We tend to look at our ‘heroes’ (whoever they are – business leaders, athletes, creatives, spiritual) and point to self-discipline as the reason for their success.
This misses the point. In fact, it’s downright damaging.
This “damage” takes two main forms:
First, things that look ‘extreme’ or unusual are more visible. So it’s easy to put people who repeatedly push themselves to do painful things on a pedestal — regardless of whether there’s a better way.
And — as a result — we undervalue and discount people who achieve things (great or small) the ‘easy’ way. We feel that their contribution is worth less if there’s no evidence that they struggled.
Second, we misinterpret what we see — and cause ourselves great pain as a result.
We don’t realise that a lot of the people who expend great effort over time can do so because they’ve found a way to reduce the self-discipline required.
So we try and emulate them through force of willpower alone. Then we feel bad when we either fail, or drive ourselves to burnout. Or we assume that we’re simply not capable of anything like this and never even try in the first place.
You see…
The most ‘successful’ people have worked out that they can’t afford to rely on self-discipline. Instead they design systems that help them to succeed even when they can’t summon up willpower or restraint.
Your willpower is a limited resource.
Some people have more. Some have less. But no-one has an inexhaustible supply.
It’s tempting to show how much you’ve got and how you wield it by doing things in a way that obviously requires huge amounts of willpower.
That’s fine if you value admiration over results.
But the better goal is not to have self-discipline or willpower. Rather it’s to arrange things so that you don’t have to use it.
There are almost always approaches that allow you to get the same outcomes in a much easier way.
That’s not lazy or weak. It’s smart.
You’ll look distinctly unimpressive compared to someone who ‘flexes’ their impressive self-discipline.
But then you hit one of those rare points where discipline is the only way forwards.
The ‘flexer’ will tap out at this point. Their ‘willpower tank’ is drained. But you’re just getting started. That’s where you power ahead…
As Jesse Itzler says: “Discipline is easy. Sustained, consistent discipline is hard”
So how do you achieve the things you want without willpower? You use tools. You set up systems that make the thing you want to do the default choice. That way, avoiding your important tasks is what takes effort.
Use habits to reduce the need for self-discipline
The effort comes because you have to choose to do something every time. That takes energy even when it’s not something unpleasant. The simple act of making a decision — any decision — still takes effort.
And when you’re choosing to do something you dislike then that really saps your energy.
But when it’s part of a habit it just happens without any unnecessary friction.
You have so much more energy to apply to the task in hand. (Instead of ‘wasting’ it on self-discipline)
The most powerful tool at your disposal is the environment
The right environment makes it effortless for you to do the things you want to do. In the best cases it’s harder not to do the tasks than it is to do them.
And the right environment also makes it harder for you to do the things you’re trying to avoid.
Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. It’s far too common that you’ll find your current environment makes desired behaviours hard and unwanted ones easy. That’s a recipe for disaster. (And you may well blame yourself for failures rather than realising the fault is with external conditions)
Don’t just accept the environment you find yourself in.
If it’s unhelpful then switch to a different environment. Or deliberately redesign it.
The same goes if it’s ok, or even good. If you improve your environment (with respect to meeting your goals) then everything you do after that becomes easier and more effective.
A small investment now pays huge dividends in the future.
The longer you intend to work on a particular topic, the bigger those dividends will be.
One final thing about the environment:
Your environment is not just the physical space around you. It’s also the people around you.
Aiming to succeed through sheer willpower and forced discipline is a foolish act of vanity and ego
But it’s pretty much the default option for human beings — through a mix of how we’re hardwired and the messages we get from society around us. So don’t feel bad if you’re constantly falling into this trap.
Instead, cut yourself some slack and laugh at how counter-productive it is.
Any time you find yourself tempted to ‘flex’ by pointing out how hard it was for you to achieve what you did… Use that as a reminder to do the opposite in future.
Try and set things up so that — when you explain what you actually did to produce a result — people can’t believe how easy it was.
You want them to say: “Anyone could have done that!”. You want them to give you zero credit for your success.
That’s when you’ll know you set things up in the right way.