Kelly McGonigal on Stress, Willpower, and the Joy of Movement

I’ve been a fan of Kelly McGonigal for quite some time now. Her work has been shared with my clients over the years. Her TED Talk, which came out in 2014, titled How to Make Stress Your Friend, has over 30 million views, making it one of the most viewed TED Talks of all time. Not only is she a great speaker, she’s also an incredible writer. Her books, The Willpower Instinct and The Upside of Stress are fantastic. Her latest book, which is called The Joy of Movement explores why physical exercise is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Kelly works as a health psychologist, and she talks a lot about today the power of impacting people, not just with her books and her TED Talk, but also on a one-on-one level as a mentor. She’s also an exercise instructor, and as a health psychologist she specializes in understanding the mind-body connection.

Kelly is somebody who loves to work with people, she cares about connecting with humans, she also is a lover of animals; she carries multiple identities, and we talk about those identities in today’s conversation. Additionally, she has been successful in her career, and yet the conversation starts with her talking about her definition of success and of achievement; it may be different than what you might guess or how you might define success and achievement.

 

Kelly had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“Because I said something that someone needed to hear or I created an experience that gave someone hope, that’s number one [in terms of how I define success]” (5:45).

“I also define success by being able to do things and spend my time on things I love” (6:05).

“I’m highly motivated to live a life where I get to engage with activities and ideas that make me happy or make me passionate” (6:15).

“I just love teaching movement, and especially dance. And I wanted to make that a core part of my identity broadly” (7:55).

“That’s my orientation to life: to try to show people that if you are in a place that feels hopeless and difficult and you are struggling, there are things you can do that will help you also experience meaning and purpose and growth and love and contribution” (9:10).

“Being an identical twin, it’s like there is a you in a different body. But it’s still you in this really deeply connected way” (11:55).

“Part of my identity is this abstract sense of connection to the people around me” (12:10).

“I love the idea that there’s something in us that we’re born with and we get to spend our lives exploring what that is and expressing that” (16:05).

“I love the idea that we aren’t totally blank slates and impacted by our experiences in life, because a lot of the experiences that impact us are negative” (16:15).

“The point of view that I carry that has helped me through difficult experiences is feeling like who I am at my core, whether it’s temperament, biology, whatever that is, just me as a human being, that I actually am equipped to deal with stuff in life that happens that may be random” (16:30).

“I love finding out what other people love and being somebody who can mirror that and affirm that and encourage that” (17:45).

“I’m interested in talking to a human being about their life experience. That’s my sweet spot” (18:55).

“My favorite form of stress is the stress that I feel right before I get to do something really exciting” (20:20).

“If I’m doing something that matters, I want to feel some of that anxiety, some of that normal self-doubt, that is a reflection of the fact that I care” (23:20).

“Stress is in you. It’s a coping resource. It’s a coping response” (24:10).

“I define willpower as the ability to make choices that are consistent with your highest goals, your values, your priorities, even when some part of you wants to make a different choice” (31:15).

“We have competing selves” (31:40).

“If you exercise, you’re probably going to be happier, more connected to others, have more meaning and purpose in life, and better protected against depression and anxiety” (33:30).

“Pay attention to the direct experience” (34:40).

“It’s very easy to be influenced by our environment, by other people, and by process and structure” (36:55).

“Human beings survive through connection and interdependence” (43:30).

“Everything that is interesting and good about humans has to do with our relationships with other people” (43:45).

“We get a lot of our value and meaning through our relationships and through our communities and our contributions” (52:10).

“You either are going to spend [your time] being of service or spend [your time] being in fear” (57:00).

“Your life is over when it’s over” (57:10).

 

Additionally, you can find Kelly’s TED Talk, How to Make Stress Your Friend, here, and you can follow her on Instagram here.

Thank you so much to Kelly for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.