on discipline and how to develop it.

April 3rd, 2021.

Above is a screenshot of YouTuber/streamer and, at the time, computer engineering student James Scholz, studying at his computer, almost three hours into one of his “study with me” livestreams. But the livestream pictured above is one of his shortest.

During the pandemic, Scholz livestreamed himself studying for 12 hours a day, every single day for over a year.

In a separate video, how I studied for 12 hours a day for over a year, he explains his reasoning:

I wanted to become the best person that I could be. I got things I want in my life. I want to buy my mom a big house, I want to be a great father…and I wanna help people. And things like sitting there on Instagram all day, watching pointless YouTube videos all day…rotting away don’t get me there.

Some may see his approach as extreme, and I’m no exception. But there’s no denying that what he did is hard. There’s no denying he’s disciplined, and there’s inherent honor in that.

Whether in the domains of academia, sports, the arts, etc. Disciplined people are revered.

I’m sure most of us agree we’d like to be a little more disciplined sometimes, whether that be to perform better in a class, or a sport, to pick up a new language, or to be able to say no to the bowl of cookies on the kitchen counter.

literally my kitchen counter

In order to get there, we need to first investigate discipline and its mechanisms in the brain.

Cookies — what they teach us about discipline

In a 2009 study published by Hare et al., self-reported dieters were put in an fMRI scanner while being presented with pictures of healthy food and tempting foods (like cookies). They made two types of choices:

1. Preference choices (pick what you want)
2. Self-control choices (pick something healthy, resist temptation)

This allowed the researchers to look at the differences in brain activity when making easy choices compared to making choices requiring self-control.

They found that two brain regions were primarily involved:

Prefrontal Cortex Regions (Wikipedia)

1. The vmPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex), which tracked the subjective value of food
2. The dlPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), was activated only when participants successfully exerted self-control. It communicated directly with the mPFC to adjust the perceived value of tempting foods downward.

Interestingly enough, the study shed light on the fact that self-control isn’t about suppressing desire, but instead it’s about modifying the value signal inside the vmPFC.

Value-based decision making > willpower.

Discipline — A Neuroeconomic Perspective

In Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit, she defines 4 key aspects involved in grit:

Interest — Finding deep fascination in a pursuit

Practice — Engaging in deliberate, focused improvement

Purpose — Believing your work serves something larger than yourself

Hope — Maintaining the belief that you can overcome challenges and reach your goals

As you can see, nowhere in this list does Duckworth mention anything about discipline or willpower; it appears that grit is instead a combination of using internal reward pathways, most notably valuation.

Interest is all about intrinsic reward valuation; you have to love what you do to make it something you do every day. You’ll otherwise tire yourself out. In other words, whatever you want to achieve excellence in must be intrinsically rewarding, and to do so, you must value what you’re working toward.

Practice is arguably a form of effort valuation. In order to show up every day you have to see the value in the benefits of pursuing the effort as outweighing the costs (physical, mental, time).

Purpose is arguably a more fundamental perspective of valuation. How important is it to you that you get what needs to be done, done? You must believe it to be a valuable pursuit.

Lastly, Hope is a little bit different but relies on self-efficacy — one’s assessment of one’s ability to act and cope in many situations.

It appears then that discipline, grit, or whatever you want to call it, is more about internal value and beliefs than it is about pure will. It’s a way of being and working with your mind rather than fighting against it. We need to find a way to make hard work easy.

How then do we go about doing this?

Automation > Willpower

Evolutionarily, the brain wants to conserve as much energy as possible. One fundamental way that our brains do this is by developing habits.

Habits are behaviors that are learned, repeated, automatic, ordered, and routine.

What better way to develop discipline and grit than for it to become second nature? What if grit could become automatic?

In James Clear’s Atomic Habits, he argues this is possible and outlines something he calls the four laws of habit formation:

1. Make it obvious (cue)
2. Make it attractive (craving)
3. Make it easy (response)
4. Make it satisfying (reward)

Essentially, if you want a given behavior to become a habit, or to essentially become automated, you should apply these laws to the habit.

So, for example, if you want to make the gym a regular habit, according to these rules outlined above

1. Pack your gym clothes in advance and keep them right next to your doorway
2. Mix in your favorite electrolyte flavoring in your water or sign up for a gym with amenities you enjoy, like boxing classes, or a pool
3. Allow yourself to do the bare minimum if that’s all your body wants to do at the time
4. End the session with a warm sauna or a hot shower, etc.

Naturally, if you want to avoid the cookies (discipline), according to Clear, you do the opposite

1. Make it unobvious: Don’t buy the cookies, or don’t leave them in plain sight
2. Make it unattractive: Remove the labeling if possible, make them as unattractive as possible
3. Make it difficult: Put them in the highest cabinet possible; force yourself to work just a little harder to get to them
4. Make it unsatisfying: this one’s perhaps impossible, I mean, they’re cookies. But, you get the point.

If you want it to last…

Ultimately, discipline isn’t about exerting your willpower in every situation possible; it’s about being in line and working in tandem with your brain and body’s internal mechanisms, whether that be through shifting your identity and beliefs, learning to value certain things over others, or making hard work inevitable through the use of habit formation.

I’m a climber and used to kind of dread going to the gym, but I’ve been climbing consistently for about 4 years and honestly can’t go many days without it. It’s almost become an addiction. I credit this to my internal sense of identity being tied with climbing. I’m a climber at heart and I think it’d be impossible to stop at this point.

When asked about how he stays motivated, Scholz says the following:

I don’t rely on motivation to do the things that I do…Because motivation is volatile, it’s bound to change. You know what? It’s raining outside, I don’t feel like running, I’m just not gonna train for the marathon today. That’s where motivation will get you: nowhere. It might get you there for two weeks, but in the long run? No.

I see Scholz’s definition of motivation here as roughly synonymous with willpower.

He attributes his hard work ethic to drive, a longer-lasting fundamental value, and a desire for personal success. He describes drive as “inciting a flame inside my heart”.

Your heart has to be in it, your identity has to be tied to it, and you have to work with your brain, not against it, to develop the discipline you want for excellence.

Bibliography

Scholz, James. “ How I Studied for 12 Hours a Day for over a Year.” James Scholz, YouTube, 18 Apr. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICh_d6tHQk.

Hare et al., Todd A. “Self-Control in Decision-Making Involves Modulation of the Vmpfc Valuation System.” Science (New York, N.Y.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2009, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19407204/.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery, 2018.

Scholz, James. “study with me pomodoro! rain sounds, 10-min break, no music.” YouTube, James Scholz, 3 Apr. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk_c8PNXZXw

“Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PFC_anatomy_correctedlabels.png