The Lie We’ve Been Told About Discipline
Discipline. Hear that word and some wince. I smile. How do you react?
If you aren’t yet excited about the very possible and achievable reality of becoming more disciplined in your life, my goal is that in a few minutes that would have changed.
Many recoil at the word discipline, I believe, because from a young age discipline is imposed on us. By our schools, our teachers, our parents. We are told where to be and when. What we can do and what we can’t.
No human being, myself included, likes being told what to do all of the time.
This however, is of course (when not taken to excess) necessary and important. Young children do not yet have sufficient knowledge, experience or perspective to be able to make rational, forward-thinking choices.
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The negative side-effect of this necessary system, is that for many, it deeply engrains within them the perspective that discipline is enslaving. That it is undesirable.
The important distinction here is that this is discipline imposed on us, as opposed to self-discipline. For many people, however, this early imposition of the former, results in a later rejection of the latter.
As an adult, they see self-discipline as shackling them, holding them back from living a free and full life. To live a disciplined life is “boring”. “Live a little!” - they will tell you.
But, my first question for them and for you, is this - who is truly free? The one being pulled around by their emotional impulses, hedonic desires and societal expectations, worn down each day by decision fatigue; or the one who has a clear vision, boundaries and rituals which they consistently stick to.
They might tell you, however, that without self-imposed discipline they are “free”. Free to decide what they want to do and when. But are they really deciding or are they in fact just the puppet, with their emotions and desires pulling the strings?
My next question for them is this - are they really living life to the fullest? Going out on a Tuesday night, waking up on Wednesday morning late, tired and hungover, having to drag themselves out of bed and into a job they don’t enjoy, their life devoid of meaning and purpose, where their days are spent counting down the minutes to the weekend?
Compare that, to the disciplined one. The one who says no to that extra Netflix episode to get to bed on time, who wakes up early feeling fresh, energized and excited for the day ahead, who enjoys their morning rituals and then goes into the day with purpose, meaning and drive.
As we know from the science of delayed gratification, short term hedonic pleasures pale in significance when compared to the potential greater, future rewards from saying no to those exact pleasures.
“The less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are”.
Ryan Holiday
Everything changed for me when I was able to distinguish between what I truly want and what my deeply ingrained evolutionary desires want me to do.
Do I really want to gorge on ice-cream when I am already full? Or is that just my biological craving for highly calorific, sugary foods - pushing me to put on body fat in order to survive during the winter when food is scarce?
Do I really want to lie on the sofa when I get back from work instead of going to my HIIT class? Or is that my body’s deeply ingrained evolutionary default mode of conserving energy to use it only when essential, in a world where I do not know where my next meal might be coming from?
Do I really want to spend all of my time on Instagram? Or is that a hijacking of my dopaminergic system which craves potential rewards (i.e. likes), working with my deeply ingrained desire for approval and acceptance from the tribe?
Survival and happiness are two very different things. The same biological mechanisms which helped our species survive 100,000 years ago, are often the same ones which are causing the unhappiness many experience today.
Gorging on unhealthy food, not going to the gym when we said we would, struggling to focus and wasting away our precious days on our phones - is not fun.
Discipline, as Ryan Holiday says,
“is not punishment, it’s a way to avoid punishment”
Discipline then, does not shackle, it frees. Frees us from our deeply ingrained drive for status, approval, comfort and excess. The biological mechanisms which helped our ancestors survive in the harsh Savannahs, but which have become maladaptive in the overabundant society in which we live today.
Discipline frees us to live a healthier, happier and more fulfilling life.
And who doesn’t want that?
Deepen Your Curiosity:
Give Ryan Holiday’s excellent ‘Discipline is Destiny’ a read.
