Habit vs Discipline vs Motivation...
There is a difference between habit, discipline, and motivation but they all have one thing in common. If you have one of them then you can engage in a behavior that you’ve aimed to accomplish. But only one of them is sturdy enough to maintain those aimed for behaviors. Habits. Knowing this will take you far in maintaining a new exercise routine or veggie rich diet. There is a science behind all three and that is what this post will do. Explain the science behind each and give some introductory advice on how to begin a new habit.
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Motivation Explained
Motivation exists in us before we decide to engage in a behavior. In other words, according to motivation, we must want something before we do it. Now that we’ve established that, let’s evaluate how desirable starting and maintaining a new workout routine can be. Would you say it’s desirable to push yourself, strain and struggle and sweat like you do when you’re exercising? Is it desirable to pause your day, change clothes, struggle, get sweaty, then take a shower because you’re gross? I wouldn’t say so. But these are components of a regular exercise routine. Why would we be motivated to go through these motions? A lot of us aim to accomplish a regular exercise routine but then we fall short and fizzle out. Why? Because some of us rely solely on motivation to get us through our workouts and motivation is an unreliable source for us humans.
One more thing about Motivation
Say we are motivated to exercise, and we accomplish that goal for a whole week! Congratulations to us we did it! BUT, we won’t see results for a little longer. This is considered delayed gratification and that’s not easy for us. We would rather feel immediate gratification. There are two parts of our brain that are always battling each other the “emotional part” and the “logical part.” Some quick advice on how to make exercising not only gratifying later but also gratifying immediately. Tie a not food or drink related reward to the very end of your exercise routine. Could it be a checkmark on a calendar? Could it be a picture posted to social media or simply a screenshot of how many calories burned to your best friend?
Discipline (or willpower)
Did you know that exercising discipline is like exercising muscle? It gets weakened with use. It gets weaker and weaker until you no longer have the discipline to say yes or no to something. This knowledge was made famous by an experiment conducted in 1996 by Roy Baumeister (and colleagues) that tested the endurance of willpower after participants of the experiment were asked to not touch a bowl of freshly baked cookies and chocolate and to, instead, indulge in some umm “yummy” radishes.
The participants were then asked to solve an unsolvable (unbeknownst to them) puzzle. Compared to their peers that didn’t have to exercise will power and were able to indulge in the cookies they did not do well with working hard to solve the puzzle. The participants that had exercised willpower earlier gave up on the puzzle more quickly, became angry and were even snappy with the research team.
As a result of this study and the studies that have replicated its findings, we now know that willpower can only take us so far. So, relying on something that will eventually be depleted may not be the best route to maintaining a new health routine. Discipline is still useful it may just be deplated by the time you try to rely on it to start that exercise class.
Habits are it!
We have now arrived at the juicy part!
Habits! Habits are what make the world go round! Let me share why I’m such a believer in habits. Because once you’ve established a habit your brain changes! Isn’t that cool? Do you ever feel like when you’re doing something that you’ve done a thousand times, you’re on autopilot? That’s because you kind of are.
When we establish a new habit, a new neural pathway is born in our brain, and the more we engage in a behavior, the easier it is for us to complete this new habit. This happens because our brain needs as much energy as possible to deal with the unpredictable choices that come our way daily and habits help free up brain energy.
The main question is: how to create a habit that sticks? I’m going to briefly go over how to do this but if you’d like to read an entire post on it then go to my blog post on how to change your behavior.
How to Establish New Habits
To establish a new habit try these guidelines:
- Make the cues that a new habit should take place obvious.
- Post Its with prompts on them to exercise
- Declarations on the specific goal
- Reminders on your phone!
- Items involving the new habit displayed in obvious places
- Attach the new habit to a fun behavior (chaining) or use the “First__Then___.” method (pre-Mack principle).
- Make it a habit to exercise before your morning shower on Saturdays (connect your exercise to a fixed daily activity)
- “First I will run and then I’ll go get myself an iced coffee” (a less preferred behavior will happen before a more preferred behavior can happen)
- Start your new habit at its smallest increment.
- Jog for 1 minute and then walked for 10 minutes…next time you exercise, add 1 minute of jogging so that you’ve jogged for 2 minutes out of the 10-minutes allotted.
- Choose an immediate reward for yourself after the habit has been completed as I mentioned above.
- The reward can be to check off that you accomplished your daily goal on a calendar
- texting a friend a picture of your salad or your sweaty face! Anything that acts as a pat on the back to yourself.
If you’ve put these strategies in place the new habit should occur again and again until it’s an old and established habit.
Some Encouraging Words
Here are some encouraging words that I hope stick with you as you try to establish new habits:
- Just show up and start. It’s rare to stop after you’ve begun to engage in a new behavior your aiming to achieve.
- It’s ok if you end up not doing something perfectly. Perfection is not attainable. Showing up IS attainable!
- On that note, it’s ok if you end up not showing up occasionally. Just don’t let THAT become your new habit. And don’t beat yourself up about it.
- It’s ok to change the goal along the way. Modify if you need to. Just don’t give up.
- Always, and I mean always, give yourself a pat on the back for your efforts. Treat yourself well. You deserve self-love.
In a Nutshell...
- You can set yourself up to feel motivated to complete your new healthy task but motivation may not always be there.
- You can exercise discipline to the best of your ability but, remember, it’s a muscle so, at times, your discipline “muscle” may be too weak to rely on.
- Establishing a new habit is your best bet when carving a new path for a new healthy way of life.
A combination of strategies, motivation, and discipline to create new habits is the way to go!
I hope this post served as insightful and encouraging! We all have it in us to reach our goals and live our lives according to what we value. It’s just good to know some science behind our behavior!
Is there anything in this post that made a light bulb go off for you? What piece of information from this post did you find helpful?
Please feel free to comment on this post and tell me what you’d like to see more of on my blog!
Until next time,
Kristi
Written by Kristi on July 6th, 2023
Makes so much sense! It’s so easy to get out of the habit of exercising. But when you develop the habit, you miss it if you can’t get it in.