The Building Blocks of Discipline and Willpower: Compliance

By Marshall Goldsmith

We tell ourselves that we need discipline and willpower to succeed. But I have found that there are four actions that replace discipline and willpower. They are 

• compliance 
• accountability
• follow-up 
• measurement 

Here, let’s look at compliance. 

Compliance

Compliance reflects your adherence to an external policy or rule. You hear it most commonly applied in the context of medical treatment. Your doctor prescribes medication, and your only task is to take the medication on schedule. You’re not being ordered to do anything extraordinary. Just follow the instructions and you’ll get better. That means you’re complying with the doctor’s suggestions. Sounds simple, but an estimated 50% of all U.S. patients either forget, abandon, or never take their prescribed medication. 

That’s how tough compliance is. Even when our health, possibly our life, hangs in the balance, we don’t comply with a sure-fire remedy. 

When I was 24, I mangled the middle finger of my right hand catching a hard pass in a basketball game. The top third of the finger dangled loosely from the rest of my hand like a broken tree limb. I researched the injury in the library, learning that I probably had what was known as a “baseball finger.” The treatment was simple but tedious. I needed to wear a splint for eight weeks, even in the shower, after which I had to wash and dry my finger on a flat surface to make sure I didn’t re-stretch the tendon and undo the healing process. When I described my research findings to the UCLA clinic doctor, he said, “That’s right. Baseball finger. Just follow the splinting procedure and see me in twelve weeks. You should be fine then.” 

My compliance was total. I washed, dried, and re-splinted my finger with the devotion of a mother changing a newborn’s diaper. On my return eight weeks later, the doctor examined my finger and declared it healed. Then he added, “I am impressed that you actually followed through. Very few patients do this for twelve weeks.” 

This was one of the more disappointing statements I’d heard from a doctor. He had diagnosed my problem and offered the correct therapy, but he’d made no effort to warn me that adhering to the steps would be difficult, or that he expected me to fail utterly. Compliance was up to me, and he had not been optimistic. It was as if he had sent me on a journey by car on a route that had no stop signs, no speed limits, and no warning signs announcing “Steep Hill Ahead” or “Dangerous Curve.”