Strong Willpower Needs a Strong Mindset

Willpower. As a high school student, sometimes my willpower is lacking when there are seemingly "better" things to do like go out with my friends, a favorite television show, or a sports game. I have definitely had times of complete motivation and strong willpower and times of bad procrastination. This article caught my interest because what if there was a scientific way of obtaining a strong willpower? I would want to know it especially in that week with three papers and two major tests so I could get them all done. Some of the factors people have proposed to control willpower include biology, amount of glucose, and just a strong mindset. Well in this article's case, only one of these factors is right and it's a strong mindset. If you believe willpower doesn't have a limit, then you will procrastinate less and cut down on excess spending. And those with this mindset would perform well with or without consuming sugar. Amazing!

Greg Walton and Carol Dweck write the informative article "Willpower: It's in Your Head" with a logos appeal to their audience. The authors write of multiple studies conducted on willpower including Linda Bacon's biology control, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney's glucose proposal, and their own mindset proposal with Veronika Job. This technique appeals to the logos of an audience and proves both authors as credible reporters on the topic. One study that Walton and Dweck write about is on 153 college students and how their mindset affected their willpower which appeals to the audience of anyone who has been to college or is planning on going to college. The two authors' opinions are very obvious in this article when they write of taking the other theories into consideration. They write, "But are these theories correct? We don't think so," (Walton, Dweck, 1). In the New York Times article written by Greg Walton and Carol Dweck, the two authors discover the main controller of strong willpower is a strong mindset.

Source: Walton, Greg, and Carol Dweck. "Willpower: It's In Your Head." The New York Times 26 Nov. 2011, sec. Opinion: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.