Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I help? I'm doctor
Gail Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, I'm best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. Many people find themselves
really struggling to impose certain behaviors that they know would
be better, healthier, even just more desirable, and unable to
manage it. Maybe it's a diet, how much alcohol they
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are consuming. Maybe it's about cleaning the house or exercising.
Things they would really ideally like to do, or things
they would ideally like to stop doing. But in both
cases find themselves not doing these things or unable to
feel motivated enough to do the things they want to.
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Often enough, these same people judge themselves harshly. Gosh darn it,
I'm so lazy, I'm so incompetent. I feel really guilty,
I feel ashamed. So today I'm answering a question from
a listener about her unhappy thoughts that she lacks self
discipline and what she can do about it. Self discipline,
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from a psychological perspective, refers to the ability to regulate
your own thoughts, your emotions, and your behaviors in order
to achieve long term goals or to adhere to a
set of standards or values. It involves exerting control over yourself,
resisting immediate impulse or resisting immediate gratification, and persisting with
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tasks or behaviors even in the face of difficulty or distractions. Psychologically,
self discipline is closely related to the concept of self control,
to willpower and self regulation. It involves the ability to
delay gratification, to make decisions based on long term benefits
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rather than immediate desires, and to maintain focus and motivation
to accomplish that task or achieve a certain objective. Self
discipline encompasses different aspects of functioning, including things like emotional regulation,
which is the ability to manage and control your emotions,
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including coping with negative emotions, reducing impulsive reactions to things,
and maintaining emotional stability. It also encompasses behavioral control, exerting
self control over your actions, refraining from impulsive or harmful behaviors,
and following through with planned actions and cognitive control the
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capacity to direct and focus your attention, to resist distractions,
and to maintain that cognitive effort towards a particular goal
or task, and with goals in mind. It requires the
ability to set goals and be persistent, because setting clear
goals and breaking them down into manageable steps and persisting
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with effort and determination to achieve them is necessary even
in the face of setbacks or obstacles, and, as I
mentioned earlier, delayed gratification the ability to forego immediate rewards
or pleasures in favor of larger, delayed rewards or long
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term benefits. Self discipline is considered a fundamental aspect of
personal growth and success in various areas of life, for example, education, career, relationships,
health and well being. Overall, it can be cultivated and
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it can be strengthened through practice and self awareness, by
setting realistic goals, by developing effective strategies for self regulation,
and by getting support when you need it. Different kinds
of problems can negatively impact your self discipline. Lack of
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emotional regulation, which is difficulty in managing and regulating your emotions,
leads to impulsive behaviors and mood swings and distracting ability,
which makes it very hard to maintain self discipline. So
does procrastination. The tendency to delay a task or engage
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in avoidance can undermine your self discipline. Procrastination often stems
from various factors like a fear of failure or too
much perfectionism, a lack of motivation, or poor time management skills. Impulsivity,
which is acting on immediate impulses without considering the long
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term consequences, definitely hinder self discipline. Impulsive behaviors include things
like over indulging in instant gratification, making an impulsive purchase,
engaging in activities that derail progress toward making your goal,
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having a lack of clear goals. Without clearly defining your goals,
it can be difficult to maintain in self discipline because
vague and unrealistic goals lack clarity, which makes it hard
to have motivation and you're basically unfocused without real direction.
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Environmental distractions can be an issue. Also. A chaotic environment
can make it challenging to maintain self discipline. Distractions like noise, interruptions,
or disorganized space because it's messy can hinder one's concentration
and divert attention from what you're trying to do. I
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mentioned poor time management. The inefficient use of time can
definitely undermine self discipline. So if you have difficulty prioritizing tasks,
if you get easily overwhelmed or fail to allocate time effectively,
it can lead to a lack of progress and then
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you have reduced motivation. In the world of reduced motivation,
the lack of an intrinsic drive toward a goal can
definitely diminish self discipline. If you fail to see the
value or purpose in the action you're trying to accomplish,
then that can cause you to struggle to maintain the
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effort and persistence required. Of course, stress and fatigue do
play a role. If you're highly stressed or constantly tired,
it can impair self discipline. Being overwhelmed or physically exhausted
makes it challenging to exert self control and sustain discipline.
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So does lack of accountability and support. Not having an
external source of being accountable to your task or your
support system lacking make it harder to maintain self discipline.
You need feedback, encouragement. Consequences for your action. Those all
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help you stay motivated. And negative self talk, which many
people do, and self doubt that internal negative dialogue definitely
erodes self discipline. If you believe you're incapable or unworthy
of achieving your goals, then that makes it hard to
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stay motivated and to stay disciplined. Now, these problems that
I mentioned are not mutually exclusive. They can interact with
one another. You might have some and not others. But
addressing and managing these issues are involved in creating strategies
like goal setting, improving your time management skills, finding more
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social support, practicing stress management, and this will help you
cultivate the type of self awareness you need to have
more self discipline. So with that, right after the break,
we'll get to my listener's question. Welcome back. Let's get
(09:17):
to my listener's question and see how can I help,
dear doctor Sultz. I'm thirty three years old and recently married.
Now living with my husband. I find that my way
of living is making it pretty difficult for both of us.
We tend to split the care for the house, and
he's good about keeping up his half, and while I
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want to be too, and I mean to be good
about keeping up my half. I see that I'm not.
I tend to keep putting things off, and eventually he
gets very aggravated and just does it himself, which is
making him resentful, and then we argue. I can't blame
him exactly, see that he's right. So actually I just
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feel bad and guilty, but somehow I'm not changing what
I'm doing. This is not really new for me. I
have a lot of difficulty motivating myself to do what
feels like unimportant or at least not dire, stuff that
I also find rather unpleasant, like housework. I honestly kept
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my own place before marriage pretty sloppy and messy, and
then I would rapid fire clean it up if he
was coming over because it felt more important. But now
that we live together, I don't have that instantaneous motivation
because he's living with me, for better or for worse,
as we said. I struggle with other types of lack
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of self discipline, like eating healthier foods, making myself exercise,
things that are ongoing and I know I should do.
I think I'm going to do, and then I don't do,
and then I feel bad. I kind of feel I
never really learned to have real self discipline. I grew
up in a very laissez fair home with parents who
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worked a lot and left me and my siblings alone
a lot to do as we pleased, and never really
limited anything we did. We never had house rules or
repercussions or rewards for doing the right thing either. We
just sort of did whatever. We kind of grew ourselves up.
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On the one hand, I guess I learned how to
be independent early and quickly. But I didn't really learn
how to make rules for myself even when I didn't
want to. And I just don't have a great internal
sense of there are things you just do and doing
them is your own reward. I feel like it's hurting
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my marriage, and it isn't great for me overall as
a healthy person either. Is there anything I can do
to change this about myself? Many many issues can impact
self discipline, as I mentioned earlier, including issues like having
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or anxiety disorders, or even depression.
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But what you, my listener, bring up can be The
issue at heart is emotionally neglectful parenting, when parents are
out of touch with their children's feelings or attempt to
avoid emotions in general, implementing healthy habits that often come
with feelings of discomfort is not part of their parenting.
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Emotionally neglectful parents are unable to see their child's true self,
and therefore are unable to provide a personalized set of
rules or structures that fit their child's needs. This leads
to the emotionally neglect did child struggling with self discipline.
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They battle with the boredom of life, having difficulty completing
tasks that are the least bit unfun or unrewarding. They
may grow up to be overspenders, over drinkers, and have
trouble following a routine. The emotionally neglected were never given
the chance to learn the two basic principles of self discipline,
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making yourself do things you don't want to do, and
stopping yourself from doing things you want to do but
know you shouldn't do well meeting. Parents may think they're
giving their children an appropriate amount of freedom or independence
by lack of rules, but they're actually emotionally neglecting them.
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Many parents have been emotionally neglected throughout their own upbringing
and unknowingly continue the pattern. They may believe that a
lack of structure also means a lack of common a
way to keep the peace parents who don't know that
having difficult emotions, like the feelings of disappointment or sadness
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that often come from parenting with consequences, is actually helpful
for their children to learn the essential emotional skills necessary
for life. Because appropriate discipline takes effort and patience, many
parents may not have the time or are distracted by
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things like a lot of work, exhaustion, mental health issues,
single parenting, or financial stresses. These parents may let their
children do as they please because they believe their child
can take care of things on their own, or their
child will be happier with a lack of consequences. You
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do help your children immensely, both in childhood and adulthood
by giving them chores, by enforcing household rules and routines,
and dishing out consequences. So what you, my listener, are
struggling with now maybe at least in part a result
of having none of this in your growing up. To
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change this will require work understanding the impact of having
the type of growing up you did by gaining insight
into the ways not having any rules and consequences impacted
your feelings about internal rules and consequences today, and then
with those insights, reworking your internal set of rules yourself,
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flipping the script as it were, to provide your own rules,
your own consequences, and your own rewards. Just writing out
this question to me is a great first step. I
encourage you to continue this self reflection, to make yourself
some written out rules for yourself, to give yourself small
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rewards for following through on your tasks, to have some
sort of discipline in mind, and to self administer it
if you don't complete the task. But I would also
encourage you to speak to a therapist about this, because
this type of change does take considerable self reflection and
insight an effort to make change, and a therapist can
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help you to be more objective in your pursuits and
will increase the likelihood of good results. Improving your capacity
will have beneficial effects on many aspects of your life,
and should you decide to become a parent, yourself hopefully
break the chain of this type of emotional neglect. I
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hope that was helpful. The early emotional neglect can potentially
impact adult self discipline. Emotional neglect refers to a situation
in which a child's emotional needs are not adequately met
by their caregivers, leading to a lack of emotional support, validation,
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and responsiveness. Such neglect can have long lasting effects on
various aspects of an individual's development, including their ability to
regulate their emotions and engage in self discipline. During early childhood,
children rely on their caregivers to help them learn emotional
regulation and develop self discipline, and when neglect occurs, children
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may struggle to develop effective coping mechanisms and self regulation
skills of various types. They can experience difficulties in managing
their emotions, controlling their impulsive behaviors, and maintaining focus and motivation. Then,
in adulthood, these early experiences manifest in various ways. Individuals
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who have experienced emotional neglect challenging to state disciplined in
their personal and professional lives. They might struggle to set goals,
to have routines, to resist immediate gratification, and to maintain
consistent effort towards long term objectives. This lack of self
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discipline impacts various areas education, career, relationships, and personal wellbeing.
It's important to know that while early emotional glac can
have a significant influence. Of course, individual experiences and one's
level of resilience for it can vary. Some people overcome
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the effects of emotional neglect with external support, with self reflection,
and with personal growth, and sometimes therapy and other forms
of support are really helpful in addressing the impact of
early emotional neglect and developing healthier self discipline strategies. Do
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you have a problem I can help with? If so,
email me at how Can I Help? At Seneca Women
dot com. All centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday
to how Can I Help with Me? Doctor Gail's Saltz