What comes after discipline?
It’s the middle of December. The shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is about one week away.
So naturally my social timeline is filled with “The Wintering” resilience programs, and Instagram reels with a background audio saying “Dark mornings, cold weather and low motivation is coming, let’s see who really wants it.” Implying that we need to force ourselves to do the things we don’t want to do.
But what’s the stage that comes after “discipline”?
Heads up: this text is more of a ramble since I don’t have the answer for myself, yet.
To start, let’s look at both “motivation” and “discipline”.
One of the definitions of motivation is “It is the ‘why’ behind every action. Motivation is the reason — or reasons — for acting or behaving in a particular way. It helps us to set a goal and reach it. The term ‘motivation’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘movere’, so quite literally, it’s what keeps us moving.”
We’ve all had moments of high motivation. Ideas that come up while laying in bed of “tomorrow I’ll wake up early to do X”. Only to wake up the next morning and all of the hype is gone.
Motivation is like the sea. It rises and sinks, comes and goes, like ebb and flow.
And I’ve had my fair share of them. Diets, and Podcasts that were not started, posts that were not written, ..
“Discipline” is needed to keep us on track when motivation is low.
However, when we look at the definition we see a very negative touch. “Discipline is the practice of making people obey rules or standards of behavior, and punishing them when they do not.”
‘Punishment’, that doesn’t sound fun.
The verb versions “If someone is disciplined for something that they have done wrong, they are punished for it.” or “If you discipline yourself to do something, you train yourself to behave and work in a strictly controlled and regular way.” sounds even worse.
When I shared a picture of my ice bath season opening a friend commented: “If a list of things you should do because they are good for your body and mind, but which you don’t want to do voluntarily, were a person. Then the list would be called Johannes”.
That’s where this question in my mind came up. It’s because “don’t want to do voluntarily” couldn’t be further from the truth.
I don’t have to “force” myself into exercising six days a week or push through a mental wall to get into cold water.
I do it because I genuinely enjoy it. Because movement and the gym are happy places. And cold water is the place of mental peace.
I follow a diet and training plan. But I’m also happy to adapt sessions if they don’t fit, or to eat a metric ton of ice cream over the summer.
And I don’t feel the need to punish myself with a week of starvation because I overshot my calorie goal when eating waffles with friends.
All that doesn’t fit the discipline definition. There were moments at the beginning of my training journey when I felt (too) sore but still dragged myself into the gym. Or times when I had to keep calorie tracking even if the weight on the scale didn’t change for a week.
Now I feel like I’m past that point. There is no forcing or punishment. Only things that I enjoy. Maybe if I push further in training it’ll come back. The next 5 months will show it.
Back to the question. How do we name that state?
Routine, Peace, Coping to not face something worse, ..?
If you’ve gotten this far, and have an idea, or answer, let me know. Maybe we can find an answer together :)
