Discipline

We all want more discipline.

Images flood our minds of hard workouts and marathon runs and athletes at the top of their game.

It's "easy" to be disciplined when you're part of a team, whether that be a sport or in the military.

Even kids show up consistently to sports practice, music practice and even school…because their parents take them there no matter how the kid feels.

The military is "easier" because you volunteered for it, you're in the environment and have people around you doing the same thing. Having a drill sergeant doesn't hurt either.

Yet when we get done with the military or whatever sport we did, we're on our own. Most of us are now on our own. Not many people are in the military and even fewer adults are in organized sports.

So what's the solution?

"Just do the thing!"

And telling yourself to "just be more disciplined!"

Does that work?

You tell me.

Your brain has mental resistance when it comes to doing something new and especially something hard. Remember, your brain wants homeostasis, which means it just wants to be the same. It will learn something quickly and put it in a routine that makes it automatic so that it doesn't have to think so hard (like tying your shoes).

Yet we want to make a change in our lives, which requires doing something new. Some people have more discipline than us. How do we get some of that?

The solution is to train it like a muscle.

Easing into Discipline

We've talked about motivation.

You already want something, it just needs to be uncovered so it can be amplified.

We've talked about willpower.

You know that you can resist certain things by spacing them out or removing them entirely, leaving space for the things you really want to do.

Discipline is deceiving.

We immediately jump to seeing examples of people running long distances, hitting big weights in the gym, being sub 10% bodyfat and working out at least 2 hours per day.

First of all, get off the internet so you stop comparing yourself so much and run your own race. You still need standards and to push yourself, but stop looking at other lanes and get to work.

Second, you need to realize that discipline takes a while to build up to. Anyone benching 500lbs didn't start by benching 405. They couldn't even bench 225 yet. Maybe they started with the empty bar or even just pushups. The reason why we forget that is because no one is making highlight reels of beginners.

Unless you went off into boot camp where you were forced to train consistently and had a rigid schedule or joined a collegiate sport where you had near-daily practices and had to perform or else you were kicked off the team, it's up to you.

Even if you join a gym like CrossFit, where everyone is doing the same workouts and the classes are guided by a coach, it's easy to start going fewer days and/or start skipping altogether.

Ease into it.

Start smaller than your ego wants you to.

You're not a kid that gets taken to practice. You're now your own adult but also your own child at the same time. If that kid had to show up to piano lessons for 10 years but hated it, they're going to quit as soon as they get the chance. They don't see the point. Unless you slowly lean into it and figure out how to enjoy the process, your inner child will rebel and quit. Don't do that.

But again, we're talking about a subject more important than piano.

It's more important than just training to look good (which will still happen).

It's more important than training for the military.

It's more important than training for any sport season.

That's interesting because when people think about going to the gym, we think you're training for something "out there."

Training for a season or a sport.

Training to go into combat.

But this training that you partake in is for the most extreme "sport" of them all:

Aging.

We're all going to get older, and much of your physical quality of life will be determined by your strength, which is how well you interact with your physical environment.

Are you strong enough to get off the ground? Do you have enough balance to not fall on the pavement? Can you carry your luggage around an airport? Can you stand up out of a chair? Can you play with your kids or grandkids?

Don't burn yourself by training to get abs for summer and then forgetting about it for the rest of the year.

Now that the workout rant is out of the way, let's figure out how to build more discipline.

The Discipline Builder

Remember, this is a gradual process. You probably aren't where you want to be because you think you have to go from zero to hero, burn out, quit and try to start again a few weeks later (speaking from experience).

This is how you build it up slowly.

Step 1: Motivation

• Remember what you want. Feel free to write your goals down somewhere you can see them daily, or at least remember them in your head. Set a deadline so they don't float away.

• Also remember what you don't want, which is usually what you’ll get if you don't do anything about your health.

Step 2: Willpower

• Remove anything getting in the way of what you want. This way you'll have more mental space and actual time to do the things that get you there.

• The "training wheels" approach is to take some things that you enjoy doing and using them as rewards for your daily tasks. From there you slowly start to ween yourself off them.

Step 3: Make it Easy

• Take the new thing you want to do and make it as crazy easy as you can. You might need to start with getting your gym clothes on (do you have gym clothes yet?). Then you might need to start with a 2 minute warmup. Then a 2 minute workout. Then increase the time from there.

• If it's easy enough, you can do this every day since that will solidify the habit even further.

• I'm a fan of strength training, so find the simplest bodyweight or barbell routine you can. They'll seem boring, but they need to be easy and not flashy. A boot camp style workout can destroy you, making you sore and hate working out. (Plus they only last as 30-90 day challenges. Think longer term.)

Step 4: Accountability

• Get a calendar or a plain piece of paper. Mark off when you've finished your workout for the day.

• Ideally you want this to be something physical. That way you can't hide from it and it's in plain sight so you can see if you're doing what you're supposed to do.

• If you miss days and it makes you feel bad, that's the point. But remember, we're not aiming for a streak here, just a good average. (Think 80-90% of the month hitting your workouts.)

Step 5: Upgrade Over Time

• Once your new thing is easy, it's time to make things "harder." Do you forget to stretch every day? Then that's your new habit. Need to get your diet in check? That's a new habit.

• There's a limit to how many things you can take on since we only have 24 hours per day, so use your brain. It will be a mix of what your goals are and what you need to do that you're avoiding.

Discipline Takes Time

I wake up early and do some form of training on most days these days.

But I assure you that I didn't start out this way.

Waking up early and working out is brutal no matter what, but it's the only time I've found where I can be consistent. My first attempts were slow going, but here we are.

I actually forgot to define discipline here, but it's doing what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it not.

A lot of times you're not going to feel like it, but remember the tricks we've used: you remember what you want, you remove things getting in the way, and you start easy. Sometimes there will be days that you really don't want to go workout, but often the process of getting dressed and starting your warmup begins to help that feeling go away. Then you have a great workout anyway.

Again, I beg you not to spend so much time on social media or TV watching the best of the best. They'll either make you feel like you're not as good as you thought you were, or you'll try to mimic their workouts, leading you to crash and burn.

The longest paths are the ones with the methods that you can sustain the longest.

Thanks for reading!

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