Often, perhaps at the beginning of the new year, a new month, or in my and many other students' cases, the beginning of a new semester, we try to better ourselves.
The common inciting incident for this is that we weren't productive. Maybe we feel like we did not reach our full potential or didn't perform at our best in the previous period; hence, we take measures. Frequently, this is done through things like promising to wake up at 7am or vowing to attend every lecture and discussion and recitation (always a Sisyphean task), or even maintaining a simple to-do list.
In other words, "discipline."
Discipline is glorified, perhaps more than it should be. Whether it's online or speaking to coworkers, friends, and family, one thing is clear: discipline => success. Without discipline, you will never be successful.
This is the overbearing narrative that many of us, in consequence, internalize. It's hard not to. Look at the greats. Tiger Woods, up at 3am. LeBron James, at the arena 10 hours before a game. Tom Brady's 6am, "TB12" method. Usain Bolt, training so hard he threw up. Kobe Bryant. Michael Jordan.
But discipline isn't just the realm of athletes. Benjamin Franklin planned his day carefully. Each morning he asked, "What good will I do today?" Maya Angelou wrote every morning in hotel rooms. She kept her routine no matter where she was. Nikola Tesla worked long, 19-hour stretches through the night. Ada Lovelace filled notebooks with equations long before computers existed. Jane Goodall spent decades in the field, recording detailed observations by hand. The message is relentless: discipline breeds greatness.
However, for many of us, we are unable to stick to even just a simple morning routine. Why is that?
One argument you could make with certainty is that we are all lazy. In the digital era, we're often distracted by many things—typically apps on our phones (social media, messages, stocks, news). But if you take away our phones, you'll just end up with other things to be distracted by. I, for one, find that mirrors are a huge distraction for me. I like to see how different things are, simply when they're flipped. You might also get distracted by the warmth of your sheets, or the heaviness of your eyelids. there's nothing inherently wrong with a lazy sunday morning.
Alternatively, consider that the simple task of a morning routine actually appears like a mountain to our subconscious. This mountain contains a great amount of friction—both physical prowess and mental fortitude are required. For a person to climb a mountain, at least one of two things must be satisfied: (1) sufficient reward or (2) sufficient momentum. Let us divide a set of individuals into those who like climbing mountains and those who dislike climbing mountains.
Suppose you are from the dislike group. If I asked you to climb a mountain for free, you would refuse. However, if I began to offer you a monetary compensation, increasing by $100 every time you refused, eventually you would give in. You have a price. This is sufficient reward. If I offered you $5 to drag yourself out of bed 5 minutes before your alarm every morning, you would accept. $1825 a year just to wake up a little earlier—it's a no-brainer.
Now suppose you are from the like group. A reasonable assumption we are going to make is that you are experienced with climbing mountains (how can you like something you've never tried?) Perhaps climbing the mountain itself is sufficient reward to you, satisfying (1). Moreover, since you are experienced, the mountain becomes easier to climb; the mountain becomes a hill.
In either case, we have successfully decreased the friction. But wait, what about the friction of me offering you that $5?
In the dislike group, I had to offer you monetary compensation in order to decrease the friction for you to complete the task. We can consider this an inorganic method, as opposed to the organic group, whom were (1) already experienced and (2) enjoyed the experience.
Humans are quite malleable. For example, I can't begin to remember when I truly became proficient at typing, but I do remember painstakingly practicing on opaque keyboard covers with various websites. To be honest, I hated it. But I didn't hate the action itself; I hated the fact that I was terrible at typing. But it wasn't at the front of my mind at all. It was part of the computer curriculum at my school. So, every day, I would do it. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, nor was it the best.
This is the concept of momentum from (2). When you do something every single day, it becomes strange not to do it. Like any kind of addiction, except this is the good kind. This is the kind that, when we don't do it, something feels missing.
Perhaps you dread having to wake up early in the morning like this. But it is nowhere near the worst thing in the world. The solution is simple: through some inorganic method, make that your new default. Program yourself to wake up at that time.
Think of a train. It's heavy, almost impossible to push by hand. But once it starts rolling, it's unstoppable. The trick isn't to push harder for brief periods of time—that's futile effort. You need to lay down tracks. Clear direction. Smooth rails. A slope that invites motion.
Those greats that I mentioned earlier. Look back at them. They had discipline. What else?
Obsession. They were frictionless. They loved doing what they did, it was at the center of their lives.
Whatever goals we strive to improve on, that we strive to achieve; they aren't out of reach. Most goals aren't at the center of my life, and neither should they be at the center of yours. One primary goal can and should be, but not the others. It's impossible for the average person to be obsessed with every single goal that they have.
And we simply don't need to be. Just make it a habit. Even if we need to exert a gargantuan amount of effort in the beginning, designing some reward function for ourselves is enough to get us going.
So, practice climbing.