Counterpoint: When Pursuing Goals, Self-Discipline Before Self-Control
It’s easy to confuse self-control with self-discipline. Self-control is about stopping yourself, self-discipline is about pushing yourself. You have self-control when you can stop yourself from exhibiting undesirable behaviors. You have self-discipline when you can push yourself to do the desirable ones.
Intuitively it makes sense that if you’re bleeding, you must stop the bleeding before you do anything else. Or to put it another way, when digging yourself into a hole, the first step to get out is to stop digging. While these metaphors make sense in cases when there’s an imminent danger to your well-being, they don’t make sense when there’s not.
In particular, when it comes to pursuing a goal more often than not your well-being is not in imminent danger. In cases like this, push yourself to do what you must before you stop yourself from doing what you shouldn’t.
Let’s say you set a goal to travel to every continent before you turn 75. However to reach this goal you must have the self-control to stop spending money frivolously and the self-discipline to save. If you focus on the self-control part first, you will still be lacking a place to put the money you don’t spend. As that money builds up, temptation to spend it on something other than your goal will increase exponentially.
Now what if you focus on the discipline of saving before spending? First you will work on creating a savings account specifically earmarked for your goal. Then you will work on the process of making saving automatic. Finally, you will work on making it difficult to withdraw the money from that account for anything other than your goal. At that point you can work on the self-control behaviors to stop spending money frivolously. You now have a specific place and process to direct your money that limits temptation.
Leaning on the age old cliché, time is money. That’s why this example is the perfect metaphor for how you use your time with self-discipline and self-control. So first figure out your process to behave with self-discipline to pursue your goals. Then work on how to behave with self-control to stop yourself from spending time on things that don’t matter.