How to create conscious discipline?

[Identity]

One thing I see myself and a lot of people around me struggle with, is creating conscious discipline.

To use Spiral Dynamics, what I see is a lot of people of my generation in the wealthy west are at this orange/green border. However, they lack a solid blue foundation.

Beyond lacking it, there is actually resistance to it. And for good reason. A stage green person who is working on self-acceptance does not want to go back to create discipline through self-judgement. 
 

That is a lot of self-help around the topic of discipline; a super-ego being hard on itself. Conquering your inner bitch. Guilting oneself. Pushing away emotions.

my question; how can one go about creating conscious discipline?

I intuit that there must be a more conscious way of building discipline, perseverance and structure than described above. However, I can’t quite get a grasp on what that looks like.

Any ideas?

 

[LastThursday]

I'd say discipline is an emotional process as well as a mechanical process. There's a feeling of it being somewhat robotic and potentially never ending. But we feel differently at different times, and being a robot goes against this freedom.

To make discipline more palatable, there has to be a clearly defined payoff. If I lift weights, the payoff is clear: bigger muscles and better fitness. Sometimes the payoff is a long way away, so you have to build a good strong emotional narrative, to keep going.

But discipline is also about habit. If practised enough, then a habit becomes unconcious. The point being that you stop consciously resisting the anti-emotional aspect of discipline. For example, I walk every day came rain or shine, even if I don't want to. But it's a habit, and all I have to do is put my shoes on and leave my flat. The payoff is also clear for me: baseline fitness and good circadian rhythm and better mental health.

Conscious discipline is then being aware of the process of being disciplined.

The most important thing however, is what are you being disciplined about? Are you trying to master something, improve yourself, doing it for it's own sake? Is the payoff worth it and can it be made into a habit?

Edited January 11, 2023 by LastThursday

[Identity]

@LastThursday Thank you for sharing.

Yes, I agree that having a clear payoff is crucial in order to sustain the discipline over a long time.

I think the crux in discipline is that it is the ability to do something, even when resistance shows up in the form of emotions/thoughts.

on insight that comes to me whilst typing this, is that conscious discipline would be the ability to still fully feel, embrace, accept whatever is going on inside, and then choosing to act.

Which is the opposite of hoe discipline is often thought of; pushing away, denying, rejecting, belittling the resistance.

You mention the phrase ‘conscious disciple ins being aware of the process of being disciplined’. I don’t fully get what you are pointing to with this, could you elaborate?

[Eyowey]

Fall in love with the results that you want and with the process of getting there. What held me back for a long time was that I loved the comfort that I was in more than the possibility of improving. It doesn't take much to flip that switch.

[LastThursday]

1 hour ago, Identity said:

is that conscious discipline would be the ability to still fully feel, embrace, accept whatever is going on inside, and then choosing to act.

That is definitely a more mature way of approaching discipline. It's also worth noting that sometimes it is appropriate to take a temporary break from discipline. Knowing when to do this is also critical for the process of discipline.

1 hour ago, Identity said:

You mention the phrase ‘conscious disciple ins being aware of the process of being disciplined’. I don’t fully get what you are pointing to with this, could you elaborate?

I think many people approach discipline as this fixed "thing" you do to get what you want. Say I want to learn to run a 5K race. Most would say, start with a short distance, run several times a week and increase your distance each time.  That is a fixed formula for discipline. But it's fairly unconscious and robotic.

But if you're consciously aware of what discipline is, you realise it's a dynamic flexible system. You know some days you can run further than others, some days not at all (and that's ok). You know that maybe reaching your goal doesn't have a deadline. You also understand why you're being disciplined at all (to reach a goal soon), but you also understand why you want that goal (maybe to get fit, or impress others). You also realise you can go meta, and maybe run with others or join a club to keep you motivated. Maybe you also track your progress over time.

Being conscious about discipline and understanding what it actually is, makes it more powerful.

 

[Rafael Thundercat]

 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Rafael Thundercat

[Zion]

A quote I saw a while back changed my perspective on discipline & how it can be used more efficiently. 

QUOTE:

"Discipline will take you places motivation can't."

It's not about motivation, I've found that discipline is what creates motivation. Motivation isn't something which is needed to be disciplined, simply the opposite. Once I understood this, I found the key to motivating myself to do/be anything I sought out. 

The moment I saw motivation as an after-effect from a means of action, motivation was then created. You'll find that you can't get around this. You may keep looking for philosophical explantations of why motivation is & how it functions, however you'll come to the conclusion that motivation can only be understood through first creating it by means of consistent discipline. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Zion

[Kshantivadin]

On 11/01/2023 at 0:20 PM, Identity said:

I intuit that there must be a more conscious way of building discipline, perseverance and structure than described above. However, I can’t quite get a grasp on what that looks like.

Hey. I think I have an idea. Personally, I feel like I've dropped most of that rough discipline, for better or worse. What it looks like me for now is applied wisdom - knowledge that life is made out of days, and that every day counts. Raising your life-force you begin to learn to engage with every moment in such a way that you apply yourself. This discipline cannot be too tense because every new moment is fresh. Picture a samurai drawing his sword in front of him, eyes being set on the blade but in fact not having his gaze set upon anything, but instead seeing everything around him. 

It's driven by honoring each moment as sacred, by compassion, by love. It's sharp but gentle at the same time. It's penetrating every moment with your presence. 

A well-trained mind can easily rest in the present moment, for it understands the nature of phenomena and the nature of suffering. This makes it easy to make love to whatever arises. 

Do you get it?