Dr. Kentaro Fujita

There's also some research where if you are taking notes with pen and paper as opposed to a computer, you can learn better.

And again, I'm not saying these just because I think they're so important, but rather I just think they're nice illustrations of exactly what you're suggesting, which is there's some really interesting connection between...

movement and motivation, which I think, I mean, I think that's a truism, but I think these are really interesting examples of that.

There's two thoughts that immediately come to mind with what you just said.

The idea that by doing lots of hard things, you learn that you can do hard things and do other hard things.

I mean, I think that's really interesting from a motivation perspective because you could argue that what's going on here is that there's some kind of self-efficacy component, that when I've done hard things, my self-esteem goes up and my estimation and confidence to be able to do harder things increases.

And we do know that as self-efficacy goes up,

your ability to do things, your motivation goes up and your ability to perform also goes up.

So we definitely know that self-efficacy is a really important thing.

The other thing that you mentioned is the possibility of exhaustion.

And I find this really interesting because it's a highly controversial topic in social psychology.

There was a big

boom of experiments in the 2000s that suggested just what you're saying, that self-control is kind of like a muscle.

And if I use it for one type of task, I exhaust it for all others.

I have to wait in order for it to recharge before I can use it again, much like any other muscle.

Also like any other muscle, if I keep using it over time, it should get stronger.

And there were some evidence for both of those.

Unfortunately, those experiments have, much like the Walter Mischel study, have come under attack for whether or not they can replicate.

And the conclusions are a bit mixed.

There are some analyses, they're called multi-lab experiments, where a whole bunch of labs get together and they try to see if they can replicate something.