Why discipline is overrated and the secret to performance is: pleasure!

Discipline is overrated

Most advice about consistency sounds the same: try harder, be more disciplined, push through resistance. Discipline is often seen as the difference between people who succeed and people who don’t.

And if you fall off, the explanation is usually moralized: not enough willpower, lack of grit, laziness.

But many people don’t fail because they don’t try hard enough. They fail because the system they’re operating in makes sustained effort too costly.

From discipline to pleasure

From a scientific perspective, discipline is the ability to apply self-control to override impulses in service of longer-term goals.

Decades of research suggest that self-control does predict positive outcomes. But it also shows something more subtle: self-control works best when it’s used sparingly. When people rely on constant “effortful inhibition” (forcing themselves to act) their performance degrades over time.

That’s because this kind of effortful inhibition activates brain networks that are metabolically expensive and sensitive to stress and fatigue.

Instead, research finds that people who appear highly disciplined are not constantly exerting more willpower. Rather, they tend to rely on habits, routines, rituals to maintain their wellbeing.

This is where pleasure becomes a more useful tool than discipline. Making your desired activity (workout, meditation, focus at work, eating healthy) a pleasure will increase considerably the like hood that your stick with it!

• I will start a diet vs I will learn to cook delicious dishes that I LOVE with local fresh vegetables.

• I exercise 3 times a week vs I signed up for a workout/sports club with my friend in a place that I love.

• I will meditate every evening vs I will light up some candles and take some time for myself in the evening.

That is why my motto for this year is: Presence vs Performance, ease and flow is a possible way to make 2026 a year that WE LOVE!