Self-discipline it is not 12 is something we pull up, from somewhere, to do something that we don’ t want to do. While again this is attractively simple – it has nothing to do with real life, or long-term change, but it is attractively simple. Remember our drunk looking for his lost keys under the street light in the introduction? I now see the two salesmen story very differently. As I see it, deep down, the first salesman, Bill, really did not want to be a salesman as much as Bob did. Maybe it did not suit Bill’ s personality; maybe he really wanted to be an architect. Maybe he did not have enough faith in his ability to be an architect so had not gone to college and the only work he could get without qualifications was as a salesman. What if the last thing Bill needed was more self-discipline( whatever that is)? What if what he really needed was to look closely at why he wasn’ t prepared to do what it takes to be a good salesman? Maybe then he would realize that he was better off taking a risk on his dream than living the safety of a lie. We do, or don’ t do, things for a reason. Sometimes they are good reasons, sometimes they are bad reasons. Almost always, I find they are reasons that are well past their expiration date. By this I mean that at some point in our lives they made sense and were relevant. We humans are naturally efficient in this regard; some might say‘ lazy’. Once we humans develop a reason for doing something we keep doing it even if circumstances change. This is basically how our unconscious works – something we will revisit when we come to look at self-sabotage in Chapter 13. I would argue that when we find ourselves having to muster a lot of self-discipline we should be asking ourselves:‘ Why?’ These times in our lives are wake up calls, points at which we need to ask questions such as: Why do I not want to do this? What would I rather be doing? How can I change my life so that I am doing more of what I want and less of what I don ' t?