much a physical change in the brain that's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: occurring that then allows someone to have more willpower, to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: have more of this belief that well, yep, it's hard,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: but I've got it in me, versus someone else is like,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I couldn't. I just can't. I can't resist it comes out,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and I just can't say, oh, and I can't get
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: myself up in the morning, and I just can't do it. Okay.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The beauty of it is that the more you engage
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: in these behaviors that you don't like, that require grit,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and you know that push through that region of the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: brain starts to grow. So it's not like it's not
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: like this is the beauty of these studies. It's not
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: like the people that are really driven athletes to do
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: all these really hard things are just born with a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: bigger area and that's why they're driven. They are driven
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: because they've been able to grow that area in the brain,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and vice versa. The people that have no willpower and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: no self control, it's not that they were born with
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: this small area versus other people. It's because they haven't
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: pushed past this threshold and they haven't worked it and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: trained it like a muscle, and therefore it has stayed small,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and therefore it's really hard to administer self control and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: willpower and tenacity. That's the beauty of it. So they're
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: two completely separate things. The reason they are the size
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: that they are is because of behavior and not the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: other way around. That's what we've been able to see
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: from these studies. So it's a muscle. I mean, it's
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: not actually a muscle, but it it behaves like a muscle.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: The more you use it, the stronger it gets, the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: more endurance it has, and the bigger it gets, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it really pains me to hear people talk about how
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: they just can't do something. There's so much that right
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: now that you probably think you can't do, but that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you're actually capable of doing. If there's one thing that
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to get from this episode is that, like,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: if there's one fucking difference in your life that this
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: particular episode will make, is that it is in you
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to actually become capable of doing something, capable of sticking
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: something out, having that will power that you see other
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: people haven thinking, imagine what it would be like to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: have that and stick something through and say no when
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I said I wasn't gonna drink this fucking month, and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: then the glasses in front of me on day two
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and I just can't say no. Yes you can if
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you train this part of your brain, and once that
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: part of the brain grows, you realize, wait, not only
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: can I do that, but I can do much, much,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: much harder things for a longer period of time. Okay,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So you might be in a different starting base than
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: other people. You might be someone who's never really trained
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: this part of your brain. So you're gonna have to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: start small. And it's not necessarily linear either, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: you go through waves of growth as well. Somethings are
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: going to be a little bit harder, somethings are going
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to be really really difficult, but eventually you start to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: train it and grow it and train it and grow
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: it again. Just like a muscle. It's not this linear growth.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: You go through bouts of growth, okay, And we all
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: start somewhere different and that's okay. And if you start
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: off worse than the people around you, that's not a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: reason for you to not give yourself a chance. Okay.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: You deserve to give yourself a chance and give it
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a red hot crack at growing this part of your
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: brain just as much as anyone else. Because it's really
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: easy to sit here and say, well, based on the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: history that I have and based on the life I have,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: or based on the upbringing or my situations or my
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: environment or whatever, I've never been encouraged or raised or
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: taught how to do that. So I'm really struggling and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I'm in the worst place, so why bother. Instead, you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: should look at it as I've never been given that,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: nor have I been taught that, So I'm now going
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to give myself that gift.