At the risk of being tautological: self control is doing what you plan to do. The exact mechanisms of avoiding temptation, laziness, fear, etc are orthogonal to results.

I believe the author was making the point that as humans we cannot always do what we plan to do. We run out of 'ego' before we run out.

I'd guess that he feels that what the author is describing here is an example of self-control, even if it's a bit indirect.

I'm not even sure that indirect is accurate. It's a different style of control, that's all.