Emonthebrain - How to Make Your Brain Addicted to Discipline

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Em breaks down the neuroscience of discipline and gives you five science backed tools to train your brain to actually love doing hard things instead of forcing it. Pre-order my book MindCraft HERE!: https://www.emonthebrain.com/pre-order-here I’m hosting a free MASTERCLASS on the Neuroscience of manifestation and reprogramming your subconscious mind!! Sign up here to save your spot: https://learn.emonthebrain.com/masterclass Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emonthebrain?igsh=aG1wNDY0OXZ1c3pi  I'm Going on Tour! Here's the link to RSVP for your city! https://laylo.com/emonthebrain/m/2jAoUd?utm_id=97760_v0_s00_e0_tv3

You can train your brain to love doing hard things and to crave discipline because discipline is not a personality trait. It is a behavior and behavior is trainable. The problem is that modern life and society has gotten really good at giving your brain what it wants immediately. Our brains are being trained to avoid effort because our brains have learned that effort isn't required to get reward, to get dopamine, right? Because cheap dopamine is available everywhere.

now. And this is great. This is cool. This is fun. Except for the fact that the things that you really want lie on the other side of this comfort. So in this video, I want to tell you exactly how you can train your brain to actually love being disciplined. And if you're new here, hi, I'm Emily. I am a trained neuroscientist. I've got two degrees in neuroscience as well as many years of research experience in the lab. I am now a coach to people in over 55 countries all over the world, helping them to rewire their brain level up and live their best life and I'm here to help you do exactly the same. The truth is that your brain adapts to what you repeatedly ask of it. It gets better at what you practice every day. So if you are constantly choosing the easy thing, overdoing the hard thing, if you are constantly

taking the elevator rather than taking the stairs, is a good analogy, right? Then your brain is learning to always take the easy way out. And so when you get to the point where you want to actually achieve something or go after something or build a big life, your brain has spent so long practicing doing the easy thing, but asking it to do the hard thing is sort of like asking it to do something that it's literally never done before. Of course, it's going to be better at doing the thing

that it's always practiced, right? And then you've got the fact that immediate rewards compete with delayed reward, right? A lot of the things that are actually really going to make us fulfilled in life are delayed rewards. They are things that happen over time. like getting healthier, building your dream body, or building a relationship, or building a platform, building an audience, building a business, whatever it is that you want to do, a lot of those

things are going to require time and effort before you see results. And that's great, except for the fact that immediate rewards actually compete with delayed rewards. And when you're constantly giving yourself quick, cheap dopamine hits, it's like snacking all day long. You're not going to have a real appetite for eating your dinner when you've seen. snack all day long. You're just not as hungry. And that's a great analogy for the way that the brain feels when you're constantly giving it dopamine, constantly giving it immediate rewards. It's not as hungry. It's not going to motivate you as much to go after and to do the hard thing because why what it? And then there's a last piece of the puzzle here, which is that effort has a cost, which I'm sure

you are fully aware of, right? Every time you think about putting an effort or completing a task or doing something, your brain weighs how much effort or how much cost it's going to take versus how much reward you're going to get from doing that. And the thing is, is with delayed rewards and things that are going to take you a long time to do, the brain has trouble really valuing that as a reward, and therefore it's not going to motivate you as much to put in the effort. And now you've got this effort that just feels like it's costing so much and it's so painful and it's so difficult and your brain isn't motivating you to go to do it because you don't have a very clear outlined reward. The good thing is that these are all fixable and these are all systems that you

can take advantage of, which is exactly what I'm about to tell you how to do. Because when you get to the point in your reality where you have the ability to choose based on what you want rather than what's going to require the least effort, that is where real freedom lies. Because difficulty stops controlling your decisions. And when difficulty stops controlling your decisions, watch out world because you will be unstoppable. So how do we train our brains to love discipline? I'm going to get you five of my favorite neuroscience-backed hacks to do this. Number one is to reframe your mindset around discipline. Discipline is an act of self-love. It's also nervous system regulation. But really, it's an act of self-love. And I have found that this reframe is so helpful with my students and the people that I

coach because the message out there about discipline is really a lot of force, push, do, ignore your emotions, ignore your energy. And if that works for you, great. But for me personally, as somebody who has been diagnosed with ADHD, that feels very rigid. And I am a very creative spirit, free spirit. And I know a lot of you listening probably are too. And the idea of discipline just feels very like constricting and very just not free. And so this reframe I've found to be so helpful for myself and a lot of the people that I work with to really unlock their discipline. Discipline is self-love. It is looking out for future you. When I was back in my PhD, I was going to the grocery store once with my friend, and she had a mad sweet tooth. And she would

always want to buy all these sweets and stuff. And she'd be like, I just don't understand how you are so disciplined. And to me, it never felt like discipline. Like she would ask, like, how are you so disciplined? And to me, it never felt like discipline. It was just looking out for future me. It was looking out for future Emily. Like, what is future me going to appreciate that I do right now? Because I know, for this specific example, that eating a bunch of sweets and eating junk food, that makes me feel like trash.

It makes me feel garbage. I feel sluggish and just not good, like mentally not good. I learned the impact of nutrition on the brain long ago because of my physical health and my mental health. and I just knew that the foods that I ate had a big impact on the way that I felt. And so for me, it didn't feel like discipline. It just felt like looking out for future me. I had somebody that I was coaching once who told me that they really struggled actually with their discipline of eating.

They would always eat gluten, even though they are slightly allergic to it. They would eat it. And I told them, I said, this might sound a little bit harsh, but you need to love yourself more. Because if you really loved yourself, like you would take care of yourself. Like, would you give your friend food they were slightly allergic to? No. And they were like, oh, well, I can, I know my limits at XYZ. I'm like, would you say that to somebody that you loved?

Would you be like, oh, no, this is below your limit, so you'll be fine? No, you would want to take care of them. You'd be like, no, you shouldn't eat that. Let me get you better food that you'll like better that doesn't have this thing that you're slightly allergic to. Or, you know, if your friend had this goal of building their dream body and getting really fit and healthy and they were like, you know, maybe I could get this. I'm feeling stressed. I want to go get this ice cream. And you really love them and you really want them to achieve their goal.

You're like, hey, let's actually make a super easy, simple, sugar-free or like low-cut, whatever, healthy dessert at home. You would show them love and support. So show yourself the love and support to stick to the things that you say you want and do the things that you say you're going to do. If your friend had a goal on a dream to build a business and they were always making excuses for why they couldn't build a business and you really wanted to help them achieve their goal and dream. I know at least what I would do is I'd be like, hey, I could see yourself sabotage it. Can I help you take the steps necessary to start your project, right? You want them to go and do it.

You love them. You support them. You want them to achieve their dreams. So show yourself that same self-love and respect. Respect yourself enough to do the thing that is going to help you achieve whatever goal you want to achieve. Being disciplined is looking out for future you. Number two, to train your brain, to love discipline, to motivate you and crave doing hard things is to commit to your why. What will you achieve by doing this? Who will you be by doing this? Why do you want to do this thing? Why? What is your

why? And this is really important because remember what I just said about how when it's delayed reward, delayed gratification, a lot of time your brain, it just doesn't have that big of a sense of reward available to it. And so it measures that cost and that effort more than the reward. And then you're not as motivated because the reward is the long away. Having a very, very solid and clear why will help to kind of counterbalance this. Having a clear purpose for why you want it and it's strong and it's emotional and it's really, really salient and emotionally driven to you. That is going to help increase the perceived value of the reward. And I actually like to make it a practice of reminding myself of this why frequently, like reminding myself of why it's so important.

Anytime I feel unmotivated, anytime I feel like I'm wanting to procrastinate or just, you know, wanting to be a little undisciplined. Like why? Go back and remind yourself, like, write it down. Like, I go back and I read over my why. I read over it when I'm feeling unmotivated or I'm feeling not as confident or whatever it is, I go back and I read my why, like, why do I want to do this? Like, why am I doing this? And I remind myself, and as long as it's a good why, like, you really actually, this is your real why, like you really care about it. It will motivate you. And when the reason that you are doing something is bigger than you or at least like heartfelt and driven, you don't have to rely on motivation so much because purpose is inherently motivating.

Like purpose will get you up when you don't have the. energy or the motivation. Purpose is so important. So have a very clear purpose for why you want to be disciplined. Solution number three is where we get deep into the neuroscience. And this is where you actually begin to train your brain to love doing the hard things. And they will stop feeling so hard. Reward the process. Reward the process. Reward the failures. Reward the attempts. Reward the effort. reward it. Stop waiting to feel the reward, to feel good for when you achieve it, for when you hit the goal wait, for when you build the business, stop waiting for the certain metric, for the certain outcome, and reward the process. Reward the hard work. I'm sitting here right now,

and I told myself that I was going to batch record my long form content right now. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do a bunch of episodes in one day so that I can have more time to focus on other things so that I can have monomaniacal focus because something that actually really fulfills me and makes me feel like my best self is being able to focus on one thing. I'm not the greatest at task switching. I do have ADHD. And knowing that, being aware of that, I have redesigned my calendar so that I don't have to task switch so that I can go all in and get into flow because actually flow requires that you focus on one thing. So I'm like, actually, it's better and easier to get into flow by batch recording and doing all at once, et cetera. I have told myself that I

going to have a dinner celebration if I do this, when I do this, and I'm doing that. And I'm rewarding the process. This has nothing to do with the outcome, with how this video does, with how many people see it. It just literally doesn't matter. I am rewarding the process. I'm rewarding myself for the fact that I showed up and I'm doing the thing that I said I was going to do. Reward that. I actually, when I fall off of my morning routine sometimes, I will begin to reward myself for doing the morning routine. And what that looks like is for me, what really is rewarding for me personally is not necessarily material things. It's actually like celebration and celebrating myself. So I literally go in the mirror and play a song and just like hype myself up for doing

it. So figure out what is rewarding to you. It might be a matcha and the size of the thing that you completed right. Like if it's a giant project, then of course bigger celebration. But if it's, you know, doing the morning routine, maybe it's something smaller like saving your match or your coffee for after you complete it. Again, the rewards are up to you. Figure out what. is actually rewarding to you, what is meaningful and motivating to you, and then do that. Because your dog doesn't learn to sit for free. You have to give your dog, I'm saying this in every single video, but it's true. Because your dog doesn't learn to sit for free.

You gotta give your dog a treat in order for it to learn. So if you want your brain to learn to do hard things and for it to start to feel easy and just wired it in, dopamine drives neuroplasticity. So literally reward yourself for putting in the effort. yourself for failing. Like, I like to set a quota to fail a certain number of times to do the hard things, right? So they don't feel so hard or so scary. Reward the process. And it will begin to feel a lot easier. You can also reward the process by simply making the tasks more fun too. Like, it doesn't have to be afterward. It can be during. Like when we are thinking of this like cost

and effort in the brain versus the reward we're going to get, I like to imagine climbing up a mountain, right? Like getting to the top of the mountain is the reward. Well, you can make the effort inherently more rewarding as well by making it more fun or doing it with somebody that you love, right? Playing some music, whatever it is. Practice choosing the difficult thing. When I first went to undergrad, my first year, I lived in a dorm and I was on the fourth floor. And I remember I have no idea why I did genuinely. I can't tell you why I did this. But I remember making a proms to myself when I moved in. I said, I'm going to take the stairs every single time unless I am coming home from a party late at night and it would be dangerous for me to take the stairs. I am taking the stairs. And I did.

Didn't matter if I was wearing a heavy backpack with my water bottle. It didn't matter. I took the stairs every single time, four flights of stairs. Now that's not a ton for flights, but it was really the practice of choosing the slightly more difficult thing. Because yeah, I could have taken the elevator every time, but I didn't. I wanted to take the stairs. I think it was like a fitness thing. I think I wanted to like be more fit, you know? Like it's like a little mini stair master session every time you do it. But the practice of every single time choosing to do the slightly more difficult thing, it familiarized my brain with doing the more difficult thing. I remember when I graduated from grad school and I moved across the country to Miami Beach and I had

this piece of furniture that I needed built. And I could have hired a task rabbit or whatever to do it. I could have asked somebody else to help me to do it. I actually had a guy friend at the time asked me, like, why didn't you ask me to help? And I said, because trying. builds character. I did it myself when he was like, well, I don't know if it actually builds character because he just said, but anyway, my point is that I did it. I tried. I put in the effort because I knew that that would build character and it does. Remember what I said. If you are constantly choosing the easy way out, always choosing the more comfortable thing, getting your groceries delivered, door dashing, scrolling, like your brain is getting really good at doing the easier

thing. So when the opportunity presents itself, do the more difficult thing every once in a while. This doesn't mean that you have to friction max your entire life and always make your life more difficult. That is not at all what I'm saying. But making it a habit of choosing the slightly more difficult thing where you can actually starts to rewire your identity. And so give yourself the opportunity to practice that on low stakes circumstances so that when the higher stakes circumstances come along, like building your business or building a platform or going and asking somebody out or going on a date, you choose the more difficult thing in those situations when it actually matters. So start where it doesn't really matter that much to familiarize your brain with doing

the more difficult thing and it will pay off in the long run. And number five is to practice imperfectionism. Give yourself grace in this process. If you oversleep your alarm, don't beat yourself up and tell yourself how much you suck. No, like, give yourself grace. Forgive yourself for when you aren't disciplined, for when you don't do the difficult thing, when you fall off your routine. Forgive yourself and move forward.

And this is really, really, really important, especially if you are trying to achieve a really big goal that's requiring you to step outside of your comfort zone. Like, not everything that you do is going to be perfect. So allow it to be imperfect. When I was starting my business, I remember when I first ever built my program and my 12-week course and program and community and everything.

And I remember calling my brother and talking to him about it. And I was like, do you think it's good? And he said to me, I'm like, you're not going to have any idea if it's good until you do it, until you get people through your program and get their feedback and see. So stop expecting yourself to get it perfect in the beginning, especially when you are trying to build the muscle of being disciplined. I've experienced this firsthand, like beating yourself up for falling off when you don't do it, that only drains your energy and keeps you from doing it.

So don't shame yourself for not being perfect. Reward yourself when you do the hard thing, when you choose effort, when you stick to the plan. And I'm actually going to give you a little bonus tip right now that I wasn't planning on sharing, but it's coming to me, it's coming through, and I feel like I need to say it. And this fits straight into the manifestation blueprint that I talk about in my live free masterclasses. I'm just it's directly into it. But when you get really clear on who the version of you, who has it all is? Like, who is the version of you living at your next level? What do they do? What are their habits like? What are their behaviors like? What does discipline mean to them?

Get clear on that. Maybe there are four boring reps. And I have found that success and getting results, it's not always about doing like extraordinary things. It's about just doing the boring things over and over, right? And so figure out what those boring things are that that that next level version of you does that you're not doing right now. Get clear on those. That's how you get clear on like, what are the tasks that you even need to be disciplined about. And then reward yourself for doing them. Reward the process. Do that and you will be unstoppable. Because then you have your why too. Like, why am I even doing it? Why am I doing these boring reps? Why am I rewarding myself? Because you're trying to become the next level of version of you. So if you actually want to come to my live free class where

I break down the entire blueprint for becoming the next level version of you, reprogramming your subconscious mind and learning the neuroscience and manifestation, then check the link in the description below because you can use that link to RSDP, save your seat in my live free class. You're definitely going to want to do that and be there. And I am also going on tour very soon. I'm going to go on a live in-person tour. So if you want to come see me on tour, click the link to RSDP for your city because that's

actually how we're going to be deciding. which cities to go to when I go on tour. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for being here. I'm sending you so much love. I believe in you. I'm rooting for you. You've got this.

Go have an absolutely amazing day. Go kill it and reward yourself for trying. I'll see you soon. Bye.