Every act of discipline—and every resistance to it—begins with a story. Not someone else's story. Yours. Discipline doesn’t fail because of external obstacles. It lives or dies based on the stories you attach to it.
- “Timing is not right.”
- “I don’t feel like it.”
- “I’ll do it later.”
- “It’s too hard.”
- “I’m too busy.”
- “I can’t.”
- “I’m afraid.”
Stories like these kill discipline. It barely gets a chance to emerge before you poison it and terminate it. Discipline rarely fails for lack of knowledge. It fails when our internal story convinces us it's too hard, too late, or not worth it.
But feel what happens when you change the story.
- “Timing is as good as it will ever be.”
- “I can do it even if I don’t feel like it.”
- “Later is never. I’ll start right now.”
- “Valuable things are hard and I do hard things when they’re valuable.”
- “This is a priority worth doing.”
- “I can do it, and what I don’t know, I can learn.”
- “I’m courageous.”
Stories like these breathe life into discipline. They feed it rather than starve it. They help it rather than harm it. They build it up rather than knock it down.
We believe the stories we tell ourselves the most. If your stories are full of reasons to resist, then you will resist. If your stories are full of reasons to engage, then you will engage. If you doubt that, try to act in the opposite direction of your internal story for one full week. I’ll be curious to hear what that experience is like for you.
The first set of stories fuels beliefs that kill discipline. In those stories, discipline is DOA: Dead On Arrival. The second set of stories sparks beliefs that bring discipline to life. It gets you in the game, on a better path, and on track.
The story you tell yourself doesn't just influence your discipline—it either breathes life into it or suffocates it completely. There is no middle ground. If your stories don’t give it life, they will sentence it to death.
Your discipline isn't waiting on better conditions—it's waiting on better stories.
Event + Response = Outcome. Do the work.
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