"Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident. "


Building willpower: the eight pillars

10th July 2011

(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc & as a PDF file.) In the earlier post "Self-control, conscientiousness, grit, emotion regulation, willpower - whatever word you use, it's sure important to have it" I described the extraordinary benefits achievable through increased self-control & willpower. I noted occasional downsides …

Building willpower: it's like strengthening and nourishing a muscle.

9th July 2011

(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc & as a PDF file.) "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you ..." "If" by Rudyard Kipling In yesterday's post on "Self-control ... the importance of training", I talked about …

Self-control, conscientiousness, grit, emotion regulation, willpower - the importance of training

8th July 2011

Over the last few days I've written a series of four blog posts on self-control - the first was "Self-control, conscientiousness, grit, emotion regulation, willpower - whatever word you use, it's sure important to have it" and the most recent "Self-control, conscientiousness, grit ... how do you measure it?". These …

Recent research: articles from June journals

7th July 2011

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 16,000 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …