Every day getting everything out of yourself is very bad for you

Imagine that you can hang out on the terrace tonight, as if you don't have to work tomorrow. What a pleasure that would be. Only you probably have some meeting that could have been an email or a self-imposed deadline. The chance that you stick to just one rosé and settle up on time is good, but science now says you shouldn't do that. Order a bottle and when people complain tomorrow, you just say: science made me do it.

Self-discipline has an almost sacred status, writes journalist Annemiek Leclaire in Psychologie Magazine. And I can relate to that. I make a plan every week of what I need to do each day and if I don't stick to it too well, it feels a bit rough. Even though I sometimes try to let it go, deep down it feels like I'm skipping school.

Every weekday my alarm goes off at six o'clock in the form of some melodious piano tinkling. At exactly ten past six, I've peed, drunk water, and settled on my meditation cushion. After twenty minutes of listening to my own breathing, I jump in the shower. Brush my teeth, shave where necessary, and wash up a bit. By seven o'clock, I'm having my breakfast with a shake, a glass of water, and black coffee. After that, I either scribble something down in a journal or I start working. It's then half past seven in the morning. That's when the real ’musts' begin, in the form of what I want to check off each day.

Not good for you at all, says science. You should sometimes just let things run wild. Wacht, wat? This actually sounds like something I could be very good at. A little disregard for that deadline, falling asleep with a book in the sun, suddenly going away for a weekend during the workweek.

Here's the thing. If you achieve something nowadays, you did it yourself. In the past, you had to rely much more on your background. But if you now achieve nothing, nada, zip, then that's also on you. That sounds pretty heavy, and it is. Especially when you consider that self-discipline is about the highest attainable trait in a character.

My mother used to say that everything with ‘too’ in front of it is bad for you. Science now proves that this also applies to self-discipline. You should actually go out partying until deep into the night on a weekday, even if your child starts crying at six o'clock. Or put your food back in the fridge and decide to get a poke bowl for the park. All those mandatory troubles will come back later. It's actually incredibly healthy to occasionally give in to your impulses, that's good for your own needs. And those who have that under control know much better how to set boundaries, while people with loads of self-discipline sometimes go overboard and far, far beyond.

Source: Psychologie Magazine