Emotions are thought to have been a relatively modern concept, with the discoveries of emotional reaction to stimuli being made in the 19th century. However, emotions actually were observed far before this, in the times of the Ancient Greeks.
Cause: Lack of Discipline
However, no time will be squandered beating around the bush. One of the main reasons you are incapable of controlling your emotions is a lack of discipline. Discipline is one of the most pivotal concepts in setting your life straight, by initially controlling your emotions, and I will tell you exactly why.
1. Distraction
The first reason that a lack of discipline is a cause for your inability to properly manage your emotions is because without discipline, you are unable to rationally identify what the cause for your emotional reaction to a certain stimuli is. The connection between the cause and effect isn’t constructed, because you’re distracted by the temporary indescribable feeling you experience from the chemicals released in your brain resulting from emotional reactions. For example, let’s imagine someone, who we will call Jeff for simplicity, seemingly possessed a loving, affectionate, loyal partner, yet has recently discovered that he has just been cheated on, and his relationship has conclusively been terminated. To put this more into perspective, we shall assume that Jeff’s partner already showed signs of concern, such as disinterest in conversation, lack of effort for sentimental events, excitement for a gift/favour only displayed when monetary value is involved, etc. If Jeff is a disciplined individual, his first instinct will be to make the connection between why he was cheated on, and therefore what his appropriate course of action to respond should be. If Jeff is not a disciplined individual however, his brain will become so distracted by the horrific feeling of betrayal and heartbreak, that he will utilise that short term feeling as a method of designing a way of responding, such as attempting to seeking revenge on his partner by sending toxic messages, or something more intense, depending on the level of ineptitude that he has with dealing with emotions reasonably. Where will this path lead him to? Will it benefit his wellbeing or his situation in any way? The answer is no, in fact, it may be a cause for more emotional harm, due to the snowball effect that unleashing emotions such as jealousy onto someone else in this manner can create. Instead, a beneficial way to respond to this situation would be to recognise the repercussions of acting on emotion in this circumstance by visualising the scenario objectively, and consequently resorting to a more appropriate action to take, such as identifying a feature of yourself that you are not only dissatisfied with, but that may have also contributed to the downfall of your relationship, such as physical attractiveness, and rectifying the issue that it has caused you by maximising the appeal of your physical appearance through activities such as attending the gym, partaking in a proper diet, getting a hairstyle that matches your body type and appears clean, altering your fashion, etc.
The diagram in the image above permits us to visualise this concept in a simpler way, but you must become comfortable enough with this to formulate these thoughts in your mind. Notice how different those two outcomes are, and the only difference between them was a simple recognition from Jeff of the rational cause and effect behind the incident that occurred. This process is difficult to complete when your mind is distracted by illogical feelings that do not assist your progression as a person, and it’s difficult to not be distracted when you lack discipline, since a lack of discipline is correlated with a lack of focus. Distraction, that’s one major reason why discipline is the cause of your inability to effectively control emotions.
2. Fluctuating Morals
Fluctuating morals is the other major reason for why discipline is the cause of your lack of emotional control. As a person, especially a high value person, you shouldn’t be adjusting the goal post representing your morals, just to fit in with certain ideas or traditions. The reality is that you can’t just float around, changing completely by the day, and then expect your discipline to be up to par, because when you encounter a situation involving emotions, the decision you choose to make will depend on your morals, and so if your morals are continuously swimming around like a shapeshifter, you never actually take your own shape, and therefore have no morals to rely on when trying to make a logical decision. Imagine a scenario where you’re asked by a prostitute if you’ll pay for their services. The choice is up to you, not anyone else, YOU. If you’ve decided that you’ll never spend money on something like that, or you’ve decided that you’re a religious person and something like this would violate your beliefs, or you’ve decided that your money will only go towards something with monetary benefit, (Even though this is a simplistic example, the principle applies) you have a pre-determined outcome for what will occur when you’re presented with the situation, you just have to take that action when it happens, you don’t have to decide on the spot because you can RELY on your morals. However, if your morals aren’t stationary, what are you going to choose? Well, there’s a high probability you’re going to choose the option which seemingly provides you with the most positive emotional response; in other words, your emotions are controlling your decision, rather than you controlling them. This does not mean you shouldn’t change at all in life, because it’s quite the opposite. The problem is when you never find a point to settle with yourself, and your moving morals make it difficult to be disciplined when choosing an option for reacting to a certain stimulus. Remember, everything in life comes down to options. You have so many options in the way you can live your life, and so bringing some structure to them through strong morals allows you to remain disciplined.
How Can I Improve My Discipline?
So, we’ve talked a bit about the cause and effect for a lack of discipline leading to insufficient emotional control. Now that we are aware that a lack discipline is the cause, how do we take action to remedy this by improving our discipline?
One method that can be easy implemented to improve your discipline is to wake up at the same time every day. Setting an alarm for a certain time every day of the week will allow you to keep some consistency with your timetable. The time that you choose will depend on what is appropriate for your personal schedule, but I recommend it to not be later than 10am, and not be earlier than 5am. When your alarm goes off though, make sure to actually get out of bed at that time, rather than disabling your alarm and resting in bed for half an hour. An easy way to achieve this is by placing your alarm out of arm’s reach from your bed, ideally a couple of meters away, so that in order to turn the alarm off, you are required to exit your bed and walk over to it. Another tip is to purposefully have an extremely annoying, loud alarm, rather than some music that you enjoy, so you have a strong incentive to turn it off.
Another similar yet slightly more difficult method is to go to sleep at the same time every day. This may not seem that different, but the reason that going to sleep at the same time every day is significantly harder than waking up at the same time is because you usually cannot control whether the alarm wakes you up or not, it forces you up whether you like it or not. On the other hand, in order to go to sleep, you actively have to finish whatever task you are currently doing, and consciously make the decision to enter bed. It’s hard, but if you really want to test yourself, stop making excuses and try this. Implement these into your life TODAY, not tomorrow, not next week, there is no time to waste.
Meditation is the third technique that can and should be implemented. The amount of time per day that is recommended to spend meditating is subjective, but even 5 minutes every day will supply many benefits, including improved concentration and discipline. There are many methods of meditating that are applicable, but in most variants, the breathing is drastically slowed, and a state of absence of thought is aimed for, with either no background noise, ambient sounds, calm music, or white noise being played, depending on the goal of the meditation.
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The last way I’ll share that can boost your discipline is by firstly identifying a certain food or drink that you regularly consume, that you know is unhealthy. Let us take ice cream as an example. The next step would be to remove ice cream completely from your diet for a month. If you don’t feel like you can do that, you can instead only allow yourself to eat ice cream after you’ve completed a certain task. Connecting the completion of a task with the reward of ice cream will not only make you feel less guilty for eating it, but will also train your mind to work for a reward such as ice cream, inadvertently desensitising yourself to the sensation of resisting taking a bite before you achieve a specific goal. This principle can be extended and altered in order to help yourself acquire a disciplined mindset. If you don’t feel like doing this though, then why have you clicked on this post? You clicked here with the intent of learning why discipline is so important, and how to gain a disciplined mind. However, if all you do is read this post, and then proceed to grab a bag of potato chips and go to sleep at 3am, scrolling on pointless TikTok videos until you pass out from exhaustion, you will achieve nothing. The ONLY way to get this to work is by ACTUALLY APPLYING these tips RIGHT NOW. Read all there is to know on this post, and then get going, take action. Do me a favour and document your progress by emailing me every single day you manage to complete this, that is my challenge for you. If you are strong minded, you WILL do it. What are you waiting for?
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Top G. Great post, I am impressed