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Willpower Doesn't Work

Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

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Willpower Doesn't Work

By: Benjamin Hardy
Narrated by: Benjamin Hardy
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About this listen

If you're relying on willpower alone to help you lose weight, improve your relationships or achieve more at work, you're doomed to fail. The environment around us is far too powerful, stimulating, addicting and stressful to overcome it through sheer determination. Willpower, grit, being positive - basically, all the tools you've been told are the keys to creating lasting change in your life - are insufficient in this high-paced, information-overloaded world we live in. The only way to stop just surviving and learn to truly thrive in today's world is to proactively shape your environment.

That's the premise of Willpower Doesn't Work, by organizational psychologist and Medium's most-read self-help guru Benjamin Hardy. Building on copious existing research as well as his own experience of growing up in a broken family afflicted by addiction and drug use, Hardy explains how people can change their lives on every level by making small, impactful changes in their environments like:

  • Creating "enriched environments" - using tougher challenges and self-imposed deadlines to force yourself to rise to the occasion
  • Growing into your goals - using radical personal accountability to keep yourself on target and on track
  • Becoming the teacher - stepping into a leadership role (even before you think you're ready) to accelerate your skills
  • Rotating your environments - getting out of your rut by literally changing your physical surroundings throughout the day or week

From simple steps like removing things that conflict with your values from your environment (like junk food, junk media, even junk people) to incorporating new tools (like fasting or adding "positive triggers" to your world), these lessons make it possible to consciously shape your surroundings so you can lead a more productive and happier life. Hardy leans on his own story of making the decision to foster three young children to illustrate how any shift, no matter how huge, can become "the new normal" if you support that change with a productive environment.

©2018 Benjamin Hardy (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group
Career Success Employment Career Inspiring

Critic Reviews

"Benjamin Hardy is one of the leading voices on well-being and productivity. Willpower Doesn't Work is an insightful guide to help us thrive in today's world." (Arianna Huffington)
"If you only read one book in 2018, make it this one...." ( Inc.)

What listeners say about Willpower Doesn't Work

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Best book since the Growth Mindset

Your environment affects you more that your willpower in order to change. If you change your environment, you can change your ways. That is the basis of this book and I could not believe how influential it is but you will understand it to after you listen to this book. It's quite a difference in paradigm and my mind is blown.

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Exemplary and inspiring

Exemplary and inspiring, changes how you view the world. Helped me make some crucial decisions, but also helped me to plan for the what's next. As with everything one must take a myriad of views and opinions, for this this hit the spot.

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Worth listening to this twice in a row

The content is very rich. Loved it! Worth listening to this again to really put all this to practice.

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Life-changer!

This book changed my life 100%.
I re-read it about 6 times and applied so much from it to my life already.
I highly recommend it if you are sick of the useless self-help ideology!

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Inspiring

A lot of what’s in this book resonates with me and I feel inspired to change my environment to help myself reach my goals. I’m already doing some of the things that were suggested in the book and plan to add more. I can’t say if the approach will work for me or anyone else, but I was convinced enough by the research cited and the examples given to want to give it a real go.

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Practical self help

Bite sized chunks of sound advice.
I’ve listened to and read a lot of self help books. This is the most practical.

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Amazing book!

This book is amazing, I'll be rereading it several times over to truly internalize the teachings.

Benjamin has done an outstanding job at distilling life changing concepts into an easy to digest book, if the reader implements what is taught, their life can and will change forever!

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Absolutely loved it.

Breaks all conventional self help books Myths. Will keep reading again n again. Absolutely loved it.

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Loved this book

So much insight, gave me a deeper understanding of what I can do to significantly change so many different aspects of my life, the ripple effect being the impact I can have on others. Thank you Benjamin for this gift.

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great information and such amazing book

loved it had so much great and very true information will listen to it over and over

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