Self Discipline is Self Caring – 10 Ways to Be More Disciplined and Love it


“No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful 
that it may not be subdued by discipline.”
-Seneca

I am trying to be more disciplined myself as I write this post (this was supposed to be published on Sunday not Tuesday!), so do not treat this as something coming from an authority but from an experimenter and a fellow companion in the journey to be more self-disciplined.

(This is part one of 3 part series on Self Caring – Healthy Body, Heart and Lifestyle. This focuses on being self-disciplined as a lifestyle trait. The rest 2 would be published next Thursdays and Sundays.)

What is Self Discipline?
Merriam-Webster defines self-discipline or self-control as “correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement“. They also provide a simpler and more helpful definition for English language learners: “the ability to make yourself do things that should be done”.

Apt. Self-discipline is about doing things you do not want to do but you know you need to do and going ahead and doing them despite the inherent discomfort and reluctance. Some examples would be studying for the impending test when you want to watch TV, having that important but uncomfortable conversation with your partner when you’d rather browse internet, working out when you want to eat an ice cream and so on.

Our brains are wired for comfort and pleasure and discipline feels inherently difficult, bad and repulsive. So why is it needed?

The Importance of Self Discipline
In his book, The Road Less Traveled, Psychologist M. Scott Peck offers the following perspective on the importance of self-discipline:

Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.

Discipline is essential for utilizing our full potential, realizing our possibilities and becoming the person we are meant to be. In all aspects of life – be it physical, mental or emotional health, personal or professional relationships, all goals and living a happier, peaceful life – discipline is essential and perhaps the most important quality. A few points to help you realize this:

Self Disciplined People are Happier
“It is one of the strange ironies of this strange life that those who work the hardest, who subject themselves to the strictest discipline, who give up certain pleasurable things in order to achieve a goal, are the happiest men.” – Brutus Hamilton.
According to a study by psychologist Wilhelm Hofman and his team at University of Chicago, people who are disciplined and are able to refrain from impulses are happier. This seems counter-intuitive, because if I can eat a cake now and everyday, am I not lot happier than someone who is disciplined in diet and eats boiled vegetables? The answer is sure, I am having more pleasure but in long-term it’s more likely I’d be prone to diseases like diabetes and heart diseases and would live a far stressful life versus someone in more control of their diet, who would likely be healthier, thinner, less susceptible to diseases and would avoid stress.

Corollary: Pleasure vs Happiness
A lot of people confuse instant gratification, which is release of pleasure chemicals like dopamine, with happiness which is wrong. Happiness is an abundance of positive emotions like joy, interest, pride, gratitude, an inner satisfaction and appreciation of life. Pleasure is just one small aspect which depends on external factors. You may not experience the pleasure without the cake but you can be happy – cake is not needed. Also gratification in this instant often leads to stress, sadness, disappointments and other overwhelming negative emotions later in life.

Self Discipline means Less Stress, Pain and Disappointments
“The more disciplined you become the easier life gets.” – Steve Pavlina
I think this is easier to understand. If you submit your homework on time, you escape from late submission punishment. If you put work and heart in your relationship everyday, you skip later disappointments. If you find time for your physical, mental and emotional health, you’re less likely to suffer from diseases, mental deterioration and would be more resilient and prudent in unfavorable circumstances. If you follow your work deadlines, you’re more likely to be promoted and less likely to be fired.
The key thing in all of these instances is attempting the necessary thing now for future rewards. But in doing so, you face your greatest enemy: the current you.

We hate ourselves (Please read this carefully)
A lot of us hate ourselves. Don’t believe me? How else can you justify the pain, disappointment, suffering and torture that our current self inflicts on our future self for momentary pleasure? We consider ourselves excluded of suffering our future self would go through. We believe it’s some different person who would be dying in a hospital, who would be going through a divorce, who would be fired from her job, who would be failing in his exam. Despite knowing such catastrophic outcomes that our future version would go through, we still indulge in petty pleasures that we know would ruin us and our lives.

Loving the “Future-You”
“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” -Abraham Joshua Heschel
How do we address and overcome this self-hatred? One easily overlooked fact we need to realize is that just as our future self suffers from our current self’s indulgence, irresponsibility and debauchery. Our future self and therefore we, also reap the rewards like happiness, achievements, fulfillment, joy, peacefulness, loving environment and so on – if we exhibit more self-control and discipline now. It’s us who would be happier, healthier, have a great married life, richer, calmer, stress free and successful. As you’d see in the later section attuning ourselves with reality and our responsibility also helps us being kinder to ourselves. Begin to love yourself. Do not live a life where the present self is indifferent to the future self and lives in the regret of things past self did. It’s just you. Do not inflict such pain on yourself.

Corollary: Accept There’s No Different Person in Future.
Again, the person who experiences gratification now and suffers later are same people – you. Visualize and imagine yourself as reaping the results of your actions before indulging in pleasure. It’s you who suffers or succeeds. Be more connected with your future version through visualization, long-term plans, goals, letters/emails to future self, being mindful in this instant and consistent evaluation of where you’re heading in life.

The Structured Life
Discipline is formed through habits, over long period of time. More organized, structured and timely you’re in your daily, seemingly insignificant activities like sleeping, eating, bathing etc. the more disciplined you’d be in other, more significant aspects of your life such as health, relationship, career etc. and more time you’ll find for them.

Discipline is a Journey
And a slow one at that. It doesn’t happen that you’re in-disciplined and suddenly decide to be more disciplined and poof! -are now in complete control of all aspects of life. Sorry but you’d crash and burn. Discipline is like a muscle, the more you practice the better you become. Just like weight lifting, in the beginning you start small. Slowly, daily challenge yourself to larger goals i.e. more uncomfortable tasks and become stronger.

10 Ways to Become More Self Disciplined
I’ll discuss only 5 (6-10) here in detail and simply mention the rest (1-5) that are better explained in the post on Overcoming Instant Gratification. Let’s jump into them:

6. Shipping is Better than Perfecting
Pursuing Perfection is one of the most common excuse and most overlooked mistake. It’s deeply intertwined with self-discipline. Whether you’re trying to be more self disciplined or applying it in a task, know that it’s better to just do something than to delay it. It’s better to get something done than to avoid and delay any progress.
I used the word Shipping instead of Doing. Shipping means you’re open to criticism, feedback, any measurement of your activity. Writing this blog post and saving it in my drafts is doing, publishing it – putting it out in the world and getting feedback from real people is shipping.

7. Rituals are Better than Habits
Self discipline is a process and is built through good habits/routines. You don’t wake up early, workout, make your bed, study, talk to your partner once a year, you’ve to do it regularly. As I interpret Rituals are habits that are performed with attention, devotion, mindfulness and a sort of celebration. You don’t skip it. Rituals have the automaticity & self-initiation of habits but are performed with more attentiveness and more involvement. Habits can be bad but since you really think through and involve in rituals, they’re always good. Discipline cultivated through rituals is more effective than one built through habits.

8. You’d Never “Feel Right”
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.’ – Pablo Picasso
Another powerful and somewhat rational excuse we give ourselves is “I don’t feel like doing it”. True. When there’s a pile of pizza a call away, you won’t feel like sticking to your diet or working out, ever. Motivation is extremely overrated and comes after the task is done or at least begun. Doing anything requires a touch of madness, just jumping into it, regardless of how we’re feeling.

9 . Prioritizing Tasks & Time Management (Einsenhower Decision Box)
The 34th President of the United States Dwight Eisenhower was one of the greatest leaders in history. He proposed division of all tasks into Important and Urgent and then acting on them. From a brilliant, must read post from Art of Manliness:
Eisenhower Decision Matrix urgent important

Urgent means that a task requires immediate attention. These are the to-do’s that shout “Now!” Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode, one marked by a defensive, negative, hurried, and narrowly-focused mindset.

Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals. Sometimes important tasks are also urgent, but typically they’re not. When we focus on important activities we operate in a responsive mode, which helps us remain calm, rational, and open to new opportunities.

The key is to focus more on important tasks than urgent tasks.

10. Keep a Track of Your Progress
You’d be better self disciplined and in more control of life if you know where you’re heading and how you’ve progressed. Maintaining this in a journal, app or digital document may really help you becoming more self disciplined, identifying and correcting the mistakes you make and the obstacles or circumstances that lure you away.

1. Start Small (so small it seems ridiculously easy).
2. Minimize Temptations (remove them!) and use Meaningful Distractions to your advantage.
3. Know that Willpower can be replenished and increased. Increase it.
4. Start Accountability and/or Support System
5. Be Consistent (Build the Momentum and Be Committed). Be Persistent (It’s ok to fail but it’s important to try again tomorrow)


4 Tools for Self Discipline (optional but highly recommended read)
The post was already long, so I put this separately. The Road Less Traveled is divided in 4 sub-parts, the first part is discipline. The author recommends 4 tools to be more disciplined in life:
1. Delaying gratification
“Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.”
“Serving one’s own passions is the greatest slavery.” – Thomas Fuller

This is the single most important tool in becoming more disciplined. I won’t cover this here, because I’ve covered in far more detail drawing insights from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and practical examples in a previous post here: Overcoming Instant Gratification

2. Acceptance of Responsibility
“We can’t solve a problem by saying “it’s not my problem”. We must accept the responsibility for a problem before we can solve it. The difficulty we have in accepting the responsibility for our behavior lies in desire to avoid pain in the consequences of that behavior.”
You can’t escape from freedom of responsibility you have for your life. You can’t attribute your problems to society, system, parents, children, race and so on. Sure they may have some partial contribution to your current situation but you cannot be disciplined in life unless you accept where you are and determine where you want to be, in spite of the external factors that hinder you.

3. Dedication to Truth (Reality)
“Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.”
Continuously Revise Your Map – For our map i.e. our view of reality to be accurate we need to consistently revise it. This is painful and so a lot people avoid it. Their outdated maps make them think the reality is same in adulthood as it was in childhood, same in college as was in school, same when being single and married and so on.
Be Open To Challenge: The only way to ascertain that our view of reality is accurate is by being willing to be challenged from other people’s view of reality. Else we form a view and stick to it, a closed system. Consistently seek feedback and correct yourself.
A lot of people never confront reality/truth and live in a dreamland. You cannot be disciplined without accepting you are not. Be dedicated to reality and strive to have it more accurate.
Do not withhold Truth: Do not white lie i.e. withhold part of truth at least from self. Don’t indulge in black lying i.e. accept something as true despite knowing it to be false.  Wake up from dreamland.

4. Balancing
“To be organized and efficient, to live wisely, we must daily delay gratification and keep an eye on the future; yet to live joyously we must also possess the capacity, when it is not destructive, to live in the present and act spontaneously. In other words, discipline itself must be disciplined. ”
It’s neither possible nor necessary to be disciplined all the time. When acting spontaneously and immediate gratification is not destructive, we should act on it. This balancing comes with time and should be practiced with our best judgement.


Did you like the post? Where can we improve? Please give your valuable feedback. Thanks a lot!

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Be kind. Stay positive. Radiate happiness. Goodbye. Take care. Keep Trailing on your Untrailed Path. 🙂


 

The Dilemma of Good and Pleasant: How Our Brain Works and 10 Powerful Ways to Overcome Instant Gratification.

Image result for 2 choicesIn the Ancient Indian scripture Kathopanishad, there is a verse spoken by Lord of Death to the child Nachiketa that describes the dilemma that we all often face: of choosing to do what is right and good for our future even though it’s uncomfortable right now OR doing things that give instant gratification right now but harm us in the long term-
“Every person is faced with 2 choices: The Good (sreyas) and The Pleasant (preyas). A wise person chooses The Good, even though it’s not pleasant. A fool chooses The Pleasant, with only instant gratification in mind and suffers later.”
-Kathopanishad, 8th Century BC, India.

We’re faced with this choice numerous times every day: Should we choose the healthier salad or the delicious dessert? Should we watch the TV right now or study? Should we take the stair or lift? Should we write the blog post or continue browsing Facebook? Make the important call or watch another video? Discuss the important but difficult issue with our partner or go on with our day.

And we choose the pleasant more often than we would like to. Not only that, sometimes we understand the Pleasant would ruin us, we don’t pursue it but we indefinitely delay doing the Good. This gives rise to missed deadlines, amassing of guilt and regret, introduce excuses, lying, dishonesty, bad habits usually follow and over long time, can result in far worse outcomes than one can anticipate like ill-health, failure, rejection and broken relationships. This may sound too extreme but it’s the small everyday wrong choices that may result in such apocalyptic outcome.

Knowing is Not Enough
In another scripture from India, the Mahabharata, the antagonist prince Duryodhana, offers the following perspective when asked why he continues to do the bad deeds despite knowing what is right:
“I know what is dharma (i.e. righteousness), yet I cannot get myself to follow it! I know what is adharma (non-righteousness), yet I cannot abstain from it! O Lord of the senses! You dwell in my heart and I will do as you impel me to do.”

This seems all too real and relatable. We ‘know’ what is the right thing to do and what we should avoid, despite this knowledge we end up pursuing the Pleasant and delaying the Good. As if our brains our wired to do that. Are they? Yes!

The 3 Evolutionary Layers of Human Brain: Lizard, Monkey and Human
Even when we know, we only know what is right and wrong but it also helps us to understand how our brain has evolved over hundreds of millions of years and retained some of its ancient parts and tendencies.

The Evolution of brain can be generalized in 3 stages (see notes at end):
1. The Reptilian/Primitive Brain: The most primitive part, it’s the part over spine with brain stem and cerebellum. It’s responsible for involuntary functions like heartbeat, blood circulation etc. as well as the flight or fight response.
It’s rigid, automatic and compulsive. It wants the gratification right now! We have very less control over it in comparison to the other 2 parts.

2. The Monkey/Emotional Brain:
This part evolved in earliest mammals. It includes hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, fear/pleasure response circuits among other parts. It’s responsible for emotions, subconscious actions, learning and responses. Also helps in forming and retaining memories.
The Reward Circuit and Addiction:
A neural pathway involving major parts of this brain layer is responsible for reward/ reinforcement learning. When we do something pleasureful, a neuro-transmitter (a chemical) called Dopamine is released. This makes us happier. The monkey brain again anticipates/demands that trigger, we do it and again dopamine is released. This results in dependence on that trigger. The trigger can be drugs like cocaine, intoxicants like alcohol or cigarette, it can also be porn, compulsive web browsing, shopping or over consumption of some food.
This reward circuit if properly adjusted, can be used for building good habits by utilizing non-addictive rewards. (See point 9 below)

3. Neo-cortex (New/Human Brain): This part evolved in earliest primates and culminated in humans. It’s the 2 large cerebral hemispheres and is responsible for problem solving, languages, abstract thoughts, imagination, learning, thinking and also for will power (especially the pre-frontal cortex).

Our Brain is Still Mostly Animalistic
The neo-cortex part of brains has evolved relatively recently and the earlier 2 layers are far more dominating. This is why we’re often swayed by our impulses and have to consistently rely on our willpower but…

The Willpower is Limited
In her book, The Willpower Instinct Dr. Kelly McGonigal writes that willpower is a limited resource. It’s generally highest in the morning and slowly diminishes as we utilize it and as the day progresses it becomes harder to resist temptations.
This means you can’t just wake up at 5 AM on 1st of January, do 10 mile run, start eating healthy, be more responsible, be on time and finish your work. If you didn’t already have the habit, you’d have exhausted significant part of willpower by waking up at 5 AM alone.

The Monkey in the Market:
75000 years ago when we were wandering nomads and food was scarce, it made sense to eat the sweet fruit immediately, it had a lot of calories and so we could go one longer. Similarly, it made sense to mate, sleep and do other fundamental, sustaining functions immediately; you never knew if you’d get a chance. As it also made sense to run on the sight of an animal with really long teeth like a Saber-tooth cat. The flight/fight response, the pleasure aspects of our brain saved us.

Slowly as we began to live in groups, our lives became more and more complex. We needed more self-control and restraint in regard to food, mating, resources and duties like hunting & protecting our tribe. Our brains evolved functions of will power, empathy, self-control and neo-cortex became larger and more integrated with other brain parts, having more control over them as well as more influenced by them.

But we retained the earlier aspects too. So when we’re in market it’s really difficult to not eat the pizza, cake, chips and chocolate or do a lot of shopping. We’ve hundreds of distractions on internet, in TVs and phones and our brain’s reward circuits are on fire. We can’t form good habits because eating a chocolate or watching a movie etc. appear more pleasurable and make complete sense to our animal brains than starting the habit of working out.

We’re like a monkey in a market place, he’s never been to a more lucrative, tempting place. He can’t decide what to do. He wants everything and he wants it all right now. When there is food and fun, why be in self-control?

The Opposition Stacked Against Us So Far
So far I’ve only described how we choose instant gratification despite knowing what is right, how our brains are wired for temptation, how we live in an age of distraction & temptations, how our reward circuits are on fire – giving rise to bad habits and how we have limited will power.

There’s Hope
If humanity is a religion, it’d be a blasphemy to say that we cannot do anything and we’d always be a victim of our urges, temptations and instincts. Looking around us confirms this, we’ve made great progress and attained remarkable achievements – our ancestor 75,000 years ago could never think of a smartphone but slow, incremental discoveries of fire, agriculture, metal, industry, electricity, semiconductor – step by step like this has taken us here.

Instead of being scared of the knowledge of how our brains work, we should use this to our advantage.

How to Beat Instant Gratification?
I’d describe the following 10 ways that I’ve observed have helped me:

1. Start Small (so small it seems ridiculously easy):
This seems too simple but I cannot stress enough how important this is, if you just take one single point and adapt it, take this. Whether it is starting good habit or breaking the bad one, start small.
Never worked out? Do 3 repetitions of push up. Do it 2 days a week. Then take it to 5 repetitions one or even 2 weeks later. If regular push ups seem difficult, do it with knees on floor, same amount. Never ran? Run 5 or even 2 meters. Start so small it seems ridiculously easy that you can’t think of quitting or doing something else.

2. Just Start It:
I could make this corollary of point 1 but it’s too important and often overlooked. You want or do not want something, you have to start it. The Psychologist Timothy Pychyl has coined “Just start it!” based on Nike’s Just do it. Take the first step.
Want to stop with alcoholism? Sign up for alcohol anonymous. Next step would be to go there. Want to start with the essay/blog post? Just decide the topic and write it down. May be next step would be to write the outline. After that the first point and so on.

3. Minimize Temptations (Remove Them!):
Start this small too. Slowly begin to decrease the temptations around you. Distant yourself from the dependencies that give rise to The Pleasant. Examples would clear them better:
Smoke 10 cigarettes a day? Buy a smaller packet. Decrease 1 over week/ 2 week. Drink too much? May be don’t hang out with the buddy who bathes in alcohol. Waste time on distracting websites? Install blocker extensions like StayFocusd. Gossip too much? Meet the person less or talk about something else. Don’t want to eat the pastries? Don’t buy the pastries or give the ones away and so on.
Corollary: Meaningful Distractions
Some distractions can help you delay the more dangerous gratification. Want to smoke? Watch the TV series or to feel less guilty, go for a run, call someone. Meaningful distractions deviate your focus from instant gratification.

4. Be Consistent (Build the Momentum and Be Committed)
When you’re making a life changing decision or habit, start small and build it up slowly. But be consistent. Decide the frequency: whether hours or days or weeks you’d do something and then on those times, short of World War 3 or a Family Crisis you must do it! Tolerate no excuses, you’re already starting small. I’d say sitting down for 1 hour of an episode is more uncomfortable than 1 or 3 or 5 push-ups, you do twice in a week or once in 2 weeks (depending on your progression).

5. Willpower Can Be Replenished and Increased
Dr. McGonigal also describes that ‘Willpower Reservoir’ can be replenished with Sleep, Rest and when you need it for small time, a minimum 5 minute breathing, relaxing meditation.
It can also be increased with regular physical exercise. Also, as you slowly begin to do the uncomfortable activities that you’ve been avoiding, start small and slowly buildup, you’d expand the limits of your willpower. What seemed too difficult in the past would seem part of nature sometime later. The same activity consumes very less or NO willpower at all after some time. And this willpower you’re free to use on other activities. Yay!

6. It’s Okay to Fail:
In the pursuit of anything, you’d fail. There’d be days when you’d even miss the 3 push ups and WW3 hasn’t started and it’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up for it. There may be relapses in your habit, recurrence of the behavior you’re wanting to change, reemergence of the thoughts you’re trying to get over and it’d be tough. Sometime they’d overcome you. Sleep on it, don’t think on it. But make sure to take the step you missed as soon as you can. We have to practice tough self-love but not beat ourselves either. Balance it.

7. Be Mindful (Acknowledge I’ve a thought or Start Journaling):
There is all sort of confusing mess about mindfulness. For our discussion, it’s simple: Be Aware. Observe your thoughts. Like observe the thought you want to eat a chocolate.
This unfortunately doesn’t work for everyone. You can start a journal, where you pour thoughts about what you want to do, pro & cons against it and track progress. But people can procrastinate on journaling too.
In short, I’d say learn to observe your thoughts. Have some mantra, motto, a mission statement or a catch phrase. Observe the tempting thought and recall your motto. If still have the same thought, distract yourself with the motto. This needs like 2 blog posts of its own to explain properly. It’s the essence: Be mindful. Then direct your awareness to the Righteous.

8.  Start Accountability and/or Support System
Sometimes this journey can be daunting alone and may be you’re observing you’re failing too many times, then open up and ask for help. If you’re too shy to talk with your loved ones, go to a support group. These are especially helpful in addictions and for bad habits.
If you find it hard to be committed and perform the necessary action, have your ruthless friend make you more accountable. Example, if you don’t study and show him/her your progress every 3 days you pay him/her $5 or $15 or do their home work. The idea is to have a higher discomfort in this penalty than the actual task itself. There are apps that automatically do that.

9. Build a Healthy Reward System:
Example, if you stay committed and do not give in to instant gratification say for a week then you can have a temporary unrelated reward. Unrelated as in if trying to overcome alcoholism, it must not be related to alcohol or any addiction, may be eat a cake. But if it’s related to cakes, and you don’t eat for a month, then may be watch a movie or TV series? So on.

10. Delay (Defer Gratification):
This is in the end for a reason, you’ve to follow some of the above steps, but some can just do this: Whenever feeling the urge, delay. Don’t act immediately. It goes hand in hand with meaningful distraction and mindfulness. Distract yourself. Overtime it becomes a habit by itself. You have all these thoughts, you observe them and they go, like a flowing river. They don’t have an obstruction to stop the flow and flood, meaning, there is no anchor stopping those thoughts, one thought is replaced with another. With meditation, thoughts can be replaced with thoughtlessness. There is no thought, hence there is no action that follows that thought. Keep realigning your focus.

This has been one of the longer posts. I hope it has been helpful. I thank you very much for reading it and request it to share it, if it’s been helpful.

All the best with your goals. You can message me on Facebook if you want to talk about something. Take care. Keep smiling. Keep progressing towards your dream. Keep Trailing on Your Untrailed Path.


Notes:
1. The Triune Brain Model: Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain

2. The Status of Triune Model: Triune Model: What to keep and what to discard

3. Duryodhan’s Verse: Janami Dharmam

4. Verse from Kathopanishad:
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