By Ashley Chen
Fri., May 7, 2021 | reading time 2 minutes ⏰
Professor Kelly McGonigal,Ph.D., is an award-winning psychologist at Stanford University and a health educator in the Medical Health Promotion Program. Her psychology courses for professionals and the general public, including "TheScience of Autonomy" and "Living Well WithStress," are among the most popular courses in the history of Stanford's continuing education school.
As a health psychologist, Dr. Kelly McGonigal's job is to help people manage stress and make positive changes in their lives. Over the years, observing how students control their choices, she realized that a lot of what people think about self-control actually prevents us from succeeding. For example, treating self-control as a virtue can derail well-intentioned goals.