Self-Discipline
June 5th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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This week I’ll be blogging a series on self-discipline. New posts on this topic will appear every day Mon-Fri. I’ve also added a new self-discipline category.
I’ve already written about 20 pages on self-discipline for my upcoming book, including what it is and how to develop it. I’ll share some of those ideas in this series, focusing on what I call the five pillars of self-discipline.
The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline
The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. If you take the first letter of each word, you get the acronym “A WHIP” — a convenient way to remember them, since many people associate self-discipline with whipping themselves into shape.
Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. But first a general overview….
What Is Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.
Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Picture yourself saying to your body, “You’re overweight. Lose 20 pounds.” Without self-discipline that intention won’t become manifest. But with sufficient self-discipline, it’s a done deal. The pinnacle of self-discipline is when you reach the point that when you make a conscious decision, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll follow through on it.
Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Within the domain of problems it can solve, self-discipline is simply unmatched. Moreover, it becomes a powerful teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning.
Building Self-Discipline
My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger you become. The less you train it, the weaker you become.
Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. Everyone has some — if you can hold your breath a few seconds, you have some self-discipline. But not everyone has developed their discipline to the same degree.
Just as it takes muscle to build muscle, it takes self-discipline to build self-discipline.
The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest.
Similarly, the basic method to build self-discipline is to tackle challenges that you can successfully accomplish but which are near your limit. This doesn’t mean trying something and failing at it every day, nor does it mean staying within your comfort zone. You will gain no strength trying to lift a weight that you cannot budge, nor will you gain strength lifting weights that are too light for you. You must start with weights/challenges that are within your current ability to lift but which are near your limit.
Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge. If you keep working out with the same weights, you won’t get any stronger. Similarly, if you fail to challenge yourself in life, you won’t gain any more self-discipline.
Just as most people have very weak muscles compared to how strong they could become with training, most people are very weak in their level of self-discipline.
It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistently starting the very next day, you’re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.
If you can only lift 10 lbs, you can only lift 10 lbs. There’s no shame in starting where you are. I recall when I began working with a personal trainer several years ago, on my first attempt at doing a barbell shoulder press, I could only lift a 7-lb bar with no weight on it. My shoulders were very weak because I’d never trained them. But within a few months I was up to 60 lbs.
Similarly, if you’re very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that were once impossible for you will eventually seem like child’s play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter.
Don’t compare yourself to other people. It won’t help. You’ll only find what you expect to find. If you think you’re weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you’re strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There’s no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward.
Let’s consider an example.
Suppose you want to develop the ability to do 8 solid hours of work each day, since you know it will make a real difference in your career. I was listening to an audio program this morning that quoted a study saying the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. So there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Perhaps you try to work a solid 8-hour day without succumbing to distractions, and you can only do it once. The next day you fail utterly. That’s OK. You did one rep of 8 hours. Two is too much for you. So cut back a bit. What duration would allow you to successfully do 5 reps (i.e. a whole week)? Could you work with concentration for one hour a day, five days in a row? If you can’t do that, cut back to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If you succeed (or if you feel that would be too easy), then increase the challenge (i.e. the resistance).
Once you’ve mastered a week at one level, take it up a notch the next week. And continue with this progressive training until you’ve reached your goal.
While analogies like this are never perfect, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this one. By raising the bar just a little each week, you stay within your capabilities and grow stronger over time. But when doing weight training, the actual work you do doesn’t mean anything. There’s no intrinsic benefit in lifting a weight up and down — the benefit comes from the muscle growth. However, when building self-discipline, you also get the benefit of the work you’ve done along the way, so that’s even better. It’s great when your training produces something of value AND makes you stronger.
Throughout this week we’ll dive more deeply into the five pillars of self-discipline. If you have any questions on the subject of self-discipline (either specific or general) that you’d like to see addressed, feel free to post them as comments, and I do my best to incorporate them along the way.
This post is part one of a six-part series on self-discipline: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6
June 5th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Great blog! Great articles.
Thank you so very much.
Terry Finley
http://workwithfinley.blogspot.com/
June 5th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Steve, this is a very interesting article. I agree with almost everything in your article and I’m anxiously waiting for your next articles in this series.
One thing I don’t agree with in your article, is about the 5 pillars of self-discipline. In my opinion there are 2 pillars you haven’t mentioned at all, but are very important:
Relaxation and fun.
Why do I consider relaxation and fun 2 very important pillars of self-discipline?
For a few years in my life I was a very self-disciplined person. I worked and learned a lot, lots of hours every day.
However after a few years of doing this I started to become a lot less disciplined. Everything related to working seemed bleak to me. I couldn’t force myself to do my work anymore.
What happened? It took me a few years to figure out.
I had gotten into a habit of working and learning all the time, every spare moment. Because of this, a part of me revolted against work.
After realising this, I understood that in order to be productive, you must also relax and have fun regularly.
It’s not that my work wasn’t fun. I considered it fun, but it seems that humans also require other kinds fun.
Working hard must be balanced by relaxing and having fun. For some people, this happens naturally, automatically.
However some people, like me, need to consciously plan their relaxation and fun parts.
So what did I do? Every day I started my day by walking in a park for 1-2 hours. In the beginning this didn’t have an effect, but in a few days, I became very productive again.
The kind of relaxation and fun you do are important. I also tried going to the movies every day, but this didn’t seem to affect productivity.
The two things that affect productivity for me are walking in the park and doing aerobic exercises in the gym.
June 5th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Nice post. I look forward to the follow-up posts on Self-Discipline.
June 5th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Dear Steve,
I think your website/blog are an excellent source of information on things about life. You’re a great motivational speaker! As a matter of fact, your blog is the first blog I have ever started visiting regularly and I hope to earn myself some of the traits which you talk about in your articles.
Keep up the good work!
Chris
June 5th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Good point, Insomniac. I suppose you could extend the analogy to say that rest between weight training sessions is like fun between discipline-building sessions.
In this case I don’t include fun as one of the “pillars” because I’m treating these pillars as the components of self-discipline. While fun may be important to build and maintain self-discipline, I don’t regard fun as an actual component of self-discipline.
June 5th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
This is great stuff. I’ve just discovered your blog in the past two weeks or so and have been visiting it regularly. I’m a 40-year-old who has always had an extremely hard time getting up in the morning so your article on “getting up in the morning” really gave me some good information and I’m now on day 7 of getting up early. Today’s article was really helpful to me because I’d never really thought about self-discipline as a muscle - great analogy. I’ve always tried to set too many aggressive goals at a time and I’m now going to go with the approach of slowly building up to the goals. Thanks for the blog - I look forward to this week’s articles.
June 5th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Your article series comes at a most excellent time when I am learning a lot about — and making a concerted effort at building — self-discipline. I’ve started trying to make a list of different areas in my life where I can exercise my self-discipline. It’s a specific list, as if developing a workout plan. Too often in the past I have tried to introduce a dozen new habits at once, and ended up adopting none of them.
Something helpful your series might include would be some more examples of specific challenges to exercise one’s self-discipline. If you were to ask around for ideas — among your readers, especially — I think it would be pretty easy to compile a list with a fairly general appeal that could spark people’s imagination and help your readers come up with ways to build their own self-discipline.
If you’ve read David Allen’s Getting Things Done there is a section on collecting all the projects and tasks you have to do and putting them on paper, in which they provide a decently-sized list to spark the reader’s imagination. That’s another good model, in addition to more specific “for example” kinds of challenges.
June 6th, 2005 at 12:59 am
i’ve been reading ur blog, and this is the 1st time i leave a comment here.
just my perspective about self disicpline, i am a 29 years old indonesian male, living in bangkok, thailand. naturally i am a moslem.
in islam, we were tought to pray 5 times daily since we were kids. before dawn, twice in the afternoon, at dusk and at night.
i didn’t think about it much, just doing it, but now i am thinking that this is a kind of practice in self discipline too.
June 6th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Thank you!
June 6th, 2005 at 4:03 am
Lifting Self-Discipline Weights
Self-Discipline » Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog
It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and…
June 6th, 2005 at 8:15 am
Great article. I’ll speak from my own experience, but sometimes I avoid the discipline it takes to accomplish significant goals out of fear. Sometimes I’ve asked myself — is all this self discipline even worth it? Sometimes I fear that it’s not. Here are some of the fears that have held me back at times…
What if I fail to accomplish my goal in my set time frame?
What if it turns out I’m going after the wrong thing and so I’ve “wasted” all this time going down the wrong path (perhaps years depending on the goal)?
What if external influences cause my goal to be impossible?
What if my morality comes into conflict with what it takes to succeed at this (think, Andrew Fastow & Enron, and your typical company with a Wall Street presence)?
What if the effort it takes causes me to have to push away significant others or friends?
Etc…
The list goes on and on. Some of these issues are imaginary and some are real, but all can be overcome I think. That’s the breakthrough that has to be reached for some (like myself) to realize that the self discipline is even worth it in the first place.
June 6th, 2005 at 8:44 am
Hi Steve,
Are you saying that consistency ie building a rhythm, is the important thing in building self discipline?
I have suffered the last 3 years from lack of concentration, to the extent, I said working 5 minutes an hour on what is important as is good, as long as I do it consistently every hour.
I will put into practise starting with a lower goal and consistently meeting it, then raising the bar.
Thanks
Harish
June 6th, 2005 at 10:36 am
@Crimson:
Sometimes I’ve asked myself — is all this self discipline even worth it?
Yes, it’s worth it.
What if I fail to accomplish my goal in my set time frame?
If you still want the goal, extend the time frame. It just means your estimate was wrong.
What if it turns out I’m going after the wrong thing and so I’ve “wasted” all this time going down the wrong path (perhaps years depending on the goal)?
Better to discover you’re on the wrong path sooner rather than later. Sometimes you have to explore several wrong paths to even find the right one. Bill Gates abandoned Traf-O-Data, a company he ran for a while before giving up and starting Microsoft.
Also, the time isn’t fully wasted because you’ll undoubtedly learn something along the way, and you’ll grow stronger too, making yourself more prepared to handle the right path when you find it.
Life is about the journey, not the end result. Don’t be afraid to explore multiple paths to see where they take you and what you learn along the way. The worst thing you can do is to stand still and do nothing.
What if external influences cause my goal to be impossible?
Let it go and set a new goal. Or tackle those external influences to make the goal possible.
What if my morality comes into conflict with what it takes to succeed at this (think, Andrew Fastow & Enron, and your typical company with a Wall Street presence)?
Do you consider Enron a success? I don’t.
Success is a journey, not a destination. Your values and morals are part of that journey.
One of my goals was to find a path where there would be minimal conflict between serving myself and serving others. I wanted both of those arrows to be pointing me in the same direction. This required me to paint a picture of success that was fully congruent with my values and ethics, which is something I feel I’ve accomplished.
What if the effort it takes causes me to have to push away significant others or friends?
This comes down to values. Read the two-part article series Living Your Values for more info on that. If your friends are incongruent with what’s most important to you and it’s clear that isn’t going to change, dump ‘em. Be loyal to your highest and best self, and surround yourself with people who can support you in that role.
June 6th, 2005 at 10:38 am
@Harish:
It’s more accurate to say that self-discipline helps to build consistency. Self-discipline is required the first few weeks to establish and maintain new actions. After that habit takes over, and you’re on autopilot.
June 6th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
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June 12th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
I have some of the same fears that Crimson has, although I’d state mine slightly differently.
What if I had incredible discipline, worked really hard, but didn’t like it?
I like the results, but not the processs. If i were to give myself over completely to Self-Discipline I’d never like the process, would I?
Lying in bed late feels good. Having a clean house feels good, but cleaning the house doesn’t feel good.
So something has to happen to change the process of discipline, or it never pays off, does it? Otherwise, you’re always working on something that’s unfinished and not enjoying any of it.
I’ll re-read the chapter on hard work in case I misunderstood.
June 14th, 2005 at 2:56 am
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June 16th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
I think I might get it. I’ve given myself discipline challenges, but probably at a level too hard, so I end up quitting. What I’m going to do now is try to get set the challenge up so that my emotions feel just beyond the edge of comfort, but not so much that I’m angry and saying, “I hate this, I don’t want to do this…”
If I understand it, Pavlina’s not saying be a masochist, he’s saying find a way to challenge yourself to get more comfortable with doing the things that are necessary.
June 17th, 2005 at 1:09 am
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July 5th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
why is self discipline important