Week 15: I'm Not Disciplined Enough
Cultivate New Habits (Weeks 14-26)
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It’s like Glinda said, “You’ve had the power all along, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”
Desperate for change? Yearning for adventure? You have everything you need to live the life of your dreams within you. You just need a little nudge, that’s all!
My niece is a state champion gymnast. She also happens to be attending MIT in the fall to pursue her Ph.D. in quantum physics (because, of course, she is, tiny nerd goddess that she is). She is the most disciplined person I have ever met. I have immense admiration for her commitment to the gym. She says she enjoys it. I think she's lying. Fifty bazillion burpees before you get to do the fun stuff like swinging around the parallel bars like a circus performer? No, thank you.
I watch her and feel a mix of admiration and panic. Because for most of my life, I’ve carried around this belief:
“I’m not disciplined enough.”
But that's me listening to a limiting belief screaming at me from a screwed up perspective.
Let me tell you very clearly that routine and I are not friends. We're just not. And when I think discipline, I think routine.
The idea of spending every day doing the exact same thing, in the exact same order, over and over again is enough to get me banging my head against the wall.
I always assumed I would never achieve great things because great things require routines executed flawlessly by people like my niece. People with 5:00 a.m. alarms and protein powder. People who never forget leg day.
But here’s the truth I’ve come to accept (reluctantly, at first):
Discipline isn’t about perfectly repeating a routine.
It’s about devotion.
Devotion to the things that actually matter. To the work. To the process. To the journey.
I have no consistent exercise habit. I walk in the park pretty much daily, box on my MetaQuest when I’m annoyed, and my yoga mat rolls its eyes at me. My morning pages have abandonment issues.
But you know what I do show up for?
Writing.
Every day. Anywhere. No matter what. That’s discipline. Just not the kind that fits in a training spreadsheet.
You see, you don't need to be 'disciplined' as we understand it, to get things done. I will admit to being what people call an 'over-achiever" (And I'm not patting myself on the back, believe me. This part of my personality has brought me great success, but it's not a walk in the park either). If discipline equated to results, then I'd still be working in corporate America in a trumped up secretary role, with old men talking to my "now dropping, but still very perky" boobs, and dismissing my ideas.
The truth is my perspective was wrong. Discipline does not equal routine. Psychologist Angela Duckworth defines discipline as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”—what she famously calls grit. It’s not about performing daily rituals; it’s about returning again and again to the thing that pulls you forward.1
Many people who are ADHD, autistic, or highly creative struggle with traditional routine, but thrive when allowed to define their process. Routine isn’t the only path to results. Adaptability is its own superpower.2