Discipline is a muscle
When I hear or see the word discipline, I often picture a gruelling army fitness challenge, the intense focus of a student during an 8 hour study session, or a scene from Karate Kid. It is often followed by thoughts that include intensity, grit, determination, and an all-in approach. I tend to always think about discipline on a larger scale; the discipline needed to complete a marathon. The discipline of the mind and body to eat a no-sugar diet for 6 months. The discipline shown by Buddhist monks during silent retreats.
Why, I find myself asking, does it always seem to induce thoughts regarding significant or monumental challenges? I have found myself thinking about discipline a lot this week, and so I have decided to dive into the word a bit more and unravel some of it’s meaning in my eyes.
Popular discipline
Discipline is not exactly a word that people are unaware of. To some degree, we will all have practiced discipline at some point in our lives. When looking online and at social media, discipline takes an interesting bias. It is certainly present in a broad spectrum of interests, fads and myths alike. For example, financial gurus and investors will talk about the discipline of consistent perusing of the stock markets, or saving a specific amount each month to reach your savings goal. Fitness gurus may talk about the discipline of consistent exercise, or sticking to a diet to reach the aesthetic Ibiza-bod.
Interestingly, there is a trend for discipline in the form of cold showers. This has been going on for some time, and while I cannot say I have followed the peaks and troughs of the cold shower trend online, I feel quite confident in saying that at any point over the last 10 years, I could find a video of someone newly trying this challenge on Youtube.
‘Cold showers build discipline’ tends to be a popular summarising message. More recently, Wim-Hof, also known as The Ice-Man, has popularised the use of ice or cold therapy further, with his inspirational submergences in ice. He currently holds a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, while holding a record for completing a half marathon barefoot on ice and snow 1.
Now this is no comment on Wim-Hof or his methods. The use of ice therapy has been well researched in positively impacting pain, inflammation and other markers of recovery 2. Interestingly however, Wim-Hof’s water breathing exercises have debatably created a popularity of deep breathing while submerged in water, which has sadly lead to multiple deaths secondary to hypoxic blackout 3 - so if you’re a beginner, stick to land breathing to begin.
These methods, or the trend in submerging oneself in ice water, or even cold showers, continues to fit the picture of ‘intensity’ - drilling our body hard to build discipline. “Only through sheer determination and motivation, can man achieve greatness” is a made-up quote that appears in my mind when thinking about this sort of topic. I picture a very grizzly man who has a background of fighting bears since he was 11, spread this message in an advertisement for the Navy Seals, following his completion of 568 days straight of sleeping in an ice bath eating nothing but self-hunted deer for 5 meals a day.
Yet why does discipline have to be so intense? It got me thinking this week about perhaps the less popular version of discipline - the everyday discipline, on a much smaller, less intense scale. The discipline one might practice on something as minute as not squeezing a spot on their forehead, or not hitting their snooze button in the morning.
There is a thought process that discipline is a muscle. The ‘concept’ - if you will - of discipline, or mental discipline, has been around for a long time, and taken different forms, dependent on it’s context. It has been thought to be a key factor in the formation of a “whole man”, “building character”, and the “improvement of manhood” 4 - these sources largely come from the 1800s, hence why it is very heavy on the ‘man’ front, with no mention of how women may benefit from discipline.
Regardless of outdated sexist references, we can see that discipline is something that can be trained - an art of building “a series of cerebral changes… [leading to] sequential regularity,…[resulting in a] more satisfactory result”5. Anecdotally, I have found this week that if I stay disciplined - no matter the size of the task - the easier it becomes to remain disciplined in the future. This is not rocket science nor a new revelation, and every quirky Youtuber who completes the 30 day cold shower challenge will - surprise surprise - tell you of how it became easier towards the end of the month.
But my point on this topic is about how perhaps we do not utilise discipline in the smaller things day to day. Perhaps we think that discipline in the smaller sense 'doesn’t matter’, because the tasks of interest are largely insignificant to our day. And predominantly, this is true. Me saying no to one piece of chocolate to ‘remain disciplined’ will affect my day in an infinitesimally small way - but it’s the consistency of this discipline that I’m interested in here.
There is a sense that if we can build discipline with the smaller, mundane issues that fill our days - like saying no to one chocolate bar - we can train our discipline ‘muscle’ to become stronger. And just like getting bigger legs from doing lots of squats, in time, this discipline muscle will grow. And perhaps, you have ‘trained’ this muscle well enough with the small things, that when you are tasked with remaining disciplined to something that actually matters in your day - you are more prepared.
For example, this week I have been trying to remain ‘disciplined’ (if you can even call it that) to saying no to any sweets offered to me, or my tendency to navigate towards the box of celebrations at work for an afternoon chocolate delight. Now I am someone that strongly disagrees on strict diets, even more calorie counting, and thus I tend to not think twice about a chocolate treat, as they are largely insignificant. However, I have been trying to practise my discipline, and thus I have declined or restrained myself this week. Notably, I have indeed found it easier to refrain from a mini double decker (or eight) with each day, and found myself at the end of the week not thinking too hard about it at all. There has definitely been benefit to remaining consistent, even on a small scale.,
Great. I have achieved - on paper - nothing, or perhaps the absence of an extra 78kcals each day. However, I have since reflected on this process, and I feel this discipline muscle has carried over into other aspects of my life, albeit still on a small scale. I have been more focused on not having late night food, not working late to finish that one last task (that never does get finished anyway), and I have found it easier to clean and organise myself prior to work the next day - often a task that get delayed because I am too tired.
So, this small training of discipline with the ‘insignificant’ minutiae of my day in the form of saying no to a mini double decker, has started to become ‘significant’ in some respect - by positively affecting my daily habits. And perhaps, if I was pressured into drinking too much alcohol, or pushed towards an activity I did not want to do - my pre-trained discipline muscle would be ready to back me up, and I would refrain from these things - which would have an even more significant, positive impact on my life and my happiness. But, perhaps it wouldn’t - I will not find the answer out this weekend, nor do I have the time or resources for a study to work out whether it is a feasible attitude to follow. Nor can I be bothered to reference a study that refutes or agrees with my statements.
But overall, I think we are missing a trick with ‘insignificant’ discipline. I feel herein lies a potent opportunity with discipline on a small scale - not to go hell for leather from the get-go on large ‘intense’ scales, rather to build discipline in tiny tasks, that can accumulate to give you the strength on important matters. Although it may feel insignificant at the time, perhaps small scale discipline is the ‘easy-win’ mentality we can pick up each-day, to generate momentum to positively impact our day - when it really counts.