Self-Discipline Through Self-Acceptance[4]

Let's say you're trying to lose weight and your big hang up is that you run through about three liters of ice cream each week. You're an ice cream fiend. You've tried stopping through willpower. You've tried diets with your friends. You've told your partner to never ever buy ice cream again in a desperate attempt to blame them for your own shortcomings.

But nothing's worked. Not a day goes by that you don't down about a thousand calories of creamy goodness.

And you hate yourself for it.

And that's your first problem. Step one to self-discipline is to de-link your personal failings from moral failings. You have to accept that you cave to indulgence and that this doesn't necessarily make you a horrible person. We all cave to indulgence in some shape or form. We all harbor shame. We all fail to reign in our impulses. And we all like a good fucking bowl of ice cream from time to time.

This sort of acceptance is way more complicated than it sounds. We don't even realize all of the ways that we judge ourselves for our perceived failings. Thoughts are constantly streaming through our heads and without even realizing it, we're tacking on "because I'm a horrible person" to the end of a lot of them.

"I fucked up that project at work, because I'm a horrible person…"

"The whole kitchen is a mess and my parents will be here in 20 minutes, because I'm a horrible person…"

"Other people are good at this, but I'm not, because I'm a horrible person…"

"Everyone probably thinks I'm an idiot, because I'm a horrible person…"

Hell, you might even be tacking on these self-judgments right now while reading this! Man, I judge myself like this all the time… because I'm a horrible person.

Here's the thing: there's a sick sort of comfort that comes from these self-judgments. That's because they relieve us of the responsibility for our own actions. If I decide that I can't give up ice cream because I'm a horrible person—that "horrible person-ness" precludes my ability to change or improve in the future—therefore, it's technically out of my hands, isn't it? It implies that there's nothing I can do about my cravings or compulsions, so fuck it, why try?

There's a kind of fear and anxiety that comes when we relinquish our belief in our own horribleness. We actually resist accepting ourselves because the responsibility is scary. Because it suggests that not only are we capable of change in the future (and change is always scary) but that we have perhaps wasted much of our past. And that never feels good either. In fact, another little trap is when people accept that they're not a horrible person—but then decide that they are a horrible person for not realizing that years ago!

But, once we've de-coupled our emotions from our moral judgments—once we've decided that just because something makes us feel bad doesn't mean we are bad—this opens us up to some new perspectives.

For one, it suggests that emotions are merely internal behavioral mechanisms that can be manipulated like anything else. Just like putting your floss next to your toothbrush reminds you to floss every morning, once the moral judgments are removed, feeling bad because you relapsed on the cookies and cream can simply be a reminder or motivator to address the underlying issue.

We must address the emotional problem the compulsion is trying to numb or cover up. You compulsively eat tubs of ice cream each week. Why? Well, eating—especially sugary, unhealthy food—is a form of numbing. It brings the body comfort. It's sometimes known as "emotional eating" and the same way an alcoholic drinks to escape her demons, the overeater eats to escape his.

So, what are those demons? What is that shame?

Find it. Address it. And most importantly: accept it. Find that deep, dark ugly part of yourself. Confront it, head on, allowing yourself to feel all the awful, icky emotions that come with it. Then accept that this is a part of you and it's never going away. And that's fine. You can work with this, rather than against it.

And here's where the magic happens. When you stop feeling awful about yourself, two things happen:

There's nothing to numb anymore. Therefore, suddenly those tubs of ice cream seem pointless.

You see no reason to punish yourself. On the contrary, you like yourself, so you want to take care of yourself. More importantly, it feels good to take care of yourself.

And, incredibly, that tub of ice cream no longer feels good. It's no longer scratching some internal itch. Instead, it makes you feel sick and bloated and gross.

Similarly, exercising no longer feels like this impossible task that you'll never be up for. On the contrary, it replenishes and enhances you. And those good feelings start showing up that make it feel effortless.

***

But you don't necessarily have to do this deep therapeutic work to gain self-discipline. Simply understanding and accepting your emotions for what they are can allow you to work with them rather than against them.

Here's one way to do this: call up your best friend and tell them to come over. Take out your checkbook. Write a check for $2,000 to them, sign it, and give it to them. Then tell them that if you ever eat ice cream again, they can cash it.

Done.

Eating ice cream will now cause a much greater emotional problem than the one it solves. And, as if by magic, refraining from eating ice cream will begin to feel really fucking good.

Social accountability works in the same way. It's much easier to meditate for a long time when you're in a room full of people than it is to do it by yourself. Why? Because when you're in a room full of people, you don't want to be the lone asshole who gets up and walks out after three minutes, like you do at home! The social pressure makes it so that not meditating causes a bigger emotional problem than meditating for the full amount of time.

You can also do this through positive reinforcement: find ways to reward yourself for doing the correct behavior. Research shows that this is actually how new habits are formed: you do the desired behavior and then reward yourself for it.