So now it’s week three, the final week of the course in self-discipline. Here’s what you need to do:
Day One - Go to the store and buy your favorite brand of chips or cookies or whatever snack you really like. Go home, open it up and eat one serving size. Leave it on the counter and do not touch it again the rest of the week.
Day Two – Skip breakfast then go into your favorite fast-food place for lunch. Get one small thing to eat and a water and leave.
Day Three – Set your alarm for 3:3o in the morning. Wake up, do two jumping jacks, go back to bed.
Day Four – Bake some cookies. Wrap two in foil for yourself and then give the rest to a neighbor or co-worker.
Day Five – Go to an all-you-can eat buffet (a cheap one). Fill up your plate just once. Eat it and go.
Also, gather up all your old diet books and donate them to the public library.
Day Six – Do one sit-up a minute for 60 minutes.
Day Seven – You made it, congratulations. Have your favorite meal to celebrate. A lot of books will tell you not to celebrate weight-loss or sticking to a weight-loss plan with food. That’s because they think you’re too weak to be able to enjoy a nice meal without completely going off the deep-end. But I disagree. You can have a good meal and then go back to whatever your weight-loss plan is as soon as you set down the fork.
Also, if no one else in the house has eaten it in the past week, throw out whatever it is you bought on day one.
There you have it.
See how it builds? In week one you practice doing random things you don’t want to do. In week two you practice doing thing you don’t want to do that may have some emotional weight to them. In week three you practice doing things you don’t want to do that have some relationship to your overall goal. So if your goal is to stop smoking then in week three you’ll spend one day not smoking after you eat (or whenever it is people smoke) or going out drinking and not smoking. Or whatever, I don’t know, I don’t smoke.
What you want to do is to put yourself in the position to fail, and then when in that position, make the choice not to fail.
You might say, “Well sure, I can put myself through these little tests, but that doesn’t mean I’ve developed any self-discipline.” I understand that logic. But here’s the deal, everything is just a series of little tests. Waking up 20 minutes early to walk a mile every day is a daily test. Getting a single doughnut as opposed to a half-dozen is a test you might deal with once a week. But now you can look back and say, “I can wake up a little early to get in some exercise. Hell, one time I woke up in the middle of the night to do two jumping jacks.” Or, “I don’t have to eat everything they have at this superbowl party. One time I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet and just had one plate of food.”
I know the argument will be, “Why practice eating one doughnut? Why have one serving of the snack-food you know you shouldn’t have any of. Why not just practice not going to the doughnut joint or buying any junk food.” Because, I don’t want you to be scared of food. I want you to have mastery over it. Even if it’s a complete struggle for you, you can still master the impulse.
I may have used this analogy before — and whether I have or haven’t I know I’ve thought about it before which is pretty disturbing. If I have to have a pedophile living next door to me, I want the one who has dealt with the impulses and is now able to be around children without acting out on those impulses. I don’t want the guy who has locked himself away so that he doesn’t see any kids and that’s what keeps him from acting out. That guy is weak. And as soon as it happens that he has cracked the door open to get the newspaper at the exact moment my son is walking by, then POOF, there goes Junior’s pants.
Self-discipline is about having the impulses but not acting on them (or, in the case of exercise, not having the impulse but doing it anyway). I want you to be able to walk into Taco Bell and just come out with one or two things. I don’t want you hiding from high calorie food and subsisting on just lettuce and puffed rice and one day when you pass a Taco Bell you end up raping a burrito. Got it?
Well, I will find no greater summary than that last statement. I hope my attempt to codify the manner in which I kind of organically improved my own self-discipline will help others or give them something to think about. If you have any questions, send me an email.
