Combating common self-discipline myths with behavioural science 

Many of our clients complain about a lack of self-discipline. We're urged by health professionals and motivational YouTubers alike to let go of our lazy habits and embrace the power of self-discipline. The problem is, everyone seems to have less to say about how to actually do this, or worse, they perpetuate damaging myths:

Myth 1: You can just 'decide' to be more disciplined.

Despite being an enthusiastic fan of motivational speakers, it's frustrating to see the damaged caused by the proliferation of false information. With a couple of exceptions, most of these speakers perpetuate the idea that we can simply decide to become disciplined overnight, if only we want it badly enough. 

The truth is, behaving differently to the way we normally would requires energy-intensive frontal cortex processing, meaning the brain can only adopt a finite number of new behaviours at a time. 

Building discipline requires careful and gradual conversion of novel behaviours into (less energy intensive) reflexive habits over time.

Myth 2: Building discipline has to involve suffering.

When we think about building a heathier, more disciplined lifestyle, we often think about suffering through brutal daily exercise regimes whilst stripping all of the fun from our diet for weeks on end. We may also need to get up at the crack of dawn, and grit our teeth through the fatigue of an even more demanding schedule.

The problem with this idea is that the brain requires pleasure in order to build habits. The pleasure or reward a behaviour creates MUST outweigh the discomfort it produces if the brain is to repeat it in the future.

This might get a little more complex when we think about people who derive emotional pleasure from physical suffering, but I assure you the math is the same.

Myth 3: People who lack discipline are just lazy 

If you're struggling with discipline (you want to behave one way, but continually find yourself doing something else), it isn't because you are 'lazy'. It's because you don't yet understand what the brain needs in order to build and change habits. 

Disciplined people have at least one of the following features;

1. They learned healthy and effective schedules growing up, meaning many of the habits that we think of as requiring discipline have become automated habits

2. They derive more emotional pleasure (example pride) from doing hard things than the discomfort involved

3. They have developed strong distress-tolerance skills (which help them to persist in the face of discomfort rather than seeking escape)

All off these skills can be built with the correct strategies.

Build self-discipline with evidence-based strategies from the comfort of home 

 We help clients to build the self-discipline necessary to achieve their goals with minimal discomfort using evidence-based techniques derived from behavioural science.