How Discipline Becomes Character

When we talk about discipline, what usually comes to mind is doing what must be done even if we don't want to. Things like getting up early, meditating, doing yoga, studying when we'd rather rest, training when it would be more pleasant to stay at home, or resisting immediate temptations in favour of a future goal. Discipline comes, then, as a kind of fight between what we want momentarily and what we know we must do.

Aristotle writes about character development in a way that allows us to comprehend this problem in a much more profound way. To Aristotle, it's not only about knowing how we can force ourselves to act in the right way in a given moment. What is fundamental is understanding how our repeated actions transform us into the kind of person who acts in the right way. This is when discipline is no longer only willpower, but becomes a character trait. Nobody is born disciplined; you become disciplined.

Aristotle distinguishes intellectual virtues from moral ones. The first are developed through teaching, the second through habit. We're not born virtuous, but possess the capacity to acquire virtue through how we repeatedly act. We learn how to build something by simply building it. In the same way, we become just by practicing just actions, temperate by practicing acts of temperance, brave by practicing acts of bravery.

Applied to discipline, the above has an important consequence: we must not wait to become disciplined, but rather act in a disciplined way. And this, by itself, starts building the very discipline we're pursuing. There's a modern tendency to imagine that first we must find motivation, determination or a certain mindset, and that afterwards this interior transformation will produce the correct action. It should work the opposite way: we need to act first, and repeating these actions will start to alter our character.

This also means that each little decision is less insignificant than it looks on the surface. Aristotle affirms that similar activities produce similar states of character, meaning that what we repeatedly do gradually shapes what we become. This can happen for the good or for the bad.

But knowing what to do is not enough. You cannot simply intellectually know a certain virtue. You investigate and learn about virtues in order to become good, and not merely to know how to define them. Therefore, efforts must be made in the physical world to practice what is learned. You can know perfectly well that you need to study, train, meditate, control your spending, moderate certain pleasures and so on, and yet do the exact opposite. The problem of discipline is therefore not simply a problem of information. Most people know and don't do.

And this is exactly what Aristotle writes about. He makes the distinction between continence and incontinence: the control you have over yourself and the lack of it. The incontinent man knows that what he's doing is bad, but does it because he's dominated by passion or appetite. The continent man also possesses desires contrary to reason, but refuses to follow them because he keeps his actions subordinated to his rational principles.

The disciplined person does not need to stop feeling desires. You may still want to rest and yet work. You may feel a strong temptation and yet refuse it. You may feel fear and yet act despite it. The decisive difference lies in which of these forces determines your action. In incontinence, rational judgement exists but loses command. In continence, the desire remains present but the decision remains subordinated to what you consider correct.

Some people will reason deliberately, reach a conclusion, but then fail to keep it because of their emotions. Others are impulsive and don't even wait for deliberate reasoning before they start acting. Discipline therefore fights two problems: it teaches us not only to make good decisions, but also to create enough room between impulse and action for rational deliberation to even begin to happen.

But it doesn't all boil down to resistance. The man who merely manages to control himself does not yet possess the highest moral state. Imagine someone who constantly desires to do what he considers wrong, yet spends his entire life defeating these temptations through great effort. This man has continence: he achieves self-control. But the truly temperate man finds himself in a different situation. His desires have been progressively educated, and there isn't the same level of inner war.

Aristotle explains that both the continent man and the temperate one avoid acting against reason because of bodily desires. The difference is that the continent man still possesses appetites contrary to reason and resists them, while the temperate man no longer has these appetites in the same way. His appetites are in harmony with rational principle. Desire becomes oriented towards what should be desired, in the right measure and at the right time.

This gives a different perspective on how we can think about discipline, because its goal is not to spend your entire life fighting against yourself. Yes, initially this may be necessary. But successful discipline starts gradually changing your habits, expectations and even what you perceive as pleasant. At some point, what once required effort becomes normal, and what once seemed irresistible begins to lose its power. Discipline starts with resistance, but it must grow towards integration.

We can wish for things that are outside our direct control, for example to be healthy, rich or successful in a specific area of life. But the choice of action itself comes down to what is within our reach to do in order to advance towards that direction. This is why Aristotle associates choice with deliberation. We do not deliberate about an abstract end, but about what lies between us and that end. A doctor does not deliberate about whether to produce health; he considers the means through which he can do it. In the same way, we must deliberate about things that can be accomplished through our own actions.

Choice is therefore a deliberate desire concerning things that are within our power. This distinction is essential to understanding what discipline truly is. Wanting an outcome is not the same as choosing the actions that produce it. Our current choices not only affect external results; they also alter the person who will then have to make future choices.

People who repeatedly live in a certain way become, to an important extent, responsible for the character they develop. States of character are produced by the repetition of corresponding activities. Although at the beginning certain actions are clearly within our control, after character is deeply formed it is not so simple to immediately alter what we have become.

Think of it as throwing a stone: before you throw it, you can choose not to, but once it has left your hand, you can't simply command it to return. Habits form in a very similar way. Each action makes certain future actions a little more natural. Discipline builds discipline. Repeated indulgence also builds a disposition towards indulgence. This is why it matters so much to do what we must do even when we don't want to. Every little action matters.

But more discipline does not automatically mean better discipline. Discipline itself must remain subordinated to reason. Balance must exist in some way because excess can be as wrong as deficiency, and can likewise destroy the proper dispositions. In the case of pleasures, if you give in completely, you become self-indulgent, but if you absolutely reject them, you move towards an inadequate extreme as well. Temperance means finding the appropriate measure.

Training until injury happens isn't automatically more virtuous than following a balanced plan. Refusing all pleasures isn't superior to enjoying them in a balanced manner. Practical excellence demands knowing when, how much, why and in what way you act, because discipline without reason can simply become rigidity.

Our actions seek different goals, but there must be a final goal for which all the others are pursued. This is understood not as a fleeting emotion, but as an actual way of living and acting well. Furthermore, Aristotle relates human well-being to activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and insists that this must happen across an entire life, meaning that one single action does not build a good life.

There isn't great merit in becoming extremely efficient at pursuing a pointless goal. There's also no greater merit in suffering just because you can endure the suffering. Discipline serves the purpose of making rational choice possible, instead of living a life permanently governed by immediate convenience. The problem is not pleasure itself. The problem arises when pleasure starts deciding for you and governing you.

The ultimate goal is therefore not to eliminate human desire, but to form a character in which reason, choice and desire progressively point in the same direction. The Aristotelian perspective allows us to think of discipline on three levels.

First, there's the conflict: you know what you must do, but you feel like doing something else. Then comes self-mastery: despite feeling like doing something else, you maintain the decision that you consider rationally more correct. And finally, through repetition, the structure of character starts changing. Good choices turn into habits and habits turn into dispositions; what previously demanded constant fighting starts becoming part of what we are.

The true conquest of discipline is not, therefore, forcing yourself to do what you hate for your entire life. It is reaching a point where you no longer need to fight the same battle every single time. We are, to a great extent, formed by the activities we repeat. The question of discipline then becomes bigger than simply productivity, motivation or willpower.

The question you must ask yourself is: What kind of person am I creating through what I repeatedly choose to do?