Are you super disciplined, get up early every day, do sports and always submit your tax return on time? Congratulations! But too much self-control also has its downsides.
In the age of self-optimization, it has become quite disreputable to simply leave things alone and give in to your inner weaker self. It’s best to start the day with a healthy morning routine including meditation, journaling and a green smoothie and continue it in a super-structured manner with a perfectly timed workload. In the evening when eating with friends, we naturally only drink our maximum specified amount of drinks – or better yet, no alcohol at all – before we go to bed in time so that we can start our next optimal day early the next day.
Very few people achieve this level of self-discipline – and therefore end up feeling bad because our society is geared towards productivity and performance.
Our relationships can suffer from too much self-control
Are you one of those people who would rather stay in bed than get up at 6 a.m. to exercise, or who sometimes procrastinate instead of completing a task right away? Do not worry! Firstly, such self-control, which allows us to go through life in a perfectly optimized manner over the long term, is hardly possible. And secondly, it can even harm us – for example in interpersonal relationships.
According to coach and author Christian Thiele, people with extremely high self-control can have unexpected problems in relationships. “Permanent self-discipline brings with it ‘interpersonal costs’,” explains the expert at “Deutschlandfunk Kultur”. “People who are less impulsive and always have themselves under control run the risk of being overloaded by their environment, both at work and in the family – because you can rely on them always and everywhere.” This could make them more dissatisfied and lonely in their social relationships.
How meaningful is our self-assessment on the subject of discipline?
Research on self-discipline reveals further difficulties. First of all, studies on the topic are often difficult to evaluate because information about how good a person’s impulse control is is often based on their own statements. But just because I think I’m very disciplined doesn’t mean it’s the case.
There are therefore studies that attempt to measure self-control using certain tests, such as the so-called Stroop test. Colors are written down in text form – but the words are colored in a different color, i.e. the word “blue” is colored red, the word “green” is colored blue and so on.
The test subject has to name the color of the word correctly. However, this is anything but easy because our brain reports a conflict between the perceived color and the written word. From a scientific point of view, anyone who succeeds in this test has good self-control. And that coincides loudly Studies often not necessarily with the self-assessment that people give about their level of discipline.
How much self-discipline is actually healthy?
One study by the Canadian psychologist Dr. Michael Inzlicht also investigated whether students who can resist more temptations are more successful overall. The result: They aren’t. The participants who pursued certain habits in a particularly controlled manner were, above all, more exhausted and stressed at the end of the experimental period than the students who had approached everything a little more relaxed.
Self-control: Finding your own center
So does this mean we should stop trying to develop healthy and productive habits? Drinking every day, smoking, sleeping as long as we want, eating whatever we want and not exercising without thinking about what it does to our health? No of course not. Because a certain amount of self-discipline is necessary so that we can get things done, have fulfilling and balanced relationships and maintain our health.
Whether discipline and resisting temptation are easy for us is not only, but also a matter of disposition. It is therefore very individual how much self-flagellation versus hedonism we need in order to feel good and to master our lives happily and successfully.
But – as with so many things in life – it is a question of the right amount. Not having any self-control and giving in to every temptation is no more likely to lead to a healthy and happy life in the long term than constantly following through on our rigid plan with 100% discipline without ever being spontaneous or treating ourselves to anything. Here it is important to find your own center. And that can be challenge enough.
Sources used: deutschlandfunkkultur.de, vox.com, psychologytoday.com