Top 60 Kelly McGonigal Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.”

— Kelly McGonigal

Featured in: Meaning Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Wellness Wednesday Quotes, Stress Quotes

2. “Chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.”

— Kelly McGonigal

3. “Self-compassion-being supportive and kind to yourself, especially in the face of stress and failure-is associated with more motivation and better self-control.”

— Kelly McGonigal

4. “When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage.”

— Kelly McGonigal

5. “The development of willpower -I will, I won’t and I want- may define what it means to be human.”

— Kelly McGonigal

Featured in: Human Nature Quotes, Willpower Quotes

6. “We all have the tendency to believe self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try on the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for your, and will encourage you when you feel discouraged.”

— Kelly McGonigal

7. “Stress and meaning are inextricably linked. You don’t stress out about things you don’t care about, and you can’t create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress.”

— Kelly McGonigal

8. “My favorite definition of the mindful path is the one the reveals itself as you walk down it. You cannot find the path until you step on to it.”

— Kelly McGonigal

9. “The is a secret for greater self-control, the science points to one thing: the power of paying attention.”

— Kelly McGonigal

10. “When your mind is preoccupied, your impulses – not your long-term goals – will guide your choices.”

— Kelly McGonigal

11. “When adults are randomly assigned to reduce their daily step count, 88 percent become more depressed. Within one week of becoming more sedentary, they report a 31 percent decline in life satisfaction. The average daily step count required to induce feelings of anxiety and depression and decrease satisfaction with life is 5,649. The typical American takes 4,774 steps per day. Across the globe, the average is 4,961.”

— Kelly McGonigal

12. “Stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake.”

— Kelly McGonigal

13. “Meditation is not about getting rid of all your thoughts; it’s learning not to get so lost in them that you forget what your goal is. Don’t worry if your focus isn’t perfect when meditating. Just practice coming back to the breath, again and again.”

— Kelly McGonigal

14. “A short practice that you do every day is better than a long practice you keep putting off to tomorrow.”

— Kelly McGonigal

15. “People come up with resolutions that don’t reflect what matters most to them, and that makes them almost guaranteed to fail.”

— Kelly McGonigal

16. “The fact that this same basic approach helps such a wide range of willpower challenges, from depression to drug addiction, confirms that these three skills – self-awareness, self-care, and remembering what matters most – are the foundation for self-control.”

— Kelly McGonigal

17. “Stress Helps You Learn and Grow.”

— Kelly McGonigal

18. “The willingness to think what you think and feel what you feel – without necessarily believing that it is true, and without feeling compelled to act on it – is an effective strategy for treating anxiety, depression, food cravings, and addiction. As we consider the evidence for each, we’ll see that giving up control of our inner experiences gives us greater control over our outer actions.”

— Kelly McGonigal

19. “The intelligent want self-control; children want candy. – RUMI.”

— Kelly McGonigal

20. “If there is a secret for greater self-control, the science points to one thing: the power of paying attention. It’s training the mind to recognize when you’re making a choice, rather than running on autopilot.”

— Kelly McGonigal

21. “When you stop trying to control unwanted thoughts and emotions, they stop controlling you.”

— Kelly McGonigal

22. “Feeling burdened rather than uplifted by everyday duties is more a mindset than a measure of what is going on in your life.”

— Kelly McGonigal

23. “You can deal with stressful life experiences with strength from past ones.”

— Kelly McGonigal

24. “Even in circumstances of great suffering, human beings have a natural capacity to find hope, exert choice, and make meaning. This is why in our own lives, the most common effects of stress include strength, growth, and resilience.”

— Kelly McGonigal

25. “To exert self-control, you need to find your motivation when it matters. This is “I want” power.”

— Kelly McGonigal

26. “Restores nervous system balance Processes and integrates the experience Helps the brain learn and grow Even though your body is calming down, you still feel mentally charged. You replay or analyze the experience in your mind, or want to talk to others about it. A mix of emotions are usually present, along with a desire to make sense of what happened.”

— Kelly McGonigal

27. “According to a 2008 study by the National Sleep Foundation, American adults now get two hours less sleep per night than the average in 1960.”

— Kelly McGonigal

28. “We think about our future selves like different people. We often idealize them, expecting our future selves to do what our present selves cannot manage.”

— Kelly McGonigal

29. “Stress happens when something you care about is at stake. It’s not a sign to run away – it’s a sign to step forward.”

— Kelly McGonigal

30. “I will” and “I won’t” power are the two sides of self-control, but they alone don’t constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want.”

— Kelly McGonigal

31. “Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not.”

— Kelly McGonigal

32. “Even in the Stone Age, the rules for how to win friends and influence people were likely the same as today’s: Cooperate when your neighbor needs shelter, share your dinner even if you’re still hungry, and think twice before saying “That loincloth makes you look fat.” In other words, a little self-control, please.”

— Kelly McGonigal

33. “We wrongly but persistently expect to make different decisions tomorrow than we do today.”

— Kelly McGonigal

34. “Desire is the brain’s strategy for action. As we’ve seen, it can be both a threat to self-control and a source of willpower. When dopamine points us to temptation, we must distinguish wanting from happiness. But we can also recruit dopamine and the promise of reward to motivate ourselves and others. In the end, desire is neither good nor bad – what matters is where we let it point us, and whether we have the wisdom to know when to follow.”

— Kelly McGonigal

35. “As Deb Lemire, president of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, says, “If shame worked, there’d be no fat people.”

— Kelly McGonigal

36. “Obesity rates are much higher among those who sleep for less than six hours a night, in part because sleep deprivation interferes with how the brain and body use energy.”

— Kelly McGonigal

37. “But over the last decade, neuroscientists have discovered that, like an eager student, the brain is remarkably responsive to experience. Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not only does your brain find these things easier, but it actually remodels itself based on what you ask it to do.”

— Kelly McGonigal

38. “It’s the habit of noticing what you are about to do, and choosing to do the more difficult thing instead of the easiest.”

— Kelly McGonigal

39. “First, your brain is temporarily taken over by the promise of reward. At the sight of that strawberry cheesecake, your brain launches a neurotransmitter called dopamine from the middle of your brain into areas of the brain that control your attention, motivation, and action. Those little dopamine messengers tell your brain, “Must get cheesecake NOW, or suffer a fate worse than death.”

— Kelly McGonigal

40. “Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.”

— Kelly McGonigal

41. “It turns out that people with a stress-is-enhancing mindset are more likely to be optimists, but the correlation is small. In addition to optimism, two other personality traits seem to be associated with a more positive view of stress: mindfulness and the ability to tolerate uncertainty.”

— Kelly McGonigal

42. “The stress response is more than a basic survival instinct. It is built into how humans operate, how we relate to one another, and how we navigate our place in the world. When you understand this, the stress response is no longer something to be feared.”

— Kelly McGonigal

43. “Self-knowledge – especially of how we find ourselves in willpower trouble – is the foundation of self-control.”

— Kelly McGonigal

44. “Students who were harder on themselves for procrastinating on their first exam were more likely to procrastinate on later exams than students who forgave themselves. The harder they were on themselves about procrastinating the first time, the longer they procrastinated for the next exam! Forgiveness – not guilt – helped them get back on track.”

— Kelly McGonigal

45. “Studies of brain activation confirm that as soon as you give participants permission to express a thought they were trying to suppress, that thought becomes less primed and less likely to intrude into conscious awareness. Paradoxically, permission to think a thought reduces the likelihood of thinking it.”

— Kelly McGonigal

46. “Your Body Was Born to Resist Cheesecake.”

— Kelly McGonigal

47. “When you try to push a thought away, and it keeps coming back to your mind, you are more likely to assume that it must be true.”

— Kelly McGonigal

48. “Our society may praise being above the influence of others, but we cannot separate ourselves from our social instincts.”

— Kelly McGonigal

49. “When people who have taken a positive step toward meeting a goal – for example, exercising, studying, or saving money – are asked, “How much progress do you feel you have made on your goal?” they are more likely to then do something that conflicts with that goal, like skip the gym the next day, hang out with friends instead of studying, or buy something expensive.”

— Kelly McGonigal

50. “Simply put: Whenever we have conflicting desires, being good gives us permission to be a little bit bad.”

— Kelly McGonigal