{"id":131895,"date":"2024-09-26T13:53:51","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T17:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=131895"},"modified":"2024-10-04T14:11:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T18:11:05","slug":"the-psychology-of-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-psychology-of-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Psychology of Discipline: How to Jump Into Action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/discipline-psychology\/\">psychology of discipline<\/a>? How can you maintain discipline in hard moments? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their book <em>The Tools, <\/em>authors Phil Stutz and Barry Michels emphasize that discipline is easy to lose because we tend to get too comfortable. It&#8217;s important to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-keep-yourself-motivated\/\">stay motivated<\/a> and keep <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pursue-your-goals\/\">pursuing your goals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more about the psychology of discipline below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-discipline-falters\"><strong>Why Discipline Falters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>One reason we lose discipline is because we feel unmotivated<\/strong>. Life\u2019s relentless difficulties can make us feel like our strategies for self-improvement have failed to help. We may also just feel exhausted and unconfident.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If our strategies pay off and we succeed in achieving our goals, we may think we\u2019ve grown past the need for discipline<\/strong>.<strong> <\/strong>By explaining the psychology of discipline, the authors warn that once we feel like we\u2019ve reached a good place in life, it\u2019s easy to get<em> too <\/em>comfortable and abandon the healthy habits that brought us there in the first place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, Stutz and Michels explain that the main reason we lose sight of our goals and let discipline fade is because <strong>we falsely believe our lives are eternal<\/strong>. This causes us to take each present moment for granted because we feel like there\u2019ll always be more time to pursue our goals. When we believe that there\u2019s always another tomorrow to get started on our goals, it\u2019s easier to justify slacking off in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-to-maintain-discipline\"><strong>How to Maintain Discipline<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>How can we create a sense of urgency to accomplish our goals and be who we aspire to be? The authors prescribe a thought exercise: <strong>envision yourself on your deathbed<\/strong> and imagine all of the regrets you might have because you didn\u2019t live in the moment more and strive to fulfill more of your potential. Let your fear of ending up in this regretful place spur you into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Along with visualization exercises, consider using a <a href=\"https:\/\/store.dailystoic.com\/products\/memento-mori-calendar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cMemento Mori\u201d (Latin for \u201cremember that you will die\u201d) calendar<\/a> that displays the number of weeks in an 80-year life as boxes on one page. You can check off these boxes as a visual reminder of the time you likely have left to live. This functions as a literal \u201cdead\u201d-line.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s the psychology of discipline? How can you maintain discipline in hard moments? In their book The Tools, authors Phil Stutz and Barry Michels emphasize that discipline is easy to lose because we tend to get too comfortable. It&#8217;s important to stay motivated and keep pursuing your goals. Learn more about the psychology of discipline below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":131912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,9,43],"tags":[1612],"class_list":["post-131895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-the-tools","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Psychology of Discipline: How to Jump Into Action - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What&#039;s the psychology behind discipline? 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