Willpower - How can you improve it?

You are going to 

• discuss willpower
• listen to a radio programme about willpower and do a gap-fill exercise.
• do a quiz to find out how much willpower you have

Discuss

• Do you have willpower?
• What is willpower?
• When do you need it?
• When you decide to do something do you always finish it?
• Oscar Wilde said "I can resist everything but temptation". Can you resist everything?
• How can you improve your willpower?

Listening

1. Read the summary below of the BBC Radio 4 interview with Roy Baumeister about willpower. Can you guess any of the words which go in the gaps?
2. Listen to the recording below and fill in the gaps with the word you hear.

Be careful of your spelling!


According to a new book, the most important thing to make a person successful is willpower and not self-esteem as is sometimes thought.

Professor Roy Baumeister, author of Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength, talks to the Today programme

 Click play to listen. Fill in the gaps.

More
Listen to a debate on this subject BBC's The Forum here  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mxby8

Printable version here

Reading

How much willpower do you have?
Find out in this quiz  http://www.youthink.com/quiz.cfm?obj_id=80878

Why willpower matters – and how to get it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/07/why-willpower-matters