Discipline. Here's to you in a year.
The person who benefits from your discipline doesn't exist yet. That is why it is so easy to let them down.
THE GIST ON DISCIPLINE: "Discipline"
Who is discipline for?
The person who benefits from your discipline doesn't exist yet. It's why it's so easy to let them down.
There are two of you in every discipline decision. The one who's here, who wants the extra hour and the easy version, and has to give it up. And the you in a year, who gets to be whoever you make them.
How does it build?
Every decision becomes part of them. You won't notice them arriving. One morning you'll wake up and it'll just be easy, and it'll look like talent. It's not. It's the accumulation of all your decisions.
That's why it's hard. The person paying the price is real, and the person receiving it isn't yet.
What is the second reason it's hard?
As long as you never try properly, you always believe that you could have. "I could if I wanted to." It's the most comfortable thought you can own, because nothing has been tested and nothing can be found wanting.
Discipline is the end of that. Try properly for long enough and you find out, more often than not, that you were capable the entire time. You'll ask yourself why you didn't try sooner.
What do you get back?
What you get back arrives slowly, and it's not pleasure. It's the feeling of being someone you can rely on. Pleasure is fleeting. This stays and accumulates.
After enough of it, you find you can want things that take years, because you trust yourself to be patient enough to get them. That's discipline: you today, choosing who wakes up in a year.
Is discipline learned or mostly inborn?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
Why is discipline hard?
The person paying the price is real, and the person receiving the benefit isn't here yet.
Why do we avoid trying properly?
As long as you never try properly, you can always believe you could have. Nothing has been tested, so nothing can be found wanting.
What does discipline give you back?
The feeling of being someone you can rely on. It arrives slowly, stays and accumulates, until you can want things that take years.
See you on the next one.
What should the next one be? Suggest a topic for Huw to explain
The conversation
Comments
Nothing here yet. Start the conversation: Huw reads every comment before it is published.
