183 - Why Discipline Feels Impossible (And It's Not a Willpower Problem)

You haven't lost your discipline. You've lost your energy. And those are two completely different problems that require two completely different solutions.

In this episode, I'm getting honest about where I am right now — mentally drained from work, fighting to hold on to the habits that used to come easy — and what I'm learning about why discipline actually breaks down. Not the surface-level stuff. The real reason. The one most people in the self-improvement space won't say out loud.

What you'll walk away with:

• Why willpower failure is usually a depletion problem, not a character problem
• Why discipline is a skill you build — and can lose — just like muscle
• What it actually looks like when discipline becomes your lifestyle (my mom, 5 days a week for 7 years)
• Why sometimes the most disciplined thing you can do is rest
• 5 practical ways to rebuild when you're running on empty

I'm not on the other side of this one yet. I'm in it with you. Let's figure it out together.

If this hit for you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you haven't left a rating on Apple or Spotify yet — it takes 30 seconds and it means everything for the show.

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I hope today’s episode sparked something within you to pursue your dreams and unlock your true potential. If you found value in it, consider sharing it with someone who might need that same push.

Getting After It is for those who. want to silence their self-doubt. Refuse to be owned by comfort. Understand their limits are man-made and breakable. We live in a time of constant comparison. Social media drowns us in highlight reels and overnight success stories. But what most people don’t see is the grit behind it all. The reps. The quiet mornings. The sacrifices. The failures.

You are just getting started. Keep Getting After It. 

Transcript

When Discipline Looks Like Laziness

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the reason that your discipline breaks down is not because you're weak, but simply because you are empty? There's a version of discipline failure that looks like laziness from the outside. You stop working out, you stop waking up early, you stop doing the things you know that you should be doing. And the story you tell yourself, the story at least most people tell themselves, I've noticed, is I just don't have it anymore. It's not me. I've lost my discipline. I'm not that person. But here's the thing that's the wrong diagnosis. And a wrong diagnosis never leads to the right cure. Today we're gonna be talking about an overlooked cause of why discipline break actually breaks down. Something that I believe is more common than not. The reason that most people in the self-improvement space gloss over is because it's uncomfortable to say out loud. And I'm gonna start by being honest with you right now. Welcome back to Getting After It, my friends. I'm your host, and if you're new here, this show exists for one reason: to help you get out of your comfort zone and to do hard things that uh your best life requires. And today's episode is one that I've been sitting for with for a while now, uh, because it's not just some topic that I find interesting, it's something that I'm actively living through right now. And if you've ever built discipline, you felt it slip, and then wondered what happened to the person that you used to be, then we are in the same boat. This one is for you specifically. We're talking about discipline, specifically why it feels impossible sometimes, and why the reason isn't what you think it is. So, before we jump into that, I actually I have a little uh segment here that I want to do. So I think it's it's kind of interesting. I know this is a solo episode, so that's kind of why I'm breaking the uh the script here to read this, but I'm reading a book right now, right here. It's called uh Churchill. It's about Winston Churchill. Uh subtitled Walking with Destiny. And I just want to read one section from the book, one little phrase, because it's I I think I've shared it on this podcast before, but it is such a powerful idea of self-confidence. And Winston Churchill, I'm beginning to learn through this book, is that he was a confident man. He knew exactly what he wanted to be doing uh at in his life, and he worked tirelessly to get there. Uh, started in the army, eventually made it to politics, and became the great leader that we know today. So um, just before Christmas 1897, he writes a letter home to his mom, and this is what he says in his letter. So he's on a battlefield. Um, he says, Bullets to a philosopher, my dear mama, are not worth considering. So he's like, I don't need to consider that. And he says, Besides, I am so conceited, I do not believe the gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending. Anyway, it does not matter. Fame sneered at, melodramatized, degraded, it is still the finest thing on earth. I just love that idea of like where he he says, I am so conceited that I don't think the gods would create someone like myself to get killed in battle. Like he's just he's a fully confident man. And and I mean that played in his favor. Um, there's a difference between confidence and arrogance, but I just wanted to share that before we dive into the actual topic because uh I think you know, one of the ways that we all learn and get better together is by sharing some things that we find interesting. So I find Winston Churchill very interesting and fascinating. He's he's real fun to learn about. Um so back to the idea of discipline and how it slips, and why I think that a lot of the reason many people ease up on their discipline, you could say, is simply because they're taxed. They're tired and they're pretty empty. And so I want to start with where I am right now. I want to paint the picture for you because I think it's important to uh that you hear this from someone who's in the middle of it rather than someone who's on the other side and already figured it out. And I shared this in the last episode, but it still applies to this lesson. I am just mentally taxed at work. And because of that, because I'm giving giving it all uh to my job, I have almost no motivation to exercise. That's hard. Now, for those of you who have listened to the show for a while, you know that exercise for me is a non-negotiable, it's just tied to who I am. Running, training, that's not just fitness for me, that's how I process stress, that's how I think clearly, and it's how I show up for everything else in my life. I I firmly believe that. And right now I am barely holding on to it. Barely holding on to it. What's wild about this is that it doesn't feel like I've stopped caring. That idea that I want to go exercise and and work out, like I still want to do that. It's just incredibly taxing to be mentally fatigued, but then also have to go and exercise. And um, I learned this because I I struggled with this concept for a while. Um, those questions that you heard me ask earlier of like, maybe I'm not the person that I used to be anymore. Those are things that I've been dealing with. Those are questions I've been asking myself. And it wasn't until I did some research to understand that your brain does not un it does not know the difference between physical stress and mental stress. Your body just feels stressed, and because of that, you're gonna be running in the red a bit. And that's where I'm at right now. I'm running in the red. It feels like I'm giving it everything I have just to do what used to be easy for me. And it's it's discouraging. That's that's what it is. It is like there's no way to say or to get around it, which is why I wanted to do this episode so you can understand that there are phases throughout your life where discipline ebbs and flows. And the only thing that you can do to control that is to keep doing the things that you're doing and keep doing the things that you know you need to be disciplined in, whether that's education, fitness, uh, healthy meals, relationships, like spending time with family. All those things require discipline. And like you might be rolling your eyes and saying, like, oh, how does spending time with family require discipline? Well, it requires you to be disciplined in the fact that you shouldn't be on your phone, you should give them your full attention and be present. Um, you have to stop working, you have to put other things that you may want to do aside because your relationship with those around you is is much more important than that. So that's where it's coming from. And I used to lace up my shoes and go without even thinking, and now there's always this negotiation happening inside my head every single time. Do I have enough left? Is this gonna make things worse? Can I even do this today? All questions I've asked myself, all real questions that I've asked myself. And here's what I've noticed. I started calling this a discipline problem, and I immediately labeled it incorrectly. Like I had lost my discipline somewhere along the way, and the solution was to find it again, to be tougher and to dig deeper. But that framing was wrong, and it took me a while to figure out why. So I want to break down some of these core concepts, starting with the willpower lie, is what I will call it. And here's what nobody wants to say out loud in the self-improvement world. This is what I was alluding to earlier, because it sounds like an excuse. Here it is. Your willpower is a finite resource. I'm not saying that to give you a way out. I'm not saying that. I'm just trying to paint the picture for you, trying to see, allow you to see it from a different perspective. I'm saying it because understanding it completely changes how you respond when things do begin to fall apart. And there's a concept that researchers they call ego depletion. The idea that self-control and decision making draw from the same mental reservoir. Every decision you make, every time you regulate an emotion, every time you resist something or force yourself to focus, that costs something. It draws from the same pool. And so when your job is required, everything that you have, like my situation, you know, things like managing your stress, solving problems, making decisions, and dealing with people, all things that are taxing on your mind, you are ending the day without a full tank. You're coming home on fumes, and that's hard to to cope with. Honestly, like for me, it's like I was just saying, like, the things that used to be easy for me are difficult now, and there's this weird negotiation going on every time. And the thing that I do is I just breeze past it. And I always think of the quote from Jocko Willink where, excuse me, he says, if all you can do is go through the motions, then go through the motions. That quote's been getting me through some really tough times recently. And then when you're home and you decide, you know, you're gonna go work out, you're sitting in your living room, and you just cannot summon the discipline to do so. And then you call yourself weak. Here's the distinction you are not weak. You are empty. That's different. Being empty and being weak are two completely different things. And they require two completely different responses. Calling yourself undisciplined when you're depleted is like telling someone, dying of thirst, that they just need to want a little bit more water. They just need to want it. And the problem isn't the wanting, the problem is the the well's dry. That's what it is. There's a line from Epictetus that I I keep coming back to. He said, No man is free who is not master of himself. I love that. Because most people I think read that as a challenge. Like, be harder on yourself, control yourself more. But I read it differently now after being on the other side and trying to understand this. But mastery of yourself includes knowing your limits. That's true. Knowing yourself and knowing what you're capable of also requires you to know what you can't do, know your limits. Doesn't mean that your limits are the end. You can always improve yourself and try and break past those limits. But this type of discipline requir um includes understanding when your system is running low. Like freedom is not just grinding yourself into the ground, it's having enough self-awareness to know what you actually have to give on any given day. The lie that discipline is purely about willpower keeps people stuck. I firmly believe that, which is why we're taught having this conversation today. Because when willpower fails, and it will for all of us at some points, they have no other framework. And they just feel like failures. And that shame makes everything worse. So let me give you a different framework. Now, I want to push back on something that I I hear constantly, and it's a lie, and the lie is that some people are just born disciplined, and that some people have it and others do not. That's it's some inherent quality of character that you either possess or you're chasing your entire life. And that is simply not true. I was not born disciplined. I want to be very clear about that. I was probably the furthest away from discipline that you could be growing up. I would overly indulge in foods, candy, sodas. I did not care about that. I wouldn't read, but most of the time I would spend playing video games when I could be doing other things like study for school or um work on how like hobbies. And video games aren't inherently bad either. But they are a distraction and they suck up a lot of your time. Like, I cannot tell you how many times I've been playing video games, and I'm like, damn, it's four hours? That was much earlier in my life, but the point stays the same. Like, I was never this disciplined person. I did not like running, I did not like working out. Besides playing sports, like I that was not my thing. And it wasn't until I started having to actually execute that that I started to understand who I was and what I was capable of. And that version of um of me that you you see now, the person who's posting a lot of their runs on social media or creating podcasts, um, you know, doing my job at work, all those things that I I do now, which require discipline. Um that guy didn't arrive fully formed from the womb. That discipline that I've cultivated over the past I'll say eight years did not happen overnight. It was slow, it was progressive, and now I'm at a point to where I feel pretty confident about my abilities and and what I can do. But it's through actually trying to do it. Like it was slowly and painfully built over time. Over the years, the thing when I over the years, doing the thing when I didn't want to, getting it wrong, starting over and doing it again, I learned how to do that from simply trying to. And like all skills, which I believe discipline is a skill, you can get better at it. It's not gonna be easy in the beginning, just like with all things. Nothing is ever easy in the beginning. And that teaches you a lot about yourself and the things that you can um really work on. But like I said, it is a skill that can be built, like building a muscle, building your endurance, building any kind of expertise. And so keep in mind that it's going to take time, it's going to take repetition, and it can atrophy if you stop using it. James Clear, he's the author of Atomic Habits, and in his book he says something that I think about a lot, but I didn't fully understand until I actually I asked uh Claude if he could explain it to me in very simple terms. But he says, you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the levels of your systems. And here's what that means in practice. Most people treat discipline like a motivation problem. They think that if they just want it badly enough, they'll do it. So they set massive goals, they get fired up, they charge out of the gate, and then life gets hard. Motivation begins to weigh, and they collapse. And then they blame them themselves for not wanting it bad enough. But Clear's point is that motivation was never the mechanism. Your systems are the routine, the environment that you've built, the defaults you've put into place. That's what determines your behavior when willpower is low. If your system is strong, you act right even when you feel wrong. If your system is weak, even the most intense motivation will eventually run out. The idea now of, okay, well, let's think in systems here. An easy one for me is making sure that your clothes are out for your workout. Making sure that your shoes are there, just so you're reminded of them when you see it, be like, oh yeah, that's right. I'm working out in the morning, or I'm working out after work. Um, make sure that you have things set up where you know you're constantly reminded of your goals. And it could be little things like leaving your shoes out and knowing that eventually, one point of the day, you're gonna have to lace those bad boys up and go get after it. Like that is what a system is. And it could be simple, it doesn't have to be really complex. Same thing with like education. If you wanted to learn more, uh maybe you have a book by your bed, and every day you you just read a few pages, you set that um, you set that habit into motion, and it becomes a system. But the system only functions properly if your book is by your bedside and it's easily accessible. So try and think of things in your life that you could improve upon, specifically with your systems. When life disrupts your systems, when work changes, when season seasons shift, when stress accumulates, your discipline can erode. So keep in mind that no matter how hard you work on it, there's going to be times when you don't want to do the thing. And discipline kicks in and says, We're doing the thing. Even if it's not your best work, even if it's not your best workout, your best journal entry, your best whatever it is, whatever um variable you want to put into that. Discipline can erode. So keep that in mind and do not be afraid if it happens to you. And it's not because you become some different person, it's because, like I said, your systems get interrupted, the habits got broken, the scaffolding, holding it all up came down. And the path back isn't to shame yourself into starting from zero, it's to rebuild your systems from where you are. Start where you are. That's one of my favorite things to say is start where you are because everyone's journey is different. Everyone's in a different spot of life. No matter how similar you might be to someone, they're they're doing things that maybe you're not doing, and you're doing things that maybe they're not doing. So what I would say instead of starting from zero is to start lower, to rebuild intelligently, and to trust the process to get you back. And I'm in that season right now. I know it. And knowing that it's a skill that I'm rebuilding, not a character flaw I'm living with. That changes everything about how I approach the next day. Self-talk is so important. That's why I shared that little clip or that little snippet from that Churchill book, because he's so confident in himself that, you know, if Winston Churchill was in a situation where he felt like he's lost his discipline, he would do whatever it takes to get that back. He'd set up the right systems, he would be there making sure it happens simply because he believes that he can. So just like Winston Churchill, you need to believe that you can do the same thing. You need to believe that if you have fallen off track, that it's only for a moment that you'll be able to get back into it. I don't really like the idea that's talked about a lot on social media of like where you have to be a hundred percent all the time. Because I think the people that are saying that, quite frankly, are liars. They're not the ones who feel like they're failing. They they seem like they're unicorns and anomalies. Uh, but really, I guarantee you that they have times where you know they they struggle. Um, they have hard moments as well. They're human. That's what makes us all unique is we share that experience of what the human human life is like. Sometimes it's great, most of the times it's great, but other times it really throws you in a ditch, it brings you down low, and you gotta figure out how you're gonna keep going because of that. Now, another way that discipline shows up is understanding who you are, and I'll explain what I mean here. But the discipline of rest, and this one this one's hard for me to say because it cuts against the story that I've told myself for so long. I have a tendency to work out when I'm sick. My wife will get mad at me and say, She won't get mad at me, but she'll she'll be like, Should you really be doing that? Like, do you really need to go work out? You're you're sick, like you just had a fever yesterday. And I've shown up to training sessions, to runs, to workouts, when my body was telling me clearly to stop. It's very clear. And I called that discipline. I wore it like a badge, like, oh, I showed up even when I was sick, even when it hurt, even when it made no sense for me to be here. But here's the honest truth that I've I've come to learn that's not discipline. That's stubbornness dressed up in discipline's clothes, clothes. Real discipline, in fact, the kind that compounds over time, requires self-awareness. It requires you to be honest about what your body and mind actually need, not just what your ego wants to prove. And that was a hard lesson for me. I had to put my ego at the door, and you know, I talk about Jocko Willink a lot. That's one of his core principles is no ego, do not have an ego, because that will get you in trouble. And not necessarily like, you know, you might not get in trouble with the law, but you might get in trouble with your body. You might be pushing it a little bit too hard when it it needs to rest. And that's kind of where this idea is coming from. But sometimes the most disciplined you can do disciplined thing you can do is rest. Sometimes showing up means sitting down. And do not get me wrong, this is not an excuse for you to use. Do not use rest as an excuse. That's a whole different conversation. I'm talking about the person who's genuinely going hard, who is genuinely depleted, who genuinely needs a recovery day, and instead of taking it, grinds through something that sets them back a week. Again, that is not discipline. That's self destruction with some good marketing behind it. The clearest version of discipline I know is sustainable. It doesn't burn you down to a husk to prove a point. It manages your energy like a resource because that's really what it is. Discipline, like all Things that we we do in life, it is a resource and it's finite. Discipline that destroys you is not discipline, it's just a different kind of avoidance. Maybe you don't want to avoid the fact that you do need a rest day, that you're not Superman and you can't be going hard all the time. That's how I felt a lot. Um, I still feel that way. Like when I'm sick, I want to go run. I want to go lift weights. Um, obviously, I I I don't go to the gym when that happens because I don't want to make other people sick, but you catch my drift. And as we switch subjects here, I want to talk about how discipline becomes a lifestyle. Starting with talking about my mom. When I think of discipline, when I think of someone who lives a fully disciplined lifestyle, I think about my mom. She's worked out for five days a week for seven years. And not when she felt like it, not when the line scheduled um, when not when her schedule lined up perfectly, and not when she was motivated or inspired or had extra energy. Five days a week, consistently for seven years. It's impressive. Mom, you're the best. I know you're listening to this right now. Very impressed with you, and I'm glad I have you as an example. But working out has become her lifestyle, and it's not a fight that she has to have with herself anymore. It's just who she is and what she does. I'm proud to be your son because she sets the example for me. And it's not just with um it's not just with fitness with with my mom. She's one of the hardest workers I've ever met. She will get things done, she will help other people, she will be there when people need them, she'll organize events. Like she does not stop, she's always running. And I think it's because simply she's a disciplined person. She knows what it takes to get things done, and that requires discipline. And I think about her a lot right now with the time that I'm in in this hard season because she represents something that I believe deeply, that the goal of building discipline is not to white knuckle your way through every day forever. The goal is to do it long enough, consistently enough, that it stops being a battle and starts being a baseline. You've heard the quote before, like, set the standard high and hold yourself to that standard. My mom's standard is so high for herself. And there's a line I heard from Chris uh from Chris Williamson, probably a year and a half ago, that has stayed with me and I think portrays my mom in a very um real real way. And that line is discipline is an investment in the future where discipline will no longer be needed. Listen to that again. Discipline is an investment in the future where discipline will no longer be me be needed. That's what my mom has built. She's on the other side of that. She's not fighting to work out five days a week. She's just a person who works out five days a week. That's simply it. The war is over because she won it, day by day, rep by rep, and year by year, until the habit became her identity. And that's a long game. And you have to be willing to endure and you have to be willing to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to get to that point. That's the real prize, though. Not just building discipline, but building it so deep into who you are that it becomes automatic. Where you need or you stop needing willpower because the behavior is just you. That's what you're building every time you show up on a hard day. Think about that for a second. When you show up and you don't want to, you are building a baseline for how you expect yourself to perform, how you expect yourself to be. That's amazing. And you're not just completing some workout at that point, you're voting for the identity that one day won't need to be convinced. That is powerful. Now let's talk about practical application because I I I understand that you know I'll talk about discipline a lot or others will, but they don't really give you too much to go off of on, okay, well, how can I do this in my life? Um, so I want this all to be useful for for you, and I feel like it's useless if we walk away and you guys don't know what to do with it. So, number one is diagnose before you judge yourself. Before you call yourself undisciplined, ask an honest question. Am I undisciplined or am I depleted? These require completely different responses. If you're depleted, the answer isn't to shame yourself into more effort. It's to address the depletion. Address that with things like protecting your sleep, guard some recovery time for yourself, reduce the drain where you can, then come back to it. Number two is shrink the standard, don't eliminate it. On a hard week, a 20-minute walk beats skipping entirely. A shorter workout beats no workout. Five pages beats zero pages. And the point isn't the output put, it's the point to maintain that identity. You are still the person who shows up. And if you don't have the energy to do so, show up smaller if you have to, but still show up. Number three is protect one anchor habit. This is a very important one. Make sure that if you leave, if you leave from this episode today, make sure you remember this. When everything is falling apart, and sometimes when everything is falling apart, identify one thing you will not let go of. One non-negotiable, one anchor habit that keeps you tethered to who you are. For me right now, it's getting outside, even if it's just a walk, even if it's just 20 minutes. That one thing is the thread that I use myself to to it's the thread that I use to pull myself back into the world. And it allows me to reset. But that time is crucial for me. And usually I go and walks at nighttime, um, but it allows me to think about the day and to reset, to mentally reset. Number four is find your version of my mom. I I don't know. I thought that was a good title. I like that one. But find your version of my mom. Find someone in your life whose discipline you admire. Not someone performing it online, but someone you actually know in real life who just does the thing consistently without any drama. Let them remind you of what's possible on the other side of this fight. Because sometimes you just need to talk to someone who's done it. You need a living example and not just some abstract goal. And so if there's someone out there who you respect and you admire because of their discipline, build your relationship with them. Ask them questions. Ask them, okay, well, how would you get through X situation? What would you do if you were me? Whatever it is, just find someone that you admire and look up to, and then make that person a constant contact that you reach out to and have a conversation with. Number five, this one hits hard. And a lot of people might not like this answer, but stop waiting to feel like it. Stop waiting for that. This is one that cuts deepest, and it's why I'm saving it for last. Discipline is not a feeling. Motivation, on the other hand, is a feeling. Discipline is a decision that you make before the feeling shows up and not afterwards. The days you you feel like working out, you don't need discipline. That's great. But the days that you don't, that's the only day discipline gets tested. That day counts more than you realize. If you show up and you don't feel like it, you're training yourself to realize that, hey, we do the thing regardless of how we feel, regardless if we want to or not. I'm still a person that shows up. And at the end of the day, you already know what you need to do. You don't need more information, you need more reps of doing it anyway. So remember to just stop waiting to feel like to feel like it. Motivation will come and go. That is a feeling. Instead, set yourself up to succeed through exercising your own discipline. Now, I want to leave you guys with one challenge for the week. Let's keep it simple. Let's not overthink our entire life and try and revamp our discipline. Let's keep it simple. Because that's how you exercise habits and that's how they compound over time. So, what I want you to do is identify the one thing that you've been letting slip. Just one. Just find one. Don't try to overhaul your whole life. Don't build a new system from scratch. Just name the one thing that used to be consistent that you've been losing ground on and commit to showing up for it for the rest of the week. Doesn't have to be perfect. Doesn't have to be at where you doesn't have to be at the level of where you were. But just start doing it consistently. Every day for seven days, do something toward that one thing. That's it. That's my challenge. I want to keep it small and simple for you guys. Because here's the truth, and I mean this. You do not earn discipline back all at once. You earn it one day at a time, one decision at a time. One showing up at a time. The streak starts today. It's up to you. It's in your court now. The ball's in your court, and you have the power to figure out how you want to show up. The identity is built in moments like this. And so if you feel like you've lost your discipline, you are not lost. You're simply rebuilding. Try to reframe it that way. And rebuilding from a foundation you've already built is not starting over. It's coming home. It's coming home to who you want to be. If this episode uh hit home for you today, I'd ask you to share it with someone who needs to hear it. Leave a rating on Apple or Spotify. That helps the show. Um, it's a single best way that you can help the show reach more people. And if you want to connect, reach out. I I read everything that I get because I I really appreciate you guys. And I always say, you know, I I I love how you spend some time with me just learning. You know, we're in this together, we're learning together, and we get better together. And so I'm trying to share the things that have helped me in my life. And I'd love to hear your own stories, your own feedback. And um, but don't for a second think that if you've if you feel like you've lost your discipline, that you can't go back to who you were. It might take a little bit longer than you expected it to, but it's there and it's possible. And you can do great things if you set your mind to it. And like Winston, Churchill, be a little, be a little confident in yourself. Especially when you're rebuilding discipline. Tell yourself that you can do it. The more that you believe it, the more it'll happen. And that sounds a little woo-woo, you know, believe it and it'll it'll happen in your life. Yes, but that requires action. It's not just something that you hope for and eventually get. It's all because you have done some sort of action to get you to that point. So, anyways, really appreciate you guys for listening. Um, expect some more episodes coming out soon. I'm trying to to push more production of the show uh because there's a lot that we can learn, and there's a lot that's on my mind. So, truly appreciate you all for listening. And until next episode, my friends, keep getting after it.