Willpower Expert: The Secret To Effortless Discipline - Angela Duckworth - #1158

Modern Wisdom

Angela Duckworth discusses how her research on grit has evolved from focusing solely on individual effort to recognizing the profound impact of environment, situation, and social ecosystems on success. She explains why highly disciplined

Key takeaways

• Angela Duckworth notes that highly successful people rarely rely on willpower; instead, they design their lives to minimize friction and maximize alignment.
• Michael Phelps's record-breaking career was enabled by his coach Bob Bowman, the Baltimore Aquatic Center ecosystem, and a mother who strategically managed his ADHD environment.

Main topics

• Grit vs. Environmental Design
• Burnout and Situational Mismatch

Notable quotes

Highly successful people are not using willpower. Highly successful people are doing exactly what you said, which is they're arranging their lives so they don't need to use willpower.

Conclusion

The episode provides a science-backed framework for replacing brute-force willpower with strategic

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) People of the UK and Ireland, if you want to come and see me live, tickets are very limited for my live tour this October, but they are still available. Dublin is already sold out. However, if you're a fan of modern wisdom, if you love psychology, philosophy, human nature, personal development, and you want to hear stories that I definitely can't tell on the internet, then come and see me live this October. chriswilliamson.live has got all of the tickets. Dublin is completely gone, but there are limited tickets everywhere else. I'll see you soon. chriswilliamson.live. You wrote... one of the defining personal development books of the decade. I Speaker 1 (0:31) wrote it 10 years ago. Speaker 2 (0:33) What's changed in your worldview since then? Speaker 1 (0:36) Well, as a psychologist, I really did spend the first half of my career trying to understand the importance of individual effort to achieving excellence. And I wrote a book about it. And I recently reread that book. And I wanted to know whether I changed my mind. I mean, you know, I continue to do science, other scientists, getting people to keep saying, and you know what? Don't disagree with a word in grit. I really don't. Other people can, but I don't. I feel like there is a final common path to becoming great that requires consistency over time. And that's the message of grit. And, you know, the reason I embarked on this in the first place is that I knew that I had achieved what I had achieved through effort and not through natural talent. So there was a personal dimension and it was my vocation, my calling as a scientist. But as a scientist, I... continue to ask the question, you know, like, what else is there? And also, where does this come from, right? So your DNA will incline you to be grittier or less gritty, but we also know that it's not just your DNA. So I also wanted to know, like, why would somebody be passionate and persevering? And this curiosity inevitably leads you outside of the mind of a high achiever and into their situation. leads you naturally to like, who's around them? What's around them? Where are they? And so the second book is about everything that inclines a person to devote individual effort and also everything that makes individual effort pay off. Speaker 2 (2:11) When does grit stop being useful? What are the limits of grit? Speaker 1 (2:18) You know, I think the personal reason why I wrote this second book is that as somebody who has gotten very far in life through her own effort, she has asked the question, you know, when is it not paying off? And I will tell you, when you are trying hard and you're not making the progress you want, well, if you're me at a certain age, you just try harder, Speaker 2 (2:43) right? Speaker 1 (2:44) I mean, wake up earlier. Speaker 1 (2:46) grind harder and then stay later right that's the Speaker 2 (2:49) assumption right if i'm trying hard if i think i'm trying hard and i'm not getting results yeah it must be that i think i'm trying hard but i'm not trying hard and then Speaker 1 (2:57) i can try harder right i mean it's kind of like natural you're like oh then you know do 20 more right you know you're not getting where you are like turn up the volume right it's Speaker 2 (3:05) like a inverse parkinson's law not that work expands to fill the time given for it but effort expands to make something happen Speaker 1 (3:11) Right. And sometimes that works, right? Because sometimes you aren't at 100%. And sometimes like, yeah, like, you know, you're lifting weights and you just like exert a little more effort. So I feel like this trick that we learn, you know, try harder is not wrong, but it's incomplete. And I think the limits, I mean, you asked me like, what are the limits? When you are trying hard and then harder and you're not making progress, you have to do something that was not natural for me, which is to ask whether the situation itself. was not the right situation. You know, to me, it felt like, first of all, I don't know that it would occur to me. Like, you know, I always look inward, right? It's like, you know, what can I do? I don't want to look outward. That was reflexive to me. And also felt kind of, yeah, like, well, I'll use the word cowardly. You can use the word, like, it just felt embarrassing and shameful. It just felt like being a loser to, you know, ask. What, you're saying Speaker 2 (4:04) that you can't do it on your own? Oh, you need a helping hand. You need this crutch in order to be able to get across the line. Speaker 1 (4:10) Exactly. It would be more noble if you suffered Speaker 2 (4:12) more. Speaker 1 (4:12) Yeah, yeah, right. And it's, you know, the hard way is the best way, right? And so that, that like. That rule of thumb, right? Like effort is everything. If it's not working, try harder. I think it's dangerous. I think it's incomplete. And I think by being incomplete, you can end up in the wrong place. Do Speaker 2 (4:28) you know why I think, one of the reasons why I think that asymmetry maybe that people have has been so prevalent in the modern world, at least Speaker 1 (4:39) at Speaker 2 (4:39) all, because of the fact that you wrote a massive book about it. I think a big part of it. is that on average, more people probably do need to be told to put their emotions to one side and just work harder. I think that if you were to take an aggregate of- If you Speaker 1 (4:55) take 100 people, you would be like, how many people actually just need to turn up the volume on their effort? And then how many people actually need to get situated? You would say more people need just to- Speaker 2 (5:03) Not even that. I think far more people are leaving a lot on the table when it comes to how hard they're pressing the gas tank, full stop. And you are always going to have- more agency over just effort applied. Like it's immediate. It's there right now, right? I can just do that. I can just do one more rep now. I can just stick about for another 30 minutes now. And the problem is there's a selection effect, which is the kind of people that listen to podcasts like this and read books like yours are already in the group. who are probably turning themselves inside out, thinking that they're not doing enough already. So this is what I call advice hyper-responders. Advice Speaker 1 (5:43) hyper-responders. Yes. Yeah, same word. They Speaker 2 (5:46) basically exaggerate that which they're predisposed to already, as opposed to correcting the imbalance. Speaker 1 (5:53) Which I think actually, so you might say that about advice hyper-responders. I mean, you could argue that that's just human nature. our strengths get raised, then our strengths get stronger, right? Well, yeah, because you- It's like the problem with every physical therapy problem that anybody ever had, right? It's like, oh, you're using your like glutes and like, because you have strong glutes, you're like, you're not using the other muscles, right? Like the hamstrings. So I think that it could be a general truth, right? That if you have gotten far in life through effort, and maybe you're right, that numerically, like, okay, that's not everyone. Like, maybe that's the minority. then it's those people, maybe not 100 out of 100, who knows what the ratio is. Those people are the ones who make the mistake of just pushing harder instead of finding a situation where their effort has higher return. Speaker 2 (6:45) Bingo. Yeah, they gravitate toward a message that reinforces their worldview already. Speaker 1 (6:49) Yes. And Speaker 2 (6:50) it also confirms the reason that most people are doing that, which is the fear of being the inverse. Like the person who's already adamant, why I'm just so, I'm just so lazy. It's like, dude, you haven't missed a gym session in like three weeks, but like you notice when you have a cupcake as opposed to the guy that hasn't left the couch on an evening time for like two months. Speaker 1 (7:11) Right. Speaker 2 (7:12) For him, advice just goes through him like he's a poltergeist. Yeah. Whereas like the imbalance isn't corrected. The predisposition gets exaggerated. That's basically how this is. So Speaker 1 (7:23) how do you feel about these advice hyper responders? Do you feel like they... They are, it's good? Is it bad? Like, what do you think about advice? It just Speaker 2 (7:30) is. I think, you know, men who hear the message, don't be pushy with women. Unfortunately, in a post-MeToo world, what's happened there is the guys that were just blowing through boundaries and being assholes, they coasted past that advice completely unchanged. While the guys who probably could have done with a little bit more confidence to go up and speak to a woman. Oh, I knew I was too much. I knew that I was too much. I see it. everywhere. I see this absolutely everywhere. That's Speaker 1 (7:56) so interesting. Speaker 2 (7:56) That's why Speaker 1 (7:57) I'm saying it's like a general truth. It's not just about like effort. It's across the board. Whatever your strength is, it is in a way a weakness. Yes. Your Speaker 2 (8:04) strength and your fear will be reinforced by whatever. And this is to sort of bring it into land. In a meritocracy where... You are your outcomes, which means that the winners are deserving of their successes and the losers are deserving of their losses. What do you want? I want to own my outcomes. Speaker 1 (8:19) Right. I want to know that if I put Speaker 2 (8:21) my fucking foot on the pedal. It's Speaker 1 (8:23) on Speaker 2 (8:23) me. Yeah, it's on me. It's Speaker 1 (8:24) on Speaker 2 (8:24) me. Not going to rely on anyone. Atomized society. Individual responsibility, man. I'm going to Sigma Lone Ranger Wolf my way to the top. Like, it's alluring. It's very alluring. So Speaker 1 (8:34) what Speaker 2 (8:34) do you Speaker 1 (8:34) think about my thesis that individual effort matters? But what do you think about the thesis to like... And your situation matters enormously and much more than people think. I mean, do you feel like it's a weak message? Do you feel like it's, you know, what do you think? Speaker 2 (8:50) No, I don't think it's a weak message at all. I think it's a important counterbalance to kind of the prevailing personal development message of the last 10 to 15 years or so. Like, even when I think about... Speaker 1 (9:03) Yeah, if you had to like... give a one-liner for the personal advice that is given for the last 10 like what's your perspective on like what is what is that message fuck Speaker 2 (9:11) your feelings just work harder just Speaker 1 (9:13) do it Speaker 2 (9:13) Fuck your feelings, just work harder. Yeah. But I'm trying Speaker 1 (9:16) to curse less, so you're like a terrible influence. I'm sorry, I'm British. Speaker 2 (9:20) I'm afflicted with British. No, that's okay. Speaker 1 (9:23) It sounds much better with your accent. Thank you. It is more refined. Anything you want. Speaker 2 (9:27) Yeah, the cussing thing, I do need to dial it back. There is research Speaker 1 (9:30) actually that shows that it is actually just a sign of being sincere because you're not editing. Speaker 2 (9:35) So, you know. Meanwhile, you're... prefrontal cortex is stepping in to avoid you from... I Speaker 1 (9:40) work a lot with children and parents and so that's a totally different context. Speed run Speaker 2 (9:43) their development. Speed run their education. They're Speaker 1 (9:46) going Speaker 2 (9:46) to start using you Speaker 1 (9:46) when Speaker 2 (9:46) they grow up. Hey, you're a precocious developer here. I see that your language has come on. Since Speaker 1 (9:51) you're a prodigy... The last 10 or 15 years, I agree. I think there are two messages, honestly. I think there's one which is just do it. Speaker 1 (10:00) I do think there's another one, which is a little more nuanced, right? So for me as a scientist, I'm not a journalist. I'm a scientist. I study human behavior and I study human behavior change. And I think I speak for pretty much every behavioral scientist when we say that your response, you can change directly, but you can also change your thoughts. And if you change your thoughts, then you don't have to use willpower because your thoughts, like if you say to yourself, like, I want to go to the gym, then you don't need to use willpower to go to the gym. So you can either change your will, like at the last minute, it's like, I'm going to force myself to just go to the gym, right? Or earlier than that, you can change your thoughts. You can reframe it. You can rethink it. You can have a paradigm shift. Like I want to go to the gym is my temple. Like I'm the sort of person, right? Speaker 2 (10:48) I Speaker 1 (10:49) think. To me, the last 15 years of personal development advice has either been like, just do it or just change your thoughts so that you will want to do it. Speaker 2 (10:58) And Speaker 1 (10:58) I think the message of this book is, I think, blindingly obvious to people who study human behavior for a living, which is that. Our thoughts are much more influenced by our circumstances, by like who you're talking to and what they just said. And like, you know, is the can of soda to your right next to your elbow or not? Where's your phone? These elements of your situation are much more in charge of your thoughts than you think. People think they're in charge of their own thoughts. And very often the situation is in charge of your thoughts. Speaker 2 (11:33) You think. People with discipline or high willpower are actually more disciplined or have they just designed lives that required less of it? Speaker 1 (11:42) So I think one of the signal discoveries the last 20 years is that we assume that people who go to the gym and they go for their run and they get their work done and they're not procrastinating and they control their temper and they have five-year goals, but they actually break down those five-year goals into one-year goals and they make progress on them. They return emails. We think of those people as having... Enormous willpower. And I think like 20 or 30 years ago, that's what scientists would also say. I think. The fact that people have willpower, I mean, willpower is a thing. I mean, there is a part of your brain at the front that is able to suppress or elevate impulses for the rest of your brain. Like you can will yourself to do things. But the discovery is that highly successful people are not using willpower. Highly successful people are doing exactly what you said, which is they're arranging their lives so they don't need to use willpower. I mean, it's kind of the opposite of like brute force and being like. a general, right? You know, Sun Tzu said you don't win a war through brute force. You do it strategically and you do it. The law is really the law of least effort, right? So like, how can you set up a situation where you think I want to go to the gym? It's like, well, for me, I'll tell you, it's like this trivial. If I have my gym clothes out, right, the night before, I mean, I keep my gym clothes in the fourth drawer of my bureau. It's not that hard to reach into the fourth. Like, it's not like I have to climb a ladder, right? So in the morning, I could reach into the fourth drawer of my bureau and pull out a top and a pair of shorts, and I'd be ready to go to the gym. It would take me, I think, three seconds and almost no calories, right? So how can that make a difference to whether I go to the gym or not? If the night before, I reach into the fourth drawer and I take out the shorts and the top and I lay it on top of the bureau. I will tell you, it makes a huge difference. It makes an enormous, especially when I'm traveling, by the way, because when I'm home, I have a routine. But like the difference is that first of all, it's a visual cue, right? Like our attention is just whatever we see, right? There's an expression, what you see is all there is. If I see it, I think, oh, right, I could go to the gym. And that. micro friction, the micro friction of like, I could open the drawer, I could, like, I could hunt around, I could like find it is enough to make the difference. And so to me, the, the insight is, yeah, don't wait for willpower. Like, that's the worst way to change human behavior. Again, I think I speak on behalf of Angela Duckworth. And I speak on, on behalf of scientists who study this, like, everyone I know. And also, if you're going to take the message of the last 10 to 15 years, it's like, it's all in your mind, it's your mindset and so forth. What books do you need to have visible? What quotes do you have? Who do you need to be around to give you the thoughts that you want to give you the behavior you want? Like that's the three boxes model. The situation is box one, your thoughts are box two, and your response to your thoughts is box three. Speaker 2 (14:41) That's interesting. So that's the big change you think over the last couple of decades? For Speaker 1 (14:45) me, I think my, you know, I sound like a politician when I say like, well, it's not a contradiction. Your academic diplomacy Speaker 2 (14:52) is showing. Speaker 1 (14:54) It's really like I'm trying to be honest in a way that doesn't sound like I, you know, am making it up because it is truth. You know, when I was in graduate school, like the very first thing you learn. is about the power of the situation. There is a book that I don't think a lot of people have read, but some people have read. I know Malcolm Gladwell read it and it changed his life. The book is called The Person and the Situation. And it is not a bestseller. It is written by two academics who never went on podcasts, right? They are Dick Nisbitt and Lee Ross. And every graduate student in psychology has to learn what's in that book. And what's in that book is that People have the experience of being intentional, goal-directed, right? Why did you do that? Like, why did you drink that? Why did you say that? What was in your mind, right? That's only partly true. The book about the person, the situation is really about the power of the situation over the person. The book mostly talks about how whether you're altruistic or you're going to make me curse or not, like a total fill in the blank, do it. Speaker 2 (16:01) That's all. Speaker 1 (16:02) Okay. You could have said that. You could have said that in front of a kid. I could have said that, but like I'm trying to— You just can't call the Speaker 2 (16:06) kid an asshole. It's slightly different. Speaker 1 (16:08) Yes, I don't do that either. That one I don't have a problem with. But it's very much—okay, so here's a study that is highlighted in the person's situation that, again, like every graduate student in psychology, it's called the Good Samaritan Study, right? And it actually literally takes place at a seminary. So these are people who are going to go into the ministry, right? It's their job to be altruistic. Nothing like the... Speaker 2 (16:33) Predisposed to be lovely. Speaker 1 (16:35) Yeah. And that's like, they're predisposed and it's like all they think about, right? So in the Good Samaritan study, they basically have in one condition, somebody who's like obviously homeless and suffering, right? And, you know, they're... They're there. In the other condition, that's also true. But in one condition, these good Samaritans, right, these seminarians are like rushing to get to a next appointment, right? Like you give them a phone call and they're supposed to. And another one, they don't. It's a trivial situational feature. It shouldn't affect their character, right? You didn't make them more altruistic by like calling them and saying like, oh, you have to be in this place at two o'clock. But it has a massive effect on whether they stop and help the person who needs help. So this is the kind of thing that all graduate students in psychology learn about, the hidden power of situations. We feel like we're intentional, but we're much more reactive. Okay, you learn about that in graduate school. So I can't lie and say that I never knew about the power of the situation. But I do think that connecting this to excellence, like connecting this to agency, There are philosophers who have pointed out that the agency of the individual is located within. There are not many philosophers who say that you have agency over your circumstances, that whether you choose to have water next to you or whatever you're not trying to drink, soda, whatever, like is up to you. I think that to me was an insight that I hadn't fully appreciated when I started out. Speaker 2 (18:08) It's Speaker 1 (18:09) a Speaker 2 (18:09) feedback mechanism as well, presumably, that you can engineer more. agency, which means that you can engineer further, which means more. I think Speaker 1 (18:18) there are many examples of. positive feedback cycles. And in a way, when we're talking about like a strength becomes more of a strength, right? And a weakness becomes more, that's also a positive feedback cycle. Right. The Matthew effect, right? Like, you know, the rich get richer, whatever it is you're doing. So I do think situational agency begets situational agency. And it's not just that. But when you start to change your situation and you realize that you do have... a responsibility to put things around you and to be around people who bring out your best. I think that encourages you to do more of the same. Speaker 2 (18:50) What are the environmental similarities that you discovered when studying world-class performers? Speaker 1 (18:57) Well, since we are in Austin, I will tell you that the signature example of grit would be Michael Phelps, right? 365-day-a-year swimmer. For a 20-year career, right? And I had dinner with Michael Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, who is a coach here now at UT Austin. And to me, the story of Michael Phelps is a perfect illustration of how grit is essential and how grit is not enough. And here's why. You can be as gritty as Michael Phelps. I really don't think there's anybody who's worked harder than Michael Phelps. And he's actually said that himself. He's like, I'm not going to brag about a lot of things, but I will say that I don't think anybody swam harder than I did. Like nobody practiced and trained. And it's not just the physical, by the way, but mental. Something that Bob mentioned kind of like parenthetically last night. It's like it's not just the mileage that he put into the pool and how he would mentally visualize every competition, but not just what Bob asked him to do, which is to like. imagine how you want the race to go, but he imagined all the ways the race could go and then like what he would do so that he was completely able to be like in the moment. But then when you ask the question, like, well, would Michael Phelps become arguably the greatest athlete ever? Because he's certainly the most decorated Olympic athlete by a stretch, right? Nobody's going to approach this record that he has of 28 medals, 23 of them gold across a 20 year career. But you could also ask the question, was he situated right? And. Absolutely. Okay, so let's consider that Michael Phelps was born 10 minutes away. Well, he was actually born an hour away from where Bob Bowman, I think the greatest swimming coach in history, happened to be. And he was then moved to be only 10 minutes away because Michael's sisters wanted to swim and they wanted to swim where all the best swimmers were. So they started going to the north. Baltimore Aquatic Center. And that is where the best swimmers were. So the best team and also the best coaches, like the kind of youth aquatic center that like actually recruits nationally for coaches, which is why Bob Bowman moved from California to Baltimore. So it was a situation. He also had his mom. So he had ADHD as a diagnosis as a nine-year-old, I think. And he had this mom who was so situationally wise. She understood that in certain situations, Michael was a pain in the ass. Look, you're getting, you know, by the end of this podcast, I'm just going to be dropping F-bombs. But he was a pain in the ass. Letters home, you know, teachers saying like this kid doesn't have potential, like he's also a disruption. But she knew that in the right situation, he would have complete focus and total effort. So that's the pool. I think these features of a situation, Baltimore Aquatic Center, a team of. athletes who even at ages like 9, 10, 11 were used to the kind of practice that elite swimmers do, a coach who ends up being, you know, in the storybooks as like one of the greatest coaches ever. You cannot explain Michael Phelps's achievements without talking about his situation. And then if you just look at, you know, subsequent things, I think Michael actually did have a lot of situational agency when Bob Bowman moved from Baltimore. Michael Phelps had the good sense to follow him, right? Like, he knew that he couldn't be the swimmer that he could be with Bob unless he was with Bob, right? So I think there is a story that is not often told. You show me the paragon of grit, and if you keep looking, you will also find a situation that was their ally. 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Right now, you can get up to 35 % off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com slash modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom Speaker 1 (23:35) at checkout. Isn't that interesting? Speaker 2 (23:37) First off, an inversion of the athlete going with the coach as opposed to the coach going with the athlete. people think about the athlete as being the once-in-a-generation talent. But what Michael Phillips identified was that he would only be what he could be if he was around this particular guy. This Speaker 1 (23:53) particular, arguably, once-in-a-generation coach. Speaker 2 (23:55) Also, what's kind of interesting, you know, the word is situation. When people think about situation, it's kind of amorphous. It's like big. It's ephemeral. But he'd found this singular, this one linchpin. because he would have left his teammates, he would have left his home, he would have left his routine, his car. Maybe the new pool's a little bit longer or colder or wider or something. Maybe the chlorine's slightly different or maybe he can't get the same kind of food or the raw milk that he was drinking on a weekend isn't available or he's not got his friends or his girl or whatever. It's like his situation was a guy. So how have you come to think about this? Because look, I really appreciate you saying, asking me for critique at the top. It seems like your career in academia has made you sort of wanting. to hear things. I was a little bit worried when I was like, Angela Duckworth's next book is going to be about situation and environment design. I was a little worried when I first thought about that because I'm like, with a productivity background and spending a lot of time with David Allen's Getting Things Done and environment design, you don't want Speaker 1 (24:54) to Speaker 2 (24:54) be distracted by your phone. Don't have it next to you on the table. I'm like, don't. It can't be. It can't be. And what I'm keen to do is to, everyone now understands that your environment... sort of can influence you. I want to move past like, don't have the chips in the house. Yeah. You're like, uh, this I Speaker 1 (25:09) know. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (25:11) Yeah. No, that's great. Um, but. I want to go to, I want to get really deep on the environment design stuff. What is the cutting edge shit that makes the biggest difference that people don't already know? People know that they shouldn't live that far from the fucking gym, right? People know that they should. By the Speaker 1 (25:26) way, they don't necessarily do anything about it, right? Oh, that's good. Like before we just skip over like, oh, everybody knows that like, you know, what's within your reach is what you're going to eat. Like everybody knows that. How many people put that into practice? When I wrote the chapter on like set up your space, I was like. It's blindingly obvious, but nobody's doing it. But I agree with you. There are also chapters on everybody knows it's important, but they don't think it's possible. I mean, there's other things. But before we skip past what's within reach, and I'll just say, I think in my research, by the way, Speaker 2 (25:59) when Speaker 1 (25:59) I ask Americans, what's the best way to control your behavior? They say it's to control the situation. Ask the same Americans, what do you do? They say they