How to pump up your willpower

Don't do this: Worry yourself into a frenzy. Self-control is fundamentally incompatible with stress

Whether your aim is to lose five pounds, stop buying shoes or choose books over the boob tube, there is one thing essential for the winner's circle. Willpower. The bad news: This is never going to change. The good news: It is possible to strengthen your stick-to-it-iveness, so there's no reason why we all shouldn't be healthier, happier, brainier people by this time next month. Here, some tips to build up your iron will.

Kelly McGonigal: The Willpower Instinct

This is powerful stuff. Applies to work, family, spousal relations, parenting. Athletics.

Interestingly, regular cardiovascular increases your willpower not just to continue exercising, but also to eat better, worker harder, etc.

Don't let 'I want' defeat 'I will' and 'I won't

Time magazine runs the same kind of article at least once a year - a testament to Americans' endless battle with self-control. But I have seen these themes deftly treated in a very different format: in Dallas Willard's 2002 book, Renovation of the Heart.

Willard is not a brain scientist but a professor of philosophy at USC.

His insights, however, fit well with what current research is revealing.

Kluger quotes Kelly McGonigal of Stanford, author of The Willpower Instinct as saying, "Our brains operate at three levels: I will, I won't, I want. For many of us, the I-want part wins" - even when that means compromising our own well-being.