What Players Misunderstand About Discipline in Poker

What Is Discipline and Why It Is Not About Punishment

The common use of “discipline” is so widely associated with raising or teaching children that it inevitably distorts the actual meaning the term. The evolution of our disciplinary measures towards young and dependent people (inc. slaves, servants, hired workers, etc.) also gave the terms the connotation of something forceful, unpleasant and even associated with violence.

However, world when it comes to free-willed adults, the concept of discipline is applied only in the context of self-discipline:

APA suggests discipline is about calming down and learning how to solve problems, manage negative emotions, develop self-control and behave appropriately to the situation. Punishment, on the other hand, is about applying fear of pain, shame or humiliation to control behavior.

Where discipline helps people to resolve issues by researching their mistakes, punishment teaches them to avoid negative consequences at all cost, primarily — by hiding mistakes and lying about them.

So, as you can see, self-discipline may be unpleasant in the moment but it is actually the direct opposite of never pleasant punishment.

How Forcing Yourself Can Backfire on Discipline

Self-discipline is deeply intertwined with willpower — you can’t maintain one without using the other.

However, abuse of willpower to suppress negative responses to a task or ignore negative thoughts and emotions can actually make maintaining self-discipline more difficult.

According to the APA’s meta article on willpower, its resource is genetically predisposed and limited but also depends on the current physiological and psychological state of an individual.

By using too much willpower to complete unpleasant tasks, suppress urgent impulses or ignore inner discomfort, people suffer from depletion — especially, if they repeat this abuse for a long time.

When you force yourself to do unpleasant things over and over again, you simultaneously accumulate stress and do not let your psych restore reserves of willpower.

The more often you use willpower to complete an unpleasant task — the more unpleasant this task becomes, so the more willpower you need for the next time. At the same time, the goal you achieve by doing this will not be satisfying enough to compensate for all the effort you put in. 

This spiral isn’t infinite; sooner or later you’ll inevitably reach the point you lack willpower for more vital things like self-control or emotional regulation. At this point, burnout will be waiting for you, which is quite difficult to cope with.

How to Improve Self-Discipline

Different schools of psychology offer people different tactics for improving self-discipline. We’ve chosen a few of the most universally applicable among them for this part of the article — however, for the best results you may want to work with a therapist or mental coach to create your own technique.

#1 Avoid Temptations

Improving isn’t always about training; when it comes to discipline it is also about avoiding distractors.

Just try to not buy junk food or alcohol, delete social media apps from your phone or restrict their usage time per day — and soon you’ll notice that your brain finds it easier to “get started” on tasks because it no longer needs to fight temptations spending willpower.

The “out of sight, out of mind” practice is very effective for improving self-discipline as self-control but only when it relates to habits that are not associated with real addiction. If you are addicted to something, just avoiding it can worsen your mental state — that’s why you should go to a psychiatrist or other doctor for help.

#2 Find the Right Motivation

When your work is based on strong positive motivation, it is much easier to do.

Self-discipline also comes more easily when fueled by high motivation — according to scientists like Mark Muraven, PhD, it can even give people extra strength when their willpower is low.

But “right”, “good” and “high” motivators vary between people — for this to work, you need to understand yourself and figure out what motivates you best. Setting clear and achievable goals as well as creating a step-by-step plan for reaching them will help with this greatly.

You can read more helpful information on this topic in the guide from Francois Hamel and Faraz Jaka.

#3 Focus on One Task at Time

Split focus may be useful for multitasking, but it is exhausting for your mind and harms self-discipline by making distraction easier.

So, to improve your self-discipline, you should stop multitasking and instead start following the practice of sequentially completing tasks one at a time.

If you sit to play or study poker, do not watch or listen to things which might steal your attention during the session. No TV series, movies or podcasts. No three hour long deep dives about your favorite video game. No music with words or sounds that can distract you.

The same is applicable for messengers, Discord, social media and other platforms and websites that are capable of distracting you.

And also ask loved ones not to disturb you until the session is done. This practice gives the best results when applied to all aspects of life.

#4 Train Your Willpower Muscles

While willpower can be exhausted by abuse, it also can be strengthened by training. Dr. Muraven found that people who regularly engage in small self-control exercises demonstrate greater self-discipline overall when completing serious tasks, compared to people who do not engage in such exercises.

The key is to find self-control exercise that fits you and helps you to reach some goals. It can be something useful yet simple, such as avoiding sweets or deliberately refusing to eat them, regularly squeezing a handgrip or doing squats, improving diet and tracking food intake, etc.

The ideal scenario is to find a way to train using exercises that work towards your current major goals.

Remember that some particularly unpleasant tasks that require a lot of willpower are often best delegated to a specialist, especially if you lack the necessary expertise. This way, you’ll conserve your mental resources for tasks you can handle.