How often do you feel compelled to do what you don’t want to do? If you’re like me, you often avoid these things, and then unfortunately, you feel burdened by thinking about what you should do quite a bit. In fact, you end up thinking about what you should do frequently, but interestingly, you don’t actually do these things. Then, there is another possibility: you do all kinds of things that you don’t really want to do and end up fatigued and irritable, possibly taking out your frustrations on the people around you. You don’t have to live this way. There is a solution, and it comes in the form that actually seems burdensome, but in fact, is not so much a burden as a way of life. The solution to this dilemma that can relieve you of doing too much or not doing enough. In other words, finding a way to deal with doing what you don’t want to do, not doing what you should do, or undue thinking about what you should do. The solution is discipline. But discipline is not what you think.

Discipline has a bad name for many people, often because it is associated with punishment, namely by their parents when they were growing up. However, discipline is not really about punishment although punishment is sometimes associated with discipline. I want to speak about the importance of discipline in adult life while setting it apart from any kind of punishment. It is and can be a very important and very valuable way of looking at what goes wrong in many people’s lives. We might call this discussion one of “self-discipline” because what we are talking about has very little to do with other people. Specifically, it has nothing to do with their judgments, whether positive or negative, nor with their directions. Discipline, or self-discipline has been described by early philosophers as one of the characteristics of maturity, wisdom, and virtue.

What is discipline?
The word discipline is actually associated with learning. Cognate words include disciple and discernment as well as disciple. The word has a Latin origin, namely disciplina, which means instruction and/or knowledge. To understand discipline, we need to keep in mind that these two elements of the concept of discipline are at the heart of the word. Current understanding and definition of discipline include learning, self-training, and punishment but I want to focus on the self-training and learning aspects of discipline.

My own definition of discipline is: Doing what you don’t want to do in order to get to where you want to be. Allow me to start with how discipline, or lack thereof, has affected me in my life.

A personal reflection
Using that definition and understanding of discipline, I can look first at my own life experience and state clearly that I have not normally been a person of discipline. I told my pastor that once and he immediately said that he disagreed because he knows that I am a doer. In fact, I have been proud of the fact that I have not been afraid of doing anything, that I have done a lot of things, and I can do a lot of things. However, “doing” is not discipline. Some things have come easy to me and some things a bit harder, but I have usually been able to break into some kind of activity without undue hesitation. The problem I have had in life hasn’t had to do with my doing, but with my doing something well. A blatant example of this doing everything but nothing well is in my athletic career in high school. I was in seven different sports but not particularly good at anything. My achievement ranged from about a C-, say in football, to a B+ in volleyball. I had played sports for years before I got into sports in junior high and high school, but these years were in the 1950’s before the onset of training and club sports that now dominate sports. I had a conversation with one patient who said the same of his endeavors, particularly in golf but actually in all things. He described himself as a B+ performer and readily admitted that he wasn’t a person of discipline. He also said something that is fairly true for me: physical things come relatively easy for him, as they do for me, so it wasn’t necessary to practice shooting baskets thousands of times in order to be the B+ athlete. At this stage in my life, discipline in my athletic endeavors is not very important. Indeed, I play basketball three times a week and enjoy the game despite my less than average ability compared to my teammates and competitors.

My lack of discipline in my sports activities in my high school career, in particular, is no longer important, but the fact that I didn’t work to improve my athletic skills is more of a reflection of how much of my life has been less than stellar. I was often late in turning in assignments and had not sufficiently reviewed papers before submitting them. I entered the workforce with four academic degrees but not with the knowledge and skills that I would soon learn that I needed. Importantly, I came into psychology through what I call the “back door.” I didn’t have any psychology in my undergraduate days, and only two classes in seminary before I entered graduate school in psychology. I’m surprised that I was admitted, but this also was a kind of back door approach to what became my profession. I had no statistical background, no neuropsychological study, and very little training in psychological testing. It is interesting that a good bit of my current practice includes both neuropsychology and testing. Much of my difficulty with discipline comes from my simply not wanting to do what I need to do:
 I didn’t want to practice basketball and improve my skills. (I just wanted to have fun.)
 I didn’t want to study consistently for tests. (I just wanted to learn.)
 I didn’t want to think through what I said. (I just wanted to shoot my mouth off.)
 I didn’t want to review my work before handing it in. (I just wanted to write it.)

The lack of discipline in my life has led to my neglecting doing some things, doing some things to a fault, and doing a sloppy job at other things. Not all people have the doer nature that I do, nor do they necessarily have a kind of basic physical skill to do most anything. We will discuss how people of different natures can suffer the lack of discipline because some things come easy to them while others come hard. More important than athletic success in my life there have been many times when I neglected the value of disciplining myself to I could improve my skill and performance. I did pretty well academically and ended up something like sixth in my graduating class of 300 because I usually got A’s and a few B’s. I do remember getting a C in psychology of all things because I hadn’t studied hard enough to do well on tests. In that case, however, I worked diligently to bring my grade up to an A. My lack of discipline continued throughout my academic career beyond high school: college, seminary, and graduate school. I got a 4.0 my first semester in college but three semesters later I earned a 1.73, clearly because of my lack of disciplining myself to study with diligence and produce with clarity. Seminary was not much different. I started off with a’s but then struggled to have B’s the rest of my three years there. Graduate school was about the same. In all these academic areas I could do well with moderate effort, often last minute or late-night cramming because I delayed working hard to do my best.

All of this related to my failure to do things that I don’t want to do in order to achieve a batter performance. As we continue to discuss the matter of discipline, I want to note that this “doing what you don’t want to do” doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with me, nor does it mean that I should do all sorts of things that I don’t want to do. I envy people who have disciplined themselves to work out three times a week for an hour and a half each time. I would love to have a body that is do attractive and healthy but I am unwilling to use the discipline necessary to do so. On the other hand, I work out or run three or four times a week as a discipline for my health, not so much for m y body appearance, despite the fact that I don’t want to work out or run. Interestingly, I get up at 5 AM two or three times a week to play basketball, something that doesn’t actually require much discipline on my part. There are also things that would take discipline to do that I have no interest in at all, like surf boarding or shy diving even though I can admire the folks who do such things, I was in yoga this morning, a discipline that I have just recently put in my life, even though I don’t really want to do yoga. I do it for the value it has with my body and mind, particularly the stretching and body toning that yoga can facilitate. I am not different from most people who haven’t found a way to do what they don’t want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve.

People who have not exercised discipline
Jack: Jack is a pastor, at least he has been a pastor for nearly 60 years. He is very bright, deeply spiritual, and a man of good character. Additionally, he is an attractive man, not so much I his physical appearance but in his ability to speak, tell stories, and entertain, things that have made him quite a success in his profession. Furthermore, he has had a 60-year successful marriage where his wife and he has successfully raised three thriving children. In his somewhat misplaced and misdirected “love” for his wife, he has indulged her to a fault. Specifically, he has given her several hundred dollars every month as “discretionary money” to do with what she would like, has agreed to take trips to see their kids around the country, and spent on various things in the house that his wife might want. He has bought these things without the real finances to do so, thus using credit cards and maxing them out. Now at their place in life they have no substantial income together with a huge burden of credit card debt. As we talked recently, he agreed that he has never been a person of discipline, which has led them into this near financial ruin, just about the time when they are also facing some serious medical issues at age 80 that are costly. Jack admitted that his lack of discipline has always been a problem in life. He loved preaching and teaching, and he loved traveling, whether to see his kids or to visit other pastors when he was the bishop of his denomination. Importantly, he is also quite bright and attractive as noted above and many things came easy to him. Everyone likes him because of his fun and intelligent nature, but no one but his wife and I know the whole story. He has avoided “doing what he didn’t want to do in order to get to the place he wanted to be.”

Sam. Sam was also in a kind of ministry, namely being an administrator for an extra-church organization. His lack of discipline didn’t have to do with money or his work but rathe with his physical health. He has had a variety of medical issues over his senior years including some kind of liver dysfunction aggravated by his lack of a good diet and good exercise. When we talked about his lack of discipline, he jumped right on it admitting that he was “good r pretty good or good at most things” but tended to avoid things that weren’t easy for or things he just didn’t want to do. I can identify with him about to work out as I noted above. The problem with Sam is just as serious as it I with Jack, not so much financial worry as serious worry about possibly being seriously impaired or dying. He “just didn’t want to eat right and exercise.”

Peter. A man in his mid-30’s Peter doesn’t want to do any kind of work that is “beneath him.” He has been out of work for two years and was only occasionally employed for another 4 or 5 years prior to his formal unemployment. He lives in a city where you can’t really find a job that pays less than $15/hr. but he thinks that he should be able to have a professional job doing professional work because he has a college degree and is reasonably smart. He is unwilling to discipline himself to take some job for a season so he can pay his bills. He is actually being subsidized by his girlfriend and parents to get by, but he doesn’t seem to think this is taking advantage of people and failing to grow up. He isn’t lazy or resistant to working but he is stuck in his perception of what is really available to him.

Frank. Frank is a retired journalist. He had a very successful profession and is now trying to have a successful retirement but having a hard time with the latter. I met Frank a couple of years ago after he had a stroke, or as I later learned, a series of strokes, something that put him at risk of dying or being severely impaired, to say nothing about possibly burdening his wife with some kind of in-home hospice care. I saw Frank and his wife Doris originally because he dragged her into my office contrary to how most couples come to see me, namely with the female hand in the back of the man whom they say “needs work on his issues.” Frank dragged his wife in because she was always complaining about him, namely his lack of exercise and inadequate diet. Long story short, indeed, Frank was the better part of 80 pounds overweight, and indeed, did not eat well, and indeed, did not get any kind of exercise unless we call going golfing on a golfcart exercise. My discussion with Frank was direct, albeit affirmative: he needed to discipline himself to do what he didn’t want to do. The problem with Frank, which is often the problem with men who get older, is that they can’t get by on their looks or intelligence anymore. Rather, they have to change lifelong patterns. Frank, like so many men, is intelligent, a person of good character, and very likable. These characteristics helped him become successful in his profession for decades. But it isn’t enough to be smart and attractive when you are faced with the aging process, which has a lot to do with eating right, exercising right, thinking right, and finding good way to express feelings right. Frank is not good at any of these things. Even in thinking, which is a strong suit for Frank, he can think his way into eating and exercising, but this is much different from actually doing it.

I have several senior men in my current practice who are much like these men. Some simply don’t want to eat right and/or exercise regularly, work right, or spend money right. This brings up an interesting point: the older we get, the more we tend to get stuck in our ways. We just don’t want to change thing that have been fun in the past but have now become a burden or even an addiction.

Addictions
I admit that I am not an addictionologist, i.e. someone who specializes in addictions. Acknowledging that fact, almost everyone I see has some kind of addiction, if we call it that. Some of these addictions are chemical, like alcohol and illicit drugs, while others are behavioral, like gambling, promiscuity, or video game-playing. In all of these cases people do not want to give up their addictive behavior or chemical. More accurately, they don’t want to go through the process, that we might call detoxification, in order to overcome the addiction. Interestingly, people who smoke very often do not actually like smoking and many alcoholics don’t really like alcohol. Rather, these activities have been enjoyable to look forward to even though they were not always pleasurable. In all cases of overcoming addiction there is the necessity of discipline, in other words, doing what you don’t want to do in order to get to a place you want to be. Perhaps the hardest addiction is something to do with eating, namely overeating or under-eating (anorexia), probably because we need to eat while we don’t need to gamble or drink alcohol. People who have successfully overcome the entirety of an addiction have found other ways to find joy in life, while many take the AA route of saying something like, “I will always be an alcoholic” and always want to drink to excess. Either path has as it center core the notion of doing what you don’t want to do. They need to find a way to find a life without the addiction friendly to them. Anything on God’s green earth can be addictive including working, playing, sleeping, buying, storing, or sitting on the beach. It’s not the behavior itself that is addictive; rather, it is the fact that an addictive behavior gives us a sense of safety. Sometimes, these addictive behaviors are simply a way of avoiding what I don’t want to do. There are better ways of developing discipline in life rather than addictions or avoidances.

Finding discipline friendly
First, it is important to note that any kind of discipline is not enjoyable. It is work. It is work because it is something I don’t want to do. If I can get it in my mind that I don’t want to do something, I have made the first step in developing discipline to get to where I want to be. I just spent an hour with a man who really doesn’t want to work out and eat right and thinks that he can think himself into good eating and body care. He can’t. I tried to help him feel that the first step in doing something is to admit that you don’t want to do it. By the way, this man has a hard time admitting that doesn’t want to do something because he feels ashamed of the feelings. I told him that feelings are never wrong. Words and action can be wrong, but the feeling is always right. I hope he can take this first step and get over the self-criticism that often goes along with admitting that you don’t want to do something.

The second step is not what you might think. Most people would say that you have to have a plan and then execute the play, like eating better, working out better, studying more, or whatever. Plans work for some people but not for most people, and they certainly don’t work for people who are not disciplined by nature and have years of avoiding doing what they don’t want in order to get where they want to be. So, instead of having a plan, I suggest that people actually take some kind of first step knowing that that might be a baby step or even a step in the wrong direction. A first step for an eating problem is to have one meal without sugar or other bad carbs. A first step for needing to work out is to plank or lift for 5 minutes. A first step in getting better at golf is to go to the driving range. A first step in spending too much is to choose, on one occasion, to not buy something that you want to buy (whether or not you really need it). If you take a first step towards a goal, you won’t see the goal, and you might not even want to have the goal. You just want to eat the candy bar or play video games for 6 hours straight. Remind yourself that you won’t have much pleasure in this first step.

Some people find it valuable to talk to others about their desire to develop discipline in their lives. I caution people against this. Too often, well-meaning people will take this opportunity to ask you about your discipline or tell you how they do it. Better to face the discipline issue in your life on your own.

The third step is perhaps the hardest one. This is doing what you don’t want to do the second hour or the second day. Once you have disciplined yourself to do something (or not to do something that is addictive), you will not feel much better. Keep in mind that the value of discipline and the self-confidence that develops in doing something that you determine you need to do will come slowly, and painfully. Start with admitting that you don’t want to do what you know you should do. Honor that feeling. Then think, just a bit, about what you need to do. Then just do it. You won’t enjoy it at the first and you won’t see the profit of doing it, perhaps for a long time. Stay with it and you will see that while the “I don’t want to do it” never goes away, the ability to do such tings gets easier.