“Your level of focus will affect the extent of your self-discipline. Neuroscientists believe that your ability to focus is determined by your “executive functions,” including working memory, cognitive flexibility, adaptability, and impulse control. Discipline requires you to set goals, filter distractions, control unhelpful inhibitions, prioritize activities, and pursue the goals that you have set. Research states that these functions operate in a number of brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. You can improve these brain functions by targeting them. Self-discipline and focus work simultaneously. You can’t master one without the other because discipline is the ability to focus on one course of action until that goal has been accomplished.”