Self-Discipline On Autopilot: Do The Right Thing, Easily And Habitually (Live a Disciplined Life Book 21) By Peter Hollins
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GJ3JLX5W
How to make self-discipline automatic, second nature, and habitual.
The biology of self-control and how to hack your body's limitations
Understanding all the roadblocks to motivation and self-control - almost all are psychological
Why you must start managing your TIME, not your energy
The role your neurotransmitters play in self-discipline
Clarifying your areas of control and interest for maximum adherence
How to make discomfort your best friend
How to "surf the urge" and "zazen"
Emotional kung fu and how to use your emotions to your advantage
Tools to get started, keep going, overcome distractions, and follow through every single time.
Self-discipline is the ability to do what you don't want to do. It allows you to push through, conquer, and achieve. Without this gritty trait, nothing is possible in life. Keep that in mind.
Transcripts
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Do you feel powerless against your own bad habits?
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Maybe you should start training yourself like you train your dog.
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Hello listeners, welcome to The Science of Self, where you improve your life from the inside out.
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Peter Holland's book Self-Discipline on Autopilot is our featured work today, and our goal with this episode is to help you learn how to smash your bad habits with classical conditioning.
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We're going to talk about triggers and exposure therapy, classical conditioning, and Pavlovian responses.
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We appreciate you being with us today and hope you enjoy the following episode.
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“Pavloving” Yourself
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In the 1890s, physiologist Ivan Pavlov discovered in his experiments that dogs would salivate in anticipation of receiving their food.
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He found that if he paired their mealtimes with the ringing of a bell, he could get the dogs to salivate simply by ringing the bell alone, even in the absence of food.
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He thus paired the two stimuli together and conditioned the dogs’ behavioral response.
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Ever since, psychologists have wondered if it’s possible to “Pavlov yourself” and essentially condition your own responses.
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Because the brain is plastic (it has neuroplasticity) and able to adapt, the answer is yes.
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Classical conditioning is a way of learning that happens automatically and unconsciously.
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It happens because of the associations we form (in the Pavlov experiment, the dogs associated the sound of the bell with food).
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Classical conditioning is always happening in our everyday lives, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a degree of control over it for our own benefit.
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Let’s say you’re a smoker who always has a smoke break in the outside patio at your workplace.
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One day, you walk through this area to collect a delivery and suddenly feel the urge for a cigarette.
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This is because your brain has associated this particular patio with having a cigarette.
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Now, you may have no conscious control over this process, but you can manipulate it: If you decided you wanted to stop smoking, you could deliberately avoid going near that area to try to break the association and reduce temptation for yourself.
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By the same token, therapists use a form of classical conditioning to help people overcome phobias or PTSD responses (by pairing a fear-inducing stimulus with positive feelings, for example).
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Classical conditioning can be used to break bad habits so that we can form new and better ones.
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We can consciously decide to manage our environment so that our unconscious reactions and responses are optimized.
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Here’s how.
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TAKE ACTION:
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Identify the bad habit that you want to “decondition”.
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For example, it may be that you have a bad habit of rummaging through the cupboards after dinner each night to snack on cookies and candy.
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Notice when this behavior occurs, and what precedes and co-occurs with it.
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You take a close look at this behavior.
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What triggers it for you?
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Is the end of dinner the cue to start snacking?
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No, because you notice that you snack, anyway, whether you’ve had dinner or not.
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You realize that the thought, “Hm, I wonder if there’s something nice to snack on in the kitchen,” comes reliably at around 8 p.m. every evening no matter what you’re doing.
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Remove or alter those triggers and associations.
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We cannot remove the trigger of it being 8 p.m., but we can modify it.
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In this case, maybe you decide that you’ll take a walk after dinner every evening so that you are out of the house at that time every day.
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Make new associations
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In time, your subconscious will start to associate 8 p.m. with being out of the house on a walk.
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If you wanted to, you could also re-condition any temptation to snack as a new stimulus, i.e., “Oh, I’m feeling like a snack-it must be getting close to my walk time!”
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You identify a bad “habit,” which is really a mild phobia in disguise-you avoid driving since having a near-fatal accident some years back.
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You have conditioned yourself so that every time you get into a car, you immediately start to panic.
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In this case, the conditioned response is not a behavior like snacking or salivating, but rather an emotional reaction.
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You decide to use classical conditioning to break this association.
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Just like in the previous section where we learned to slowly create evidence for a new identity, you break this association by slowly creating moments where being in a car doesn’t fill you with anxiety.
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The technique of “exposure therapy” is based on classical conditioning.
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The idea is simple: You expose yourself to a stimulus that ordinarily provokes fear, but pair it with relaxation instead.
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Gradually, you break the association that car = panic.
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How?
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First, you stand near to a car for a few minutes.
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The moment you feel yourself panicking, you stop and do a relaxation exercise, perhaps with breathing or visualization to calm you down again.
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You do this a few times until being near a car doesn’t provoke any reaction.
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Then, you take another step.
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You get into the car, and when the panic sets in, you do your relaxation exercise again.
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You teach your brain that car = relaxation.
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You are giving yourself evidence that your old associations are unfounded.
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Once you are comfortable with this, you sit in the car with the ignition turned on and do the same thing.
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Then you take a short one-minute drive.
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Then you increase that to a five-minute drive, and so on.
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In time, being in a car no longer causes you anxiety.
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The great thing about including a classical conditioning element into your personal development efforts is that once the new associations are made, you don’t need self-discipline anymore.
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You are simply doing the right thing on autopilot instead of the wrong thing!
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But you do need a little self-discipline to initially become aware of your conditioned responses and to consciously set up new patterns and associations for yourself.
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Even if you don’t have an obvious phobia to tackle or a serious snacking habit that needs attention, you can use the power of association to support good habits and make it harder to engage in bad ones:
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Have a work ritual to associate a certain action, location, or sensation with “time to work.”
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◦ Example: Sitting down with your morning coffee and turning on the monitor is always a sign that your workday has begun.
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Have a bedtime ritual that signals to your brain that it’s time to relax and sleep.
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◦ Example: Lighting a candle, reading something soothing, or meditating.
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Have set eating routines.
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If binge eating is a problem, you might have certain rituals that keep you on track.
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◦ Example: A single square of dark chocolate at the end of the day is the last thing you eat and a sign that you’re done eating for the day.
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Self-discipline can be cultivated and maintained by conditioning our minds to automate good habits.
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There are classical conditioning techniques and exposure therapy techniques that help us learn how to reshape our behavior for the better and not exhaust ourselves and drain our own willpower.
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Remember, changing your life doesn't always require a dramatic leap but often just small consistent steps toward new habits.
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Let's take a look at today's takeaways from this episode.
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Classical conditioning helps break bad habits.
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By identifying triggers, removing them, or altering associations, new behaviors can form.
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Overcome fears through exposure therapy.
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Stand near a car, then relax.
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Get in it and relax again.
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Repeat until the fear diminishes.
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Of course, this works for any bad habit or irrational fear that you may be trying to overcome.
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We're going to end this episode with a quote from Aristotle.
