Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success

Benjamin Hardy

Mar 2018 · Sold by Hachette Books

About this ebook

We rely on willpower to create change in our lives...but what if we're thinking about it all wrong? In Willpower Doesn't Work, Benjamin Hardy explains that willpower is nothing more than a dangerous fad-one that is bound to lead to failure. Instead of "white-knuckling" your way to change, you need to instead alter yoursurroundings to support your goals. This book shows you how.

The world around us is fast-paced, confusing, and full of distractions. It's easy to lose focus on what you want to achieve, and your willpower won't last long if your environment is in conflict with your goals--eventually, the environment will win out. Willpower Doesn't Workis the needed guided for today's over-stimulating and addicting environment. Willpower Doesn't Work will specifically teach you:

• How to make the biggest decisions of your life--and why those decisions must be made in specific settings
• How to create a daily "sacred" environment to live your life with intention, and not get sucked into the cultural addictions
• How to invest big in yourself to upgrade your environment and mindset
• How to put "forcing functions" in your life--so your default behaviors are precisely what you want them to be
• How to quickly put yourself in proximity to the most successful people in the world--and how to adapt their knowledge and skills to yourself even quicker
• How to create an environment where endless creativity and boundless productivity is the norm

Benjamin Hardy will show you that nurture is far more powerful than your nature, and teach you how to create and control your environment so your environment will not create and control you.

Ratings and reviews

This two-star rating is given rather reluctantly. I first heard about the book from a riveting interview the author had on The Jordan Harbinger Show. In that interview, he was engaging, and gave some interesting anecdotes and insightful quotes (by other people) that really stuck out to me. His whole premise (That willpower doesn't work, and it's our environment that we should change instead.) seemed really counter-intuitive, but sounded like just the thing I needed in my life. So I bought the book thinking he'll get into the meat of his premise, and expand on the idea beyond the rough outline he had presented on that interview. Unfortunately, the book has been a sore disappointment. If I had to summarize my review of the book, it would be this: "Willpower Doesn't Work" is what happens when you taken interesting idea that could be fully fleshed out in a single article, and add in so much fluff and repeated sentences that it becomes long enough to pretend to be a book costing $13.99. While reading the book, I lost track of the number of times I thought to myself, "Wait did I just lose my place and re-read the same paragraph 3x?" Only to realize that the author had actually said the same thing a couple pages back, and he was just rephrasing things .... yet again. Ben Hardy is great at writing articles. Unfortunately, it shows, and his skill at writing articles doesn't translate into the ability to craft books worth reading. In the future, perhaps he will. But for now, his book "Willpower Doesn't Work" ... doesn't work as a book.

Great book, will definitely recommend!

Great read

About the author

Benjamin Hardy and his wife, Lauren, are the foster parents of three kids. In 2016, Benjamin was the #1 overall writer on Medium.com. His work has been featured at Forbes, Psychology Today, Fortune, Mashable, and others.