Beyond Discipline: The Real Reasons You Don ’t Follow Through on Self-Commitments

The popular self-help culture inculcates in us the belief that in order to become successful, we must have discipline. We are told that discipline is the key to achieving academic success, climbing on top of the career ladder, attaining the body of our dreams, learning a new skill… practically anything. As a result, we believe that we must force ourselves to do whatever needs to be done to make these dreams a reality. However, doing things through force is rarely an enduring solution. We may do it once or twice, but eventually we’ll give in. This can quickly spiral into a vicious cycle of giving in and then berating ourselves for a lack of discipline. But why you’re failing to meet your goals is more complicated than discipline. More often than not, there are many factors that are at play. If you’ve ever embarked on a goal or a project but couldn’t find the discipline to follow it through to completion, here are three reasons it might have happened. Perceived Load Oftentimes, the reason you can’t get yourself to do what needs to be done is your perception of the task at hand rather than a lack of discipline. When an undertaking seems insurmountable, you are likely to procrastinate, delaying it further and further until the deadline looms uncomfortably close, or not doing it at all. By breaking your task into small, bite-sized pieces, you can reduce its “perceived load”, making it seem more manageable and less intimidating. For example, if you ca...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: career confidence featured motivation productivity tips psychology success commitments discipline Source Type: blogs