WHAT IS SELF-DISCIPLINE? ? "Self-discipline is about leaning into resistance, taking action despite how you feel, and living life by design, not by default. But, most importantly, it's acting in accordance with your thoughts, not your feelings. Put another way, motivation is your overall desire to do something, whereas discipline is your ability to do it regardless of how you feel. And for any of you who've ever woken up thinking, I don't feel like it, which is all of you, myself included, you can see now how important self-discipline is. It's building that baseline that allows you accordance with your long-term goals, no matter how motivated you feel."
Here are six essential strategies for building your self-discipline.
1. Focus on Identity To put it simply, when trying to change your behavior, forget about the goal you're trying to achieve and the external outcome. Instead, focus on the change in Identity you want to happen. This is a concept that you can first read about in James Clear's book Atomic Habits, which I highly recommend. And there's this passage near the beginning of the book that encapsulates it well. Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit." It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker and trying to be something else. They hope their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs. The second person declines by saying, "No thanks, I'm not a smoker." It's a slight difference, but the statement signals a shift in Identity. Smoking was a part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes. The general idea here is that once you've embraced a change in your Identity, you will find yourself aligning with that change. And if you're wondering why exactly this happens, the third chapter of Robert Cialdini's book Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, explains it well. Humans feel this natural compulsion to act consistently with their past decisions. As he writes in the book, once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision. And shifting my mindset in this way has been incredibly helpful in the past couple of months. And the first way that I implemented it was by starting to think of myself as an athlete. I've always been a pretty active person, and I've had a laundry list of athletic goals on my website for quite a long time. But I never leapt and started thinking of myself as an athlete. And there were some imposter syndrome reasons for this. But, after reading that passage in the book, I decided to take the leap and start thinking of myself as an athlete, not just as somebody who does active things. And that shift in mindset has done wonders for my levels of self-discipline in many different areas, from going to the gym more consistently, to training harder while I'm there, to even improving my diet, which has been a lot better than it used to be over the past couple of months.
2. Frequently remind yourself of why you're being disciplined in the first place.
We must have a strong why for our actions if we want to do them consistently. And every time I think about this concept, I'm reminded of a story about the actor Jim Carrey, and it goes like this. After arriving in Hollywood and still an impoverished actor, one day, he took out a napkin, drew a check made out to himself for $10 million, and postdated it for 10 years in the future. And then he put that check in his wallet so that every time he'd bring out his wallet, he could see it and remind himself of why he was working so hard, what he was working towards. And this is very helpful to do as well. Try writing down your goal or the Identity you want to assume and put it maybe on a sticky note next to your desk or by your computer so you can see it every single day and know that this is why I'm building my self-discipline and this is the reason for all the work I'm putting in.
3. Find ways to embrace discomfort and embrace resistance.
You feel towards doing something that takes hard work or that's unpleasant. Just like going to an actual gym and lifting weights makes you better at lifting weights in the future and able to lift more weight the next time you go in, every time you embrace discomfort, you're essentially doing a rep of the exercise that is self-discipline because it is a skill that can be learned, it is a muscle that can be built over time. This is why I'm such a proponent of taking cold showers because a cold shower is something that most people don't want to do. It's not very comfortable standing under that stream of ice-cold water, and that's the point. Every morning you get into the shower and choose to turn that handle to cold instead of hot, you are embracing discomfort, leaning into the resistance, which makes you better at doing so in the future, regardless of the task. So, as you go through your daily life, find ways to embrace discomfort. It could be cold showers, signing up for a 6:00 a.m. fitness class, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Whenever your brain throws up that I don't feel like it excuses, that is an opportunity to build that self-discipline muscle, and you should take it.
4. Target the fundamentals first.
By the fundamentals, I mean life's biological necessities, sleep, nutrition, and exercise habits. These are all crucial to pay attention to because the part of your brain that handles executive functioning, the part that regulates your desires and your impulses, requires a lot of energy and regular rest to function at peak levels. Always remember that you are, first and foremost, a collection of biological systems, all of which require the right inputs if you want to get the best outputs out of them. And, it's easy to picture the brain as separate from all of this, as existing in this metaphysical realm where the only needed fuel sources are motivation, determination, and wholesome memes. But the brain needs rest, exercise, and the right balance of nutrients, just as the rest of your body does. So, if you're sleep deprived, which you probably are, or you haven't gotten enough exercise regularly, or your diet is crap, that is where you should focus your discipline first.
5. Meditation.
And the reason you should do this is that meditation has been shown scientifically to help people improve their levels of self-discipline. A 2013 study at Stanford University showed that people who went through compassion training, a specific meditation program, were better able to regulate their emotions afterwards. And this is crucial for remaining disciplined and being able to make rational decisions. An easy way to get started would be by using guided meditation, which you can use through apps like Headspace and Calm or through many free videos on YouTube. But the form of meditation I've always practised, which I think is better for developing self-discipline specifically, is a form of zazen meditation, where I sit and concentrate on my breath with my eyes closed. And when my attention is inevitably pulled away by a random thought, I work to notice that, let that thought go, and then bring my attention back to my breath. And doing this over the long term has helped with self-discipline and concentration. Many people are not huge fans of meditation, it's probably the self-development practice you hate doing the most, but the benefits of doing so are undeniable.
6. Practice building new habits.
Building new habits is a separate discipline in the overall pursuit of changing your behaviour. But, the initial stages of building a new practice often require self-discipline because the behaviour has yet to be automatic. This is a great way to establish a new habit and become more disciplined. Celebrate your wins, and remember not to focus too much on purity, on perfect streaks. Instead, focus on ensuring that your trend is going in a positive direction. And remember that as it is doing that, and as that behaviour is becoming more automatic, your self-discipline is improving. Now, if you've already taken care of those health fundamentals and you're looking for a new habit to sink your teeth into and to get this process started with, then one that I might suggest would be taking on an independent learning project and putting some daily effort into learning something new. Perhaps, if you have the same interests that like in the area of computer science and algorithms, not only are these two topics incredibly fascinating, but if you happen to be the kind of person who wants to be a web developer someday or wants to be a programmer, then learning these computer science fundamentals can give you a leg up on the competition.
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