The Academic Imperfectionist

#124: Dr Dana Klisanin on wild willpower and drawing resilience from nature

• Rebecca Roache • Episode 124

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What comes to mind when you think about willpower? Discipline? Self-denial? Overcoming your weak, useless, lazy self? Exhausting, right? Thankfully, there's another way, and this episode's guest is here to take you there. Dr Dana Klisanin is a psychologist and one of Forbes's 50 leading female futurists. She's a researcher, an author, an artist, a TEDx speaker, and the founder of ReWilding: Lab, where she explores the untapped potential of human-nature connection to improve health and wellbeing, and to help us live more sustainably. She sat down with me to talk about how a fulfilling life needn't involve fighting and winning against our natural inclinations, and why thinking of ourselves as part of the natural world can make us happier, stronger, and more resilient. 

Read Dana's article in Psychology Today, 'What if we've misunderstood willpower all along?'

Pre-order Dana's latest book, The Art of Wild Willpower: Nature-Based Invitations for Ritual, Reflection, and Reconnection.

Dana's recent TEDx talk, 'Rewilding the mind: The most endangered habitat is inside us', will soon be published here.