The Discipline Documents

What is Discipline

What exactly is discipline? How does it affect you, and your ability to interact with the world around you? Discipline is the ability to maintain steady focus on premeditated behaviors that really matter to you. Regardless of the distraction, emotion, or momentary desire, you subject actions to what you have decided matters most. Easy? Definitely not. Worthwhile? Absolutely. Actions, not abstract ideas, determine where you end up in your life path. And I’m not talking about the random bursts of energy we get; that one day we actually feel like waking up early, or going to the gym, picking the healthy food, reading that book, or crushing it at work. Those feelings don’t come often enough to make a lasting impact. The action I am talking about is the consistent, small daily actions that make the entire difference.

Discipline is highly variable depending on the person in question. For me, getting up early (4:15 am), going to work, making that extra call, and doing extracurricular learning is my discipline. Going to the gym? That doesn’t take much energy because I love it. Eating healthy? That’s a huge discipline I am still working on! To me, pizza is far more enticing than a salad 110% of the time. Your version of discipline will likely look different than mine. Maybe it’s doing 5 minutes of extra drills for your sport. Or repetitive exercises for your instrument, art, or craft. Perhaps your discipline is getting off your phone to be present with those you are around. No matter your practice, small daily actions will take your performance, results, and fulfillment to further heights than ever before.

The first step is to decide what is most important to you. Without a set of clear values in mind, you will not use your energy effectively. Pause, take some time (at least 10 minutes) and decide what is most important to you. And I really mean what is most important to YOU. Not what’s important to your friends, family, boss, partner, or community. This needs to be your thing. If you do not decide for yourself, you will likely fail to continue. After identifying what is important to you, take 10 more minutes and pick one action you can do daily that would help you excel. This doesn’t have to be some glorious, large task that takes a ton of effort to grind through. Remember, it is the small actions repeated daily that propel our abilities to the next level.

Now with a specific action in mind, it is time to get after it every-day. If you cannot do anything else beyond that one thing, that is okay. We all start at different places. Discipline is not complicated, exciting, or revolutionary. It is simply deciding to act for what is most important to you.