Michael Thelen
4y ago
Making sense of how to live better using neuroscience, (evolutionary) psychology, physiology, philosophy, and memes.
Let's pop a bubble real quick so we can build something stronger and more useful.
Discipline is not strength, it's not toughness, it's not pain-tolerance, and it sure as hell isn't the measure of character you think it is.
The nueroscience of dopamine ties together a tricky paradox that motivation is actually the horse-power under the hood of discipline.
Even motivational-speakers love to eschew motivation and motivational speakers. Whether it's Jocko Willink preaching, "Discipline Equals Freedom," or Tony Robbins or Les Brown raising an audience to ecstasy declaring those who wait for motivation will be waiting a lifetime. And they're wrong.
The word for what they mean to degrade as flippant and unreliable is EXCITEMENT. Not motivation.
There is only one molecule that drives you to take any action in life, to strive for glory, to run for safety, or to keep your promise - dopamine. And dopamine is molecule of wanting something.
Ask yourself what these discipline heroes have in common:
The father that takes a 3rd part-time job to pay for his special-needs daughter's therapy
The powerlifter who'd rather walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes with a fever than stay in bed and break her 300 day workout streak
The perfect attendance co-worker who's never been late for work once because she leaves 30 minutes early just in case there's traffic
Clear motive drives clear behavior - every time.
There's no way to have self-discipline when you sorta-wanna do this, and and sorta-wanna do that.
The person who says, "I'd rather be dead-brained and exhausted all day than be one of those slugs that show up late," doesn't struggle choosing to snooze the alarm or not. It's a clear choice between discomfort and HELL.