We Are Humans, Not Robots
By Mallory McPherson-Wehan
I’ve spent the last three weeks thinking about discipline for Generation Three Girls’ January theme and I have so many thoughts that my brain may explode. The more I research and learn about discipline, the more I realize how many layers there are. Discipline and privilege. Discipline and moral value. Discipline and responsibility.
The biggest question I’ve gotten since we released our first podcast on discipline has been: “If I’m not disciplined, how will I get myself to do anything I don’t want to do?” Great question. We’ve spent so long associating discipline and productivity that we’ve forgotten a few key things.
The first thing to remember is that our behavior does not exist in isolation. This is why I believe that by labeling someone as undisciplined or lazy we are completely ignoring the reality that we live in. To perform any given behavior, we need to overcome numerous barriers. Those with fewer barriers usually have an easier time performing a behavior. Therefore assigning a moral value to performing a behavior doesn’t make sense.
Let’s look at an example for clarity. Marla (a person I totally made up just for this blog post) is a single mom raising two kids. She works long hours and lives in an area with very few grocery stores or adequate healthcare. Susan is 25, freshly out of graduate school, living in an area with a Whole Foods on every block and works a 9-5 job she really enjoys.
Susan is able to exercise 5 days a week. Marla is not. Is Susan more disciplined than Marla? No. Is Marla lazy? No. These labels are meaningless! They miss out on the much more nuanced reality; that we are human beings with lives and time constraints and responsibilities.
There is a psychological concept I really like called the locus of control. This concept boils down to the idea that if we are late to a doctor’s appointment, our being late says nothing about our character or personality. We were just late; maybe we got stuck in traffic or ran behind schedule because our child needed something. Whereas if someone else is late for a doctor’s appointment it automatically says something fundamentally important about their character. In these two situations, we are placing the control in different places; when it is our own behavior it is external control, when it is other’s behavior it is internal control.
My purpose in giving that example is just to say that the weight we put on these labels is unhelpful. Whatever behavior, habit, goal, intention you are after is not going to exist in isolation and the ability to achieve or not achieve it will say nothing about your value as a human.
The reality is that there are going to be many things in our lives that we will have to do even though we may not want to. But there is a helpful concept in behavior change theory that makes understanding this idea a bit easier.
There are two main types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within (think passion, duty, interest in a topic, etc.). Extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from your environment (think social media, your family, society, etc.). Ideally, we would be motivated primarily by intrinsic motivation, but that’s not always the case. There are three main types of extrinsic motivation, but today we’ll focus on one of the three: integrated regulation.
Integrated regulation is the closest to intrinsic motivation of the three types of extrinsic motivation. It admits that there are going to be behaviors and actions that won’t always be intrinsically motivated. When deciding whether or not to perform these behaviors we must assess whether they align with our values, sense of self, or a personal need at the time.
Let’s use the example of doing the dishes. You probably will not always be intrinsically motivated to do the dishes. But maybe you end up doing them because you know your partner will appreciate it or you like your house to be clean or it was taking up valuable space on the counter. Whatever the reason, it feels intentional to you and your needs.
With my health coaching clients, we often talk about integrated regulation in relation to movement. There are times I go on a walk, not because I have a deep desire to go on a walk, but because fresh air sounds nice or I want to chat with a friend. Integrated regulation is different from discipline because discipline doesn’t care about your motivation. Discipline will override your feelings regardless of their validity. Understanding your motivations is so important for behavior change. Constantly relying on self-imposed rules is pushing you farther away from your body and needs, not closer.
Remember that you are a human, not a robot. Relying on discipline and consistency to get you where you need to go is ignoring the reality and beauty of our human condition.
