How To Build Free Will
Understand what is really in control of your life and how to lay claim to your own decisions and reactions
Free will sounds easy until you look closely. Then it turns out to be smaller, stranger, and far more difficult than advertised.
We take a cheerful scalpel to the idea that we’re the conscious captains of our lives. With help from psychology experiments, philosophical detours we find out what's really going on.
Examining stories involving casinos, concentration camps, meditation cushions, and more, we discover that most behaviour is automatic. Pain, habit, desire, and social pressure do most of the driving.
Yet, whilst we can’t choose our thoughts or impulses, we can choose how we respond to them. Viktor Frankl called it “the space between stimulus and response,” and it turns out to be the most valuable square inch of mental real estate you’ll ever own.
Cultivate that space, and you get resilience, wisdom, and the rare ability to not punch metaphorical holes in windows.
Actionable takeaways
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Treat strong emotions as data, not instructions
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Reduce temptation before relying on discipline
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Train non-reactivity through small, deliberate discomforts
Learn about the evolving story of the human species and our ideas told in chronological order.
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Growth Mindset Psychology:
Sam Webster explores the psychology of happiness, satisfaction, purpose, and growth through the lens of self-improvement.
CHAPTERS
00:00 What Personal Growth Really Means: Free Will
00:33 Fixed vs Growth Mindset as Freedom vs Reaction
01:59 Welcome to the Growth Mindset Podcast
02:08 Why You Can’t Understand One Part of Psychology in Isolation
03:34 Setting Expectations: Consciousness, Free Will, and Big Ideas
05:13 Habits, Consciousness, and the Sleepwalking Killer Case
06:44 The Compulsive Gambler and the Illusion of Choice
11:45 How Much Free Will Do We Actually Have?
15:35 Why You Don’t Choose Your Desires
18:24 Conscious vs Subconscious Memories
21:51 Why Willpower Often Arrives Too Late
25:04 Free Will, Fixed Mindset, and Hard Truths
25:39 Viktor Frankl and the Space Between Stimulus and Response
26:27 How to Build Free Will in Everyday Life
28:17 Emotional Triggers and Losing Autonomy
30:25 David Foster Wallace on Learning How to Think
33:12 The Psychology of Revenge
38:34 Pain, Discipline, and the Limits of Control
39:43 Meditation, Pain, and Non-Reactivity
45:30 Applying Free Will to Daily Life
47:04 What We’ve Learned: Growth Mindset as Choice
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