Dr. Rebecca Fortgang is our guest on the 346th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Just a light background, huh? Kira knew Dr. Becky had to be on the show after taking her class, and she did not disappoint.

Take a peek inside the conversation:

Is willpower a muscle? What’s all the debate around willpower? 

What do willpower and love have in common?

Researching topics with inconclusive and incomplete data – this work has to start somewhere. 

Tools creative entrepreneurs can use to be more productive.

Why do people really quit on their goals?

What to do when lapses happen and what are they trying to tell us?

How to avoid spiraling and what we should do instead. 

What’s a goal cleanse? 

Are you a failure if you quit a long-term goal?

How to find alternate goals if you can’t let goals go. 

The clear-cut approach to setting goals and achieving them.

What is “gripping the table” self-control and how can we do less of it?

How your future self can motivate you in completing your goals TODAY. 

Is sacrifice needed to attain goals? 

Strategies to stop procrastinating and how to tap into your willpower. 

Can you convince yourself to be in the right headspace? 

How can you prioritize mental health in your life?

Tune into the episode to listen to all the insights.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show:

The Copywriter Think Tank

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

Rebecca's website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

The Copywriter Underground

Free month of Brain.FM

AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  Most copywriters we know share an interest in psychology and figuring out what makes people tick. After all, if you're writing something to convince your prospect to buy or to take some kind of action, you need to understand them. But our interest in psychology often goes well beyond persuasion tactics and mental heuristics. Our guest for today's episode of The Copywriter Club podcast is Dr. Rebecca Fortgang, who specializes in willpower, goal setting and mental health. Just as a quick side note, she was Kira's professor last year in a class she took, and I like to point out that it was at Harvard University, the CURE Harvard student. We talked with Rebecca about the ins and outs of willpower, overcoming procrastination, mental health, and a lot more. We think you're really going to like this episode.

Kira Hug:  But before we jump in, we are going to promote something because that's what we do. So today, Rob, I want to talk about our new-ish course, not like brand new but new as in couple months ago. Our AI for copywriters course, which is available to all writers. And the reason I want to mention it today is because we're adding a certification to it, a prompt engineer certification, because we know as we've been talking to a lot of startups, especially on our new podcast, AI for Creative Entrepreneurs, we're interviewing different startups and they're talking about the need for prompt engineers and that it's hard to find prompt engineers right now, and writers are really set up to succeed in that role because we ask good questions. We think about prompting in a creative way, and there is no university that has a prompt engineer program right now.

There's this new need in the marketplace and there aren't enough people to fill that role. We're creating the program that you need to train you to not only provide the training, but also to give you a certification, and that usually means a boost of confidence for you to go out there and maybe even update your LinkedIn title to include prompt engineer and maybe even pitch yourself or go after opportunities t...