Doing what you don't want to do
A word on discipline and finding your "why"
Perseverance. Determination. Will power. These are things we think about when we envision someone who sticks to their routines, accomplishes their goals, and in general has all the things they want because they have earned it. These people make it look easy. Is it? Easy is a relative term. Maybe some people are naturally more inclined to certain behaviors, and so it seems they do not have to work as hard to attain the same results as someone else. Does that mean that those of us who are disinclined to those behaviors are doomed to never attain the same achievements? That does not seem fair.
We are now one month into 2024, and I am sure many of us are already struggling to stick to our plans for a “new me" in the new year. Maybe we have hit some stumbling blocks that have thrown us off course and we are struggling to right ourselves. Or maybe we have had a failure or two and are now discouraged and feeling like our goals are too lofty. More often than not, we find ourselves saying, “I don’t have the will power.”
What is will power, or discipline? This is probably not the dictionary definition, but it can be described as doing the things that are necessary to reach a certain end point. Often, these are things that may be uncomfortable, inconvenient, unpleasant, or difficult, and therefore we do not want to do them. Doing the bigger difficult things, like losing 50 pounds, publishing your first novel, or landing your dream job, are actually no different than doing the smaller things like cleaning your house, scooping the dog poop from the yard, or filing your tax paperwork. The common thread is that they are all difficult or unpleasant. But you clean the dog poop from the yard because you do not want your yard to stink or to run over the waste with your lawn mower. You clean your house because of health and sanitation. You file your taxes because it is the law. All of these smaller un-pleasantries have a pretty obvious “why” attached to them, and that is a key motivator.
Why do you want to write the next great American novel? What is so amazing about that job you want so desperately? Those are things that only you can answer. If you cannot… well, that is a major part of the reason why you feel you cannot stick to your plan to achieve those things. This topic comes up when I discuss weight loss with my patients. Why do you want to lose weight? The answers vary but I hear similar ones over and over again: I am tired of hurting. I am the heaviest I have ever been. I want to get off of my medications. A lot of my patients trying to lose weight have, interestingly enough, never struggled with weight loss before, so they do not know the first thing about calorie tracking or counting macros. They think that even standard health practices are weight loss fads because they have lived under the assumption that one should not have to try to maintain a healthy weight, it should just come naturally, and if it does not, then something is very, very wrong. Well, those people are right about one thing: something is very wrong - they have never had to struggle. They have never had to ignore hunger pangs. They have never fought off cravings. The people who never gave their health a second thought and are now confused as to why they are 50 or 100 pounds heavier are used to having their every need satisfied. These are the people who struggle most with weight, and often with many other things in life, too.
The human condition is one that seeks comfort and security. Here in the Western world, that is relatively easy to attain, arguably even in excess. We have everything at our fingertips, all the resources for health and education, and yet we are still one of the unhealthiest countries in the world, mentally and physically. I think it is because we are too comfortable. We are losing our survival skills, dare I say even our will to survive.
I have only visited my parents’ home country of Sri Lanka one time, and one of the things that stood out was that despite the immense poverty in many areas, the happiness of the people was something I had never encountered in even the wealthiest of my acquaintances back home in the States. The people we met in Sri Lanka were the picture of resilience: they did not have much, but of what they had, they made the most.
How does one build resilience? Resilience is what enhances our survival, and one does not survive without having to pass trials by fire, so to speak. We become tougher - live longer, happier lives - when we routinely perform difficult tasks. There has been research done in this area in the field of neurobiology that has shown that a specific part of the brain responsible for our will to live physically grows larger when we do things that are difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable. Dr. Andrew Huberman discusses this in a conversation on the Modern Wisdom podcast, take a look and you can find the sources for this information.
Many things in our everyday lives seem like hurdles. Some people feel this more than others. When struggling with depression, almost everything feels like a chore, even getting out of bed in the morning. How do we cope? How do we jump over those hurdles? In the back of our minds, we know that there are certain steps we have to take to accomplish anything, but those steps feel impossible. How does one motivate oneself to take the difficult road?
This ties back to the “why.” Research shows that people who have a strong support system (loved ones they talk with regularly, friends, community engagement, et cetera) with or without a strong faith base (religion or spirituality) tend to thrive, not just survive. They are happier, they live longer, they are more successful, and they overcome diseases better than those who do not have those systems in their lives. My theory is because these systems hold a level of accountability: there is a standard one is expected to live up to, so the external pressure is there to do things that ultimately support a healthier and happier lifestyle (unless you are in a cult. But that is a different post that I probably will not be writing).
The people belonging to these systems have a “why.” When we do not have these things, finding our “why" may take a little soul-searching. The most important thing is finding the reason that actually matters - not the one that you think should matter. I think that is the reason so many people struggle with achieving their goals: they are not being honest with themselves. Forget being honest with other people - your therapist, your sister, your best friend. While honesty is important, you cannot be honest with anyone else until you are honest with yourself. Sometimes the truth is ugly - your weight loss goals feel selfish, your professional goals feel greedy - but once you admit to it, you can start making strides in the right direction, and the more chivalrous side effects can also take shape.
For example, you want to make a great invention. Why? It will help people. Ok, but can’t you help people during your day job too? Why spend the extra precious hours a day poring over something else? Because if it truly is a great invention, you can make a lot more money than you are now, gain financial security for you and your family, and have enough left over to invest in other honorable or charitable causes.
Here is another common feat: weight loss. You want to lose weight to get off of your blood pressure and diabetes medications. How long have you been on meds? Years? Decades? What is different now compared to ten years ago? Maybe your honest answer is not getting off your blood pressure meds, it's getting off your “little blue pill” and regaining the ability for intimacy with your spouse again. That is just as good a reason. The best reason for doing something is always going to be the most honest reason. That is your motivator, your golden ticket.
Once you have your “why,” start looking at the how. I have discussed this in prior posts, but the gist of it is take every moment as an opportunity to do something - anything - to inch your way to your goal. You have ten minutes waiting for your kid to get off the bus? Pull out your notebook and write a few paragraphs for your novel. You have to spend the day at your children's soccer tournament? Go on a jog nearby while they are warming up or on the sidelines to get your workout in. There is always a way, but the will has to come from your deepest motivators, your desire to not just survive, but thrive.
If you have ever felt the rush of adrenaline or pride that comes with completing a task or actually achieving a goal, then you know that if you make each micro-task its own goal on your way to the larger objective, you will feel amazing about yourself. Your goals will not feel unattainable. Slow-going, maybe, but steady, and in the right direction. But this means often doing the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing, the inconvenient thing. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
You are not everyone. You are you, with your hopes, your baggage, your fears, your unique blessings and talents. Use them, or do not be afraid to look for them. If your fear is failure, believe me, failure is not the worst thing that could happen, because if you fail, it only shows the world that you are trying and learning. And then you try again, because the worst thing that could happen is that you do nothing. Inaction does not mean that everything will stay the same, because the rest of the world will always keep moving, and if you do not find it within you to move with it, things will not stay the way they are, they will only decay. Do not let yourself rot away. You were meant for better things. That is why you have those hopes and dreams in the first place: you know within you that you can be a better version of you. Choose the difficult thing. Future you will thank you.
In case you were wondering, this was a hard one to write, life was a little crazy recently. I apologize to my subscribers for the week-long delay, but I hope you will keep following, thanks for reading!