If Self-Discipline Feels Difficult, Then You're Doing It Wrong

Seeing self-discipline in terms of pure willpower fails because beating ourselves up for not trying hard enough doesn't work. In fact, it backfires. And, as anyone who has ever tried to go on a diet will tell you, it usually only makes it worse.

Ultimately, self-discipline is not based on willpower or self-denial, but it's actually based on the opposite: self-acceptance.

This sort of acceptance is way more complicated than it sounds. We don't even realize all of the ways that we judge ourselves for our perceived failings. Thoughts are constantly streaming through our heads and without even realizing it, we're tacking on "because I'm a horrible person" to the end of a lot of them.

And that's your first problem. Step one to self-discipline is to de-link your personal failings from moral failings. You have to accept that you cave to indulgence and that this doesn't necessarily make you a horrible person. We all cave to indulgence in some shape or form. We all harbor shame. We all fail to reign in our impulses. And we all like a good fucking bowl of ice cream from time to time.

Here's the thing: there's a sick sort of comfort that comes from these self-judgments. That's because they relieve us of the responsibility for our own actions. If I decide that I can't give up ice cream because I'm a horrible person-that "horrible person-ness" precludes my ability to change or improve in the future-therefore, it's technically out of my hands, isn't it? It implies that there's nothing I can do about my cravings or compulsions, so fuck it, why try?

For one, it suggests that emotions are merely internal behavioral mechanisms that can be manipulated like anything else. Just like putting your floss next to your toothbrush reminds you to floss every morning, once the moral judgments are removed, feeling bad because you relapsed on the cookies and cream can simply be a reminder or motivator to address the underlying issue.

We must address the emotional problem the compulsion is trying to numb or cover up. You compulsively eat tubs of ice cream each week. Why? Well, eating-especially sugary, unhealthy food-is a form of numbing. It brings the body comfort. It's sometimes known as "emotional eating" and the same way an alcoholic drinks to escape her demons, the overeater eats to escape his.

Find it. Address it. And most importantly: accept it. Find that deep, dark ugly part of yourself. Confront it, head on, allowing yourself to feel all the awful, icky emotions that come with it. Then accept that this is a part of you and it's never going away. And that's fine. You can work with this, rather than against it.

1. There's nothing to numb anymore. Therefore, suddenly those tubs of ice cream seem pointless.
2. You see no reason to punish yourself. On the contrary, you like yourself, so you want to take care of yourself. More importantly, it feels good to take care of yourself.

But you don't necessarily have to do this deep therapeutic work to gain self-discipline. Simply understanding and accepting your emotions for what they are can allow you to work with them rather than against them.

You can also do this through positive reinforcement: find ways to reward yourself for doing the correct behavior. Research shows that this is actually how new habits are formed: you do the desired behavior and then reward yourself for it.