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LM: #293: Automatic discipline
If you’re disciplined, you do what you intend.
So if you say you’re gonna smash 3 pizzas today and watch all of Breaking Bad, and you do it, you’re disciplined.
Though discipline usually has a value judgement attached to it. You gotta exercise and eat healthy. The more “boring” it is, if you do it, people think you’re disciplined.
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Sustainable discipline has to lie somewhere in-between. Few of us can stand to be pure hedonists, and if you aspire to only do boring stuff, you’ll fall off the rails. If “discipline” takes a great deal of willpower, you’ll have a hard time staying disciplined.
But if you set up your schedule and environment to make it easy to do the things you intend, and hard to do the things you don’t, you’ll have automatic discipline.
The archetypal example is Ulysses having himself tied to the mast of his ship, so he wouldn’t be tempted by the song of the Sirens. If you want to eat fewer sweets and less alcohol, tie yourself to the mast – don’t keep candy or beer in your house.
But besides making it hard to do the things you don’t intend, you can also make it easier to do what you do intend. If you want to exercise, you’re better off joining the gym on the way home from work than the one twenty minutes away.
90% of discipline is making desired actions easy and undesired actions hard.
Aphorism: “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” —Albert Camus
Cool: This pumpkin seed protein (Amazon) is a plant-based, legume-free protein powder. The only I’ve found I can tolerate.
Best,
David
P.S. Architect Donald M. Rattner chatted with me about how changing your space can change your mind.
