Exploring the roles of discipline

I invest a lot of effort into creating ways to help people embrace discipline. I know what the power of discipline does for people’s lives, and I see the damage done by resisting it. I’ve discovered that the biggest barrier to discipline is not discipline itself but how people perceive it.

When our perception of something changes, our relationship with it changes. When the relationship changes, we interact with it differently. When I can crack the code of changing the perception of discipline, people change their relationship with discipline and interact with it differently.

Sometimes, the unlock for embracing discipline is understanding its role. Not that it only plays one role. It plays many roles. Let’s use this week to dive into some of discipline’s most important roles.

The first role of discipline is the most foundational. Think of this as discipline’s “Primary Role”. The primary role of discipline is to shape three things:

• Thinking
• Decisions
• Actions

You think. You decide. You act. From this trio flows the majority of your life. Because you do these no matter what, discipline plays a shaping role rather than a deciding role. Discipline doesn’t change whether you think, decide, and act. It affects what you think, decide, and act and how.

Consider the impact of discipline: 

• How does discipline affect my thoughts?
• How does discipline affect my decisions?
• How does discipline affect my actions?

Now consider the impact of the lack of discipline:

• How does the absence of discipline affect my thoughts?
• How does the absence of discipline affect my decisions?
• How does the absence of discipline affect my actions?

You think. You decide. You act. Discipline plays a role in all three through its presence or absence.

FOR COMMUNITY MEMBERS:
One critical insight into the cause & effect flow of thinking, decisions, and actions.

Understand how the cause & effect works:

Thinking affects decisions. Decisions affect actions. While disciplined thinking does not guarantee disciplined decisions and disciplined decisions do not guarantee disciplined action, they still depend on each other.

Disciplined action depends on disciplined decisions and disciplined decisions depend on disciplined thinking. Action depends on decisions. Decisions depend on thinking. All of it depends on discipline.