Why Self-Discipline is so Hard

This is Odin, also known as the All-father. He will become the wisest and most powerful of the Norse gods, but not yet. For now, he hangs from Yggdrasil, the world tree that holds all nine worlds together, with a spear lodged in his chest. He will hang there for nine days and nine nights, on the border between life and death. All the while, he peers down into the magical waters of the well below, calling out for the godly knowledge of the runes.

Satisfied with his sacrifice, they emerge, revealing to him their wisdom and bestowing him with great power. Odin had given himself to himself. Or, more specifically, he sacrificed his present-self for his future-self. It's no coincidence that he had to perform the greatest sacrifice for the greatest reward. This story is, at the least, a metaphor for self-sacrifice or self-discipline. And, it's one that we have been telling for generations.

Humanity has held the virtue of self-control in such high regards that it's a staple in most religions and the moral of many myths. In Christianity, the first sin—eating the forbidden fruit—was a lapse in self-control. In Greek mythology, evil entered the world when Pandora could not control her curiosity and opened the box. This myth, in particular, has even entered our everyday language. If I want you to avoid a temptation, for fear of causing disastrous consequences, I might warn you against "opening Pandora's box."

The elevation of this virtue to religious and mythic proportions highlights a commonly held belief: self-discipline plays a huge role in leading you to your best future, as in the case of Odin, or your worst one, as with Pandora. If this is true, it seems like it would be great if we could all have some more self-discipline. But, what is self-discipline? People often use the term to describe someone who makes "good" long-term decisions by overcoming short-term temptations, and that's reasonable.

But, when you ask them how they overcome these short-term temptations, they often invoke some sort of will or willpower. What will actually means isn't really obvious. But, before we get to that, let's start at the beginning: the decision. At any point in time, you're making a decision on how to act. The difficulty arises when you have to make a decision between what's immediately gratifying versus what is not gratifying now, but will be in the future. In other words, the difficulty lies in delaying gratification.

But, what causes you to not act impulsively? The reason for any single decision you make is multivariate: genes, hormones, evolution, social environment, physical environment, past experience, context of the situation, and a multitude of other factors all play a role. But, the most immediate cause of any of your actions can be traced back to your brain activity. When discussing self-discipline, one of the best places to start is with the neurotransmitter dopamine.

In his book Behave, Robert Sapolsky puts forth an example that clarifies at least one of the primary roles of dopamine in our brains. Let's say that I take a monkey and stick him in a cage. Now, I put a lever in there that, if he pushes it 10 times, rewards him with a raisin. Next, I turn on a light that comes on before the lever enters the cage. In other words, the light signals that the lever will be entering the cage which, in turn, signals that the monkey will be able to get a raisin.

As a result, the monkey learns to associate the cue (a light) with the reward (a raisin). Interestingly, the monkey will begin to release more dopamine in response to the light than he does when consuming his reward. Contrary to popular belief, dopamine is about anticipation more than it is about reward [8]. Certain cues in our environment hint at a potential reward and dopamine starts to rise in anticipation. Dopamine is what gets us to take action with respect to a goal [8].

So, how does this relate to self-discipline? Let's say that you're deciding between an immediate reward and a delayed reward. When you think about the immediate reward, dopamine is sent to cert...