The Other Side of Discipline

One of the things that I hear from people when they’re trying to achieve big goals is that they need discipline. Discipline is an interesting thing. Nowadays when I hear people talk about needing discipline it feels very militant. It’s like to be disciplined is to be impeccable. To not color outside the lines. To not allow yourself a slip-up or a re-commitment. When I looked up discipline in the dictionary, one of the definitions was to use punishment to correct disobedience. 

What I notice about discipline is it’s the connection to punishment that keeps people stuck. What I think people mean when they say they need discipline is that they want to show up whole-heartedly even when they don’t feel like it, but what I see happening a lot of the time is that resistance overpowers discipline and we find ourselves either consciously or unconsciously punishing ourselves by way of shame, blame and judgment. 

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been inspired to get into action by using shame, blame or judgment so there must be a more effective way to look at discipline. As I started researching discipline, I discovered that the origin of the word discipline is actually quite different from the meaning we give it today. Discipline comes from the Latin word disculpus which means “knowledge” or “to learn”. This definition felt so much more exciting and expansive to me.

How might your experience with discipline be different if you weren’t using it as a way to punish yourself? What if you used discipline as a way to learn. Allowing yourself to notice what things are working for you and what’s not. Perhaps the fact that you’re not disciplined is giving you insight that it’s actually not a priority for you. Or perhaps instead of punishing yourself you ask yourself, what is this resistance trying to teach me? And finally, perhaps if you lean into a loving relationship with discipline – one that is centered around learning – you’ll discover that on the other side of discipline is a whole lot of freedom! 

Big love! xx