I’m acutely aware that the typical person doesn’t want to live with discipline, even though it would benefit them. They equate discipline with a boring, strict, rigid existence devoid of the things they most enjoy. They envision constant sacrifice. It seems robotic and lifeless.
Of course discipline isn’t by nature any of these things. Those are just the beliefs people absorb because of how discipline has been taught by authority figures and how discipline is modeled by its popular promoters.
Overcoming the psychological barriers associated with discipline is the primary challenge of teaching it, learning it, and applying it. I would know. I’ve been doing all three every day for many years.
I aim to help people untether from the false associations of their absorbed beliefs and introduce new, unique, and valuable ways to understand discipline that make it, maybe for the first time, actually sound like an attractive, desirable way to live.
For example, one of my personal favorite ways to understand discipline is as a risk control measure.
First, discipline distances you from default reactions, usually impulsive or autopilot, that are high-risk, low-reward. It doesn’t seem like it in the moment, but these reactions turn into patterns that quietly become high-cost hard to change habits.
Second, even your disciplined responses are going to miss the mark sometimes. No disciplined response works in every situation every time. A mistake of discipline, however, is easier to correct, quicker, at a much lower cost than a default mistake. You’ll still make mistakes. They just won’t come with so much baggage.
On your own journey of discipline, intentionally use some time to explore your own psychology around how you view it, what you associate it with, and what your model of a disciplined life looks like. You may be surprised what you discover.
Answer the call. Do the work.
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