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When you think of the word discipline, what image comes to mind? Chances are good that you thought of something negative— being spanked or sent to your room as a child or receiving a warning for some infraction at work. Most people tend to think of discipline as a punishment, but in actuality, the definition refers to training that corrects, molds, or perfects mental capacity or moral character. True, many parents achieve this outcome by using various forms of punishment, so the negative association is well founded. However, discipline is also a trait celebrated and revered in many circles, especially athletics. Any pro athlete will tell you that ittakes discipline to make it in the majors. Michael Jordan, acknowledged as possibly the greatest basketball player of all time, once remarked that he wasn’t out there sweating on the court three hours a day just to find out what it feels like to sweat. He understood the need to train his mind and his body to perform to the best of his ability, even on days when he would have preferred to stay in bed.

 Willpower is a companion to discipline. It is the mindset of energetic determination that allows discipline to manifest. Many people view willpower as a mechanism of failure, because it is closely associated with avoiding temptation. At the end of a long work day, it’s a lot easier to sit down and watch TV than to go for a run, but for those with a desire to optimize their health, the combination of discipline and willpower win out. More often than not, they find themselves lacing up their sneakers and heading out the door. These two traits are what we aspire to because we tend to feel that we aren’t doing as much as we can. In the face of hardship, simply not acting is the easiest path of all.

But deep down, we realize that we simply aren’t going to get what we want in life if we can’t muster the will to do what we don’t love from time to time. Indeed, on some level it comes to the costs (anything worth working hard for) being compared to the benefits (the hard work itself). Clearly these have cache when attempting to focus better on a task at hand. 

# Pushing the Boulder 

Sometimes there’s no way of avoiding a task, and you just have to grind through it. You hate it, it makes you miserable, and there’s simply no spinning it into something positive. This is the reality-changing power of discipline and willpower, because it allows you to toil in the darkness despite any type of emotional objection. Tasks with no glory or redeeming qualities are inevitable; ditches must be dug by somebody, and sometimes you can’t avoid it. 

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If you experience a lack of motivation or focus, discipline and willpower are effective substitutes for pushing past the misery. Like Sisyphus in the ancient Greek myth, cursed forever to roll a boulder uphill, sometimes a task feels endless. Many people, especially those in creative fields, believe that they must rely on motivation, inspiration, or their muse in order to create. That notion is dead wrong and generates a false narrative that leads people to sit around waiting for something that rarely, if ever, appears. During those periods when the muse is silent, when there is no flash of creative genius, true artists rely on discipline to move past the block and keep the work flowing. 

Prolific author Stephen King recalls a time when he was affected by writer’s block during college. He ceased work on a particular novel because it wasn’t quite right and he didn’t know how to fix it. That led to a four-month period during which he drank beer and watched soap operas. Disgusted by his lack of motivation, King decided to write something every day, even if it was garbage. He just set the goal of writing a few pages every day, something that at the time took tremendous willpower. 

Eventually, inspired by the continuous soapy tragedies unfolding before him, King finally hit on a solution— throw more problems at his characters, not fewer. He decided to stop trying to patch up the bad with the good. Instead, he chose to make it worse for his characters and then sit back and watch them extricate themselves from the mess. It worked like a charm. As soon as he allowed the characters to act naturally instead of imposing his will upon them, the story unfolded before him and he was able to finish the book. All he needed to do was put his pen to the paper and act in order for the boulder to finally start budging. We tend to want instant gratification for our efforts, and when it doesn’t come, we feel deflated and like our efforts were in vain. This, of course, is why crash diets will always have a place in people’s hearts. However, the concept of delayed gratification is far more effective. 

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Reference: Hollins, Peter (2017-09-22). The Science of Powerful Focus: 23 Methods for More Productivity, More Discipline, Less Procrastination, and Less Stress (Posición en Kindle4). Edición de Kindle.

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