Discipline

Originally written 5/28/2014.

I think if you think of anything you ever did that you were proud of, it involved some amount of discipline. I don't think discipline is terribly complicated, but the way I think of it is, you set rules, and then you follow them. I think a lot of people, in a lot of pursuits, only get as far as the first part: setting rules. I'm sure you've seen this a million times. New Year's resolutions and such.

It's easy to look at this and think, "Well, I guess so-and-so failed at following their rules. Must not have had enough willpower." I think this is generally the wrong way to think about it. The failure came earlier. The person set rules they couldn't follow, and were doomed to failure before they really started.

My take is that if something takes tremendous willpower, willpower you're at risk of not having, you've aimed too high. So you do okay while you're momentarily excited about something, and then when that runs out, you start cheating. You break your own rules. Chase your kale salad lunch with a cookie. Skip a running day. Spend a few extra minutes browsing Facebook instead of getting work done. Little things.

Then, once your rules are compromised once, what's another time? And over time, your rules become meaningless. But then you try the same exact rules next year, or whenever you're feeling introspective and dissatisfied.

The failure was in setting the rules. Life happens. Lapses in willpower happen. A plan that only accounts for the best case scenario is a lousy plan. Plans that account for and make allowances for these inevitable lapses in willpower are more resilient. If I plan a cheat day on my diet once a week, I'm not dealing with the will crushing situation of, "I'll never get to eat a cookie again :(". The temptation is managable if I think, "I can eat a ton of cookies on Saturday."

Personally, I find I feel best and manage my weight best when I eat one meal a day, where I can eat whatever I want. It's really kind of hard to eat 2000 calories in one sitting.

I won't say it never happens, but I think instant 180 transformations are rare. People who get lasting improvement over whatever metric they care about are generally going to be people who changed incrementally, with the understanding that it's easier to change one small thing at a time.

You change something small, which requires almost no willpower, and it works, and it becomes a habit and stops requiring any willpower, because it's automatic, and then you have that willpower to spend on the next thing.

My girlfriend has a stack of boxes in the bedroom from when her parents moved and she had to get all of her old crap out of her old room. From day 1, I told her, "Sort through one box a day. You'll be done in a couple of weeks." She keeps trying to save up the willpower for some herculean effort where she does it all at once. Doing the kind of dealmaking that's poisonous to any goal.

"I can do whatever I want this week, and then I'll go hard next week." (If you swap the order, I think this kind of deal is okay)

I think those boxes have been there for 2 and a half years at this point.

You can try to hack your life, read productivity self help books and blogs, and tease out a little more willpower or efficiency here and there, but the best shortcut is simple discipline.

Slow and steady and all that.