I'm Paul Muldoon, a poet who over the past several years has had the good fortune to record

hours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney.

The result is our new podcast, McCartney, A Life in lyrics.

Listen to McCartney, A Life in lyrics on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart radio.

Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to admit that willpower is overrated, so design your environment for success

instead. It's easy to intend to have just a few orios and then

finish off a whole row. You can promise yourself that you won't hit snooze before you get

a bed, but have a different perspective at 6am. You can go into the bookstore just to browse

and end up buying an armload of books. It happens to all of us, so don't feel bad about yourself.

While self-awareness and self-regulation are great, exercising willpower is really hard.

So, rather than relying on willpower too often, when you can change your environment,

so you can make great choices effortlessly. It can look something like this.

If you have trouble not eating the whole bag of Doritos or the whole pint of Ben and Jerry's,

buy a single size bag of chips or a four ounce container of ice cream instead.

Then you can enjoy your treat without needing to tear yourself away.

Will you pay more per ounce for a single serving container than you would for the full size?

Well, sure, but you're avoiding an internal conflict between your urge to devour every bite

and your intention to eat a small portion. That's worth a dollar or two.

And hey, if you would have eaten the whole point of Ben and Jerry's, well, the four ounce

...