I’ve been using the mantra, “discipline“, saying it to myself when I wake up in the morning, when I don’t feel like doing the dishes, when I don’t want to write or I don’t want to do work or I don’t want to run, “discipline, Mark, discipline, discipline, discipline.” I feel like it helps.
But for how long? How long before the novelty wears off, and the mantra becomes just another bit of work I don’t want to do? How long before I lack even the discipline to chant, “discipline“?
Is there an alternative?
Perhaps we’re back to our old friend, ritual.
Think of it as a companion piece, a complement: maybe in the absence of that ramrod-straight steel force of will, we can create structures, rituals, that allow us to reach our goals. Perhaps in recognizing our inherent weakness we can get where we’re going.
Maybe the answer is not “I must have discipline at all times,” but instead “I must have discipline in this moment, enough to do what needs to be done right now, and to check this box off this list, and at other times, I must have discipline enough to write down the list, to set the goal, to evaluate it, and determine if it is worthy of the many tiny acts of discipline that will be required to reach it.”
Maybe that’s the real secret to discipline: that anybody out there with it isn’t carrying the burden of every goal at once, but only the weight of getting to the next step. And if you think about it, those organizations that rely on discipline the most are also those that understand the importance of milestones, of metrics, of rewards. We have military medals, and weigh-ins at the gym, and ranks in the Boy Scouts, and playoffs in sports. They don’t expect their members to do it all at once. Why should we?
So, then, the real secret to discipline seems to be the marriage of discipline and ritual, the creation of structure, the choosing of a goal and appropriate milestones, and then the distinct and discreet application of discipline to each step along the way.
What do you think?