Phil McGraw Quotes

I think about willpower almost never. I realize for myself, trying to be more disciplined is pretty nebulous and it's often a slippery target. For me, I've just thought about incentives.

As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives—in the gym, or a money management program—that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.

Everytime you feed the flesh, you strenghten it. This is good if you are trying to build a good habit, but detrimental if you are trying to stop a bad habit. The way to "kill the flesh" is to starve it; to stop feeding it.

January is always a good month for behavioral economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Year's resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken.

People say, 'Jay, you're a great guy, you just had a couple of bad nights.' People that have themselves under control don't have a couple of bad nights like that. Plain and simple.

On those days when you don't want to get up, I think, I'm going to get through my entire practice without saying how tired I am or I try not to complain just because I was in a bad mood when I woke up. Even if it's not perfect and I slip up, I can catch myself and make myself of aware of where my mental space is at and move on.

Sometimes I find it too hot to run, and sometimes too cold. Or too cloudy. But I still go running. I know that if I didn't go running, I wouldn't go the next day either. It's not in human nature to take unnecessary burdens upon oneself, so one's body soon becomes disaccustomed. It mustn't do that. It's the same with writing. I write every day so that my mind doesn't become disaccustomed.

If you want to do something that requires willpower - like going for a run after work - you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day.

When self control is lacking in small things, the ability to apply it to matters of importance withers away. Every day in which one does not at least deny himself some trifle is badly spent and a threat to the day following.

Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency.

If you take control of your behavior, your emotions will fall into place.

I'm someone who thinks that where there's a void, I need to fill it, but I'm trying to have patience and a little bit of discipline.

Self-discipline is the golden key; without it, you cannot be happy.

The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone’s reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.

What is it that makes us suppose that we can more easily do twice tomorrow what we didn't do once today!

Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do something you don't necessarily want to do, to get a result you would really like to have.

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

It's human nature to want to keep going, but you have to fight against the "I'm just gonna keep doing it" when you know the possibility of not looking great on the way out.

Self-discipline is crucial to a simpler, more contented life.

When forced, as it seems, by your environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into your self, staying in discord no longer than you must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, you will gain more command over it.

Don't bother with New Year's resolutions if you don't have the discipline to put a plan in place to actually achieve them.

....goal directed self-imposed delay of gratification is perhaps the essence of emotional self-regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service of a goal, whether it be building a business, solving an algebraic equation, or pursuing the Stanley Cup.

The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right

It's sometimes a painful process. It's a change that has to be motivated by a higher purpose, by the willingness to subordinate what you think you want now for what you want later.

It is a new road to happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn.