Find Your Flow: 4 Steps to Building Better Discipline
Overview
Welcome to the Fall and Winter season! As we begin to navigate the colder, darker months, it’s important now more than ever to lean into our routines and remain disciplined on the things that keep us uplifted. Discipline can be such a daunting subject as we begin to mull over all of the ways we’re NOT disciplined, but truly discipline is just a skill that we must learn to cultivate. Especially during times when we have very little control over what may be going on around us (ie. the weather) we always have control over how we show up in our lives and navigate our everyday. This is something I personally have been working on all year in preparation for this time and just to evolve in my overall commitment to myself. Which is exactly what discipline is - a commitment to showing up for ourselves consistently. It means making small promises to ourselves and putting our full energy into it everyday. It DOES NOT mean that we will always have 100% to give or that it will even be easy. What it DOES mean is that if we only have 20% to give, we give our full 20%. It means if we want to work on being more on time for things, we will give ourselves grace if it’s 1 minute or 5.
“dis·ci·pline - the ability to keep working at something that is difficult; an activity that is done regularly as a way of training yourself to do something or to improve your behavior”
The Steps
So - what do we do about it? What do we do when we recognize that maybe we aren’t getting the results we want out of a specific area of our lives or we simply want to show up better for ourselves and others. Over this last year, I have broken down my approach and understanding of discipline into four general steps/concepts: start small, create a routine, set boundaries & rewards, and document your progress. Let’s explore how you can utilize this process to improve your own approach to discipline.
Step 1: Start Small
As I mentioned above, discipline means making small promises to yourself and I have found that is a great place to start! Oftentimes, when we think about how we need to “do better” in our lives, we start making a laundry list of every single way/area we want to improve and think ourselves into analysis paralysis. By focusing on too many things at once, we prevent ourselves from actually pouring our full selves into each area, thus causing every area to suffer or simply not improve as we’d like. Taking the example of our 20% from above - if we only have 20% to give and we’re trying to focus on 10 different things, we’re really only going to be able to give each thing up to 2% of our focus (mathematically speaking) which doesn’t make as much of a difference as if we just focused our 20% on 1 thing.
One way to approach “starting small” is by establishing a primary focus. Maybe you want to improve on your wellness. You may start thinking about wanting to go to the gym, eating better, walking your 10k steps, & going to bed earlier. That’s great! In this case, wellness is your goal and the items listed are all areas of focus to help you achieve this goal. The question to ask yourself is not “how can I do all of these things and do them perfectly?” but more so how can you gain momentum with one thing to help you gain traction with another. Maybe your biggest challenge is your sleep schedule and not having enough time in the mornings to start your day with breakfast, so you may choose to start with your sleep schedule and making that your primary focus. Let’s walk through this example with the rest of our steps!
Step 2: Create a Routine
Okay, so you’ve established that getting up earlier is your primary focus - fantastic! Now let’s explore our next step which is creating a routine. Routine simply means “a sequence of actions performed regularly over time.” In this case, we want to create a sequence of actions around getting up earlier that we perform over time to produce a specific result, that result being having more time for breakfast. Since time is a challenge, the goal should be to find ways to free up your time or better use the time you have. Creating a routine in this case might mean:
Buying simple breakfast options like toaster waffles or egg bites
Choosing your outfit the night before to reduce time spent finding pieces in the morning
Prepping breakfast ingredients the night before such as veggies, cooked sausage, etc. (BONUS: do this 1 day a week or when you usually cook other meals)
Setting your alarm 10 minutes earlier to cook something fresh such as eggs or a breakfast scramble
Your routine should include simple actions that are manageable and allow you to get excited and find your flow. Granted, motivation is fleeting and changes over time but that doesn’t mean we cannot consistently find things about our routine that we are happy about - such as the feeling of not having to rush or think about what to do. By dialing in and decreasing the amount of mental decisions necessary, we free up more mental capacity to think about other things that require more mental energy. Routines don’t have to be complex but they do have to be effective. In this case, 1 or all of these things would be great routines/actions that could help to create more time in your morning routine.
Now that we’ve established what a routine might look like, let’s talk about how we keep ourselves accountable with boundaries and rewards.
Step 3: Boundaries & Rewards
We all need to feel good about the things that we’re doing while feeling like we’re being challenged and making progress. If things are too easy, we don’t feel incentivized to keep going and conversely, if things are too hard we may feel demoralized and discouraged thus causing us to taper off our commitment over time. When we think about our discipline, it’s important to think about how we can strike a balance between our boundaries (accountability) and our rewards (celebration). In our case of getting up earlier, some boundaries may be:
Going shopping every Sunday for simple breakfast options before doing other things
Not going to bed before you’ve chosen your outfit
Cooking your ingredients the same day you buy them to reduce the likelihood of waste or laziness
Getting up as soon as your alarm goes off instead of snoozing it (or if you know you like to snooze, PLAN for this! Maybe set your alarm 15 min early and create a boundary that you will only snooze your alarm for 5 min before getting up)
The boundaries you set are basically the rules you’re telling yourself you’re going to follow around your routine. These rules should be simple to follow and unambiguous so you can fairly determine when you are or are not following them. They should not put you in a situation where you are punishing yourself or are constantly punitive because, again, this will just become demoralizing over time. Be for real with yourself but also give grace and understanding. You’re not perfect!
Now this part is very important, once you’ve got your focus, routine, and rules it’s time to figure out how you’re going to honor your progress and celebrate how far you’ve come! Celebrating and honoring our progress is so crucial in our ability to keep going. Following the rules and honoring our boundaries is hard work and can require high levels of evaluation and adjustment to stay on track. If we never give ourselves a break from this mindset, we open ourselves up to nitpicking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, etc. Your reward system should be as simple, effective, and dynamic as your routine. This may look like:
Splurging on snacks if you get your shopping done for the week
Buying a new pair of shoes if you successfully plan your outfits for 2 weeks straight
Enjoying a sweet treat after prepping your ingredients for the week
Sleeping in on the weekend if you get up when your alarm goes off all 5 days during the week
Finding things to look forward to is a great way to stay consistent and excited about completing the harder tasks. Keep in mind, however, that these rewards are not meant to be used as punishment if you fall short. It is simply a way of helping you gauge your effort and establish “good enough” over time. Speaking of good enough, let’s talk about how you can track what that may look like over time.
Step 4: Document Your Progress
The last step of this process is to document your progress. I find that this comes up a lot in relation to working out and seeing changes in your body, but I think this should apply to every area of life we’re trying to see change or growth in. Finding a way to track our progress is essential to helping us physically see what our consistency and efforts look like over time. Some easy ways to document your progress are:
Taking photos of parts of your routine
Journaling everyday and detailing your routine
Posting on social media
Texting your friends and telling them about it
Using a daily calendar with symbols or stickers that represent your completion of your routine
Documentation is all about creating a physical representation of something to be able to reference back to it. Your documentation should be meaningful and relevant to you. Remember though, documentation is only as good as the one creating and maintaining it! If you want your documentation to be effective, remember to complete it on a regular basis.
Wrap Up
This is not an exhaustive or in depth overview of the intricacies of discipline and building your mindset and commitment. This is simply a way to approach what can be a daunting skill to develop. There will always be many layers to what makes us who we are and thus what we have to work on to be the highest versions of ourselves. By breaking down our goals into manageable, bite-sized steps, we allow ourselves the opportunity to meet and develop that person. If we never start, we will never make progress. Make today day 1!
