Discipline as “The Great Simplifier”

This next role of discipline is so simple but really powerful and my personal favorite. I use discipline in this Simplifier Role more than any other.

Think of discipline as a force within you. One of many forces within you like impulse, intuition, envy, creativity, courage, or conscience. They all try to assert force on your thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Each force within you pushes you toward its preferred path. Ego, comfort, responsibility, guilt, desire, fear, love, etc, all compete to be in charge of you and your direction. Every internal force is trying to solve for the same three answers:

1. What you do
2. What you don’t do
3. How you do it

That is the best way to understand behavior. Behavior is simply what you do, what you don’t do, and how you do it. All roads, all thoughts, all decisions, all skills, all forces lead there. The quality of your life follows the quality of your behavior. The quality of your behavior is determined by what you do, what you don’t do, and how you do it.

When you use discipline in the Simplifier Role, you put discipline in charge as your deciding force. It does not eliminate any other forces within you. It places them under the leadership and guidance of your discipline. Something has to be in charge. Something has to lead. Otherwise, you’re an internal wreck, an indecisive mess, or a weak executor.

In the Simplifier Role, discipline is in charge of:

1. Forcing you to do what is valuable, meaningful, or necessary.
2. Forcing you to not do what is impulsive, damaging, or dangerous.
3. Forcing you to do or not do in a skilled, effective, or impactful way.

Do. Don’t. How.

Discipline doesn’t get any simpler than that.

But what about all the external forces affecting you? We’ll dig into that tomorrow!

Event + Response = Outcome. Do the work.