Healing Space | How to make life changes that last

Personalized sub goals with rewards that make you feel good, and that are immediate are more effective at helping you find your discipline. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

Three quarters of your year is gone, and your resolutions are fading into the rear-view mirror. You began well, you put in three months of gymming, yoga, swimming, running, dieting, journaling or whatever else you promised yourself you’d do for your health this year, and then… what happened? How did it get away from you?

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The thing with discipline, i.e., an enforced and often self-imposed behaviour pattern, what some called the effort of restraint, that overrides their impulses and urges, is that it feels like the simplest thing to put into place. Set an alarm, go for that run, eat on time, etc. How hard can it be? Turns out, it’s the hardest thing ever, because the ground for discipline is not physical or tangible i.e. about time or alarms or reminders, but it’s mental. It’s about overcoming the mental block towards it. We all know by now what a healthy diet it is, or why exercise is good for you, or which exercise you’d like to engage in, but we don’t necessarily implement.

Psychologists broadly agree that self-imposition is a poor way to achieve something. There are two tests of discipline. The first, a self-report scale, asks participants to agree or disagree with certain statements such as ‘I am good at resisting midnight snacks’. And they turn out to be pretty accurate. Which would indicate that we all pretty much know what we can resist and what we can’t. A second testing mechanism tests actual self-control in a variety of simulated situations, such as the puzzle in which you are shown many iterations of the number 251 but one 215 in the lot and you have to pick it out. This kind of a test would be indicative of your ability to channelize your eyesight, focus, attention at a specific speed, would test cognition and recall. However, results also show that self-control, restraint, discipline, which engages all these factors, isn’t the same in all these situations. Your ability to focus on a problem is very different from your ability to not lash out at a rash driver on the road. The way you deploy your restraint or self-control and discipline, are each unique to the circumstance at hand.

Hence, it doesn’t mean that because you run 5 miles every morning effortlessly, you will be able to study well. Or that because you are regularly particular about your vitamins, you won’t binge-eat fast food. You may cook dinner every night by 8 pm but miss important work deadlines. The reason the blanket concept of self-discipline doesn’t work is because you really have to respond to each situation as it arises.

Self-imposition is a technique that is generally employed when you don’t like or don’t understand what you are doing. You would likely have better results if you engaged with what you needed to do in a more rational manner. Especially when the results that you are trying to achieve are physical, such as waking up early and completing a certain set of tasks, it is more vital to have reasons why you want to do what you’re doing. Setting goals for each task that are meaningful to you personally, such as looking a certain way, achieving an optimal weight goal by your birthday, fitting into an old pair of jeans, taking portfolio shots, or feeling healthier, staving off certain health concerns such as high blood sugar and cholesterol, are goals that you are likely to remind yourself of when your mind is grumbling about waking up early. They work more effectively than ‘this is good for you’ which is vague and meaningless to motivate you beyond a point. Similarly work goals such as ‘finishing everything on your desk by end of day and go watch a movie with friends’ is a greater motivator than ‘target that promotion’ mainly because the latter is vague, has the potential to not happen at all, and is beyond your locus of control. Personalized sub goals with rewards that make you feel good, and that are immediate are more effective at helping you find your discipline.

Now, even if you don’t like or want to do something, you ask yourself why you should do it anyway, and if there’s a personal carrot dangling at the end of it, it’s likely to get you through it more effectively than ‘because you must’.

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