Three Myths About Discipline

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward-thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host, Aisha here.

 Hello everyone. How are you guys doing? I had such a fabulous Saturday today. I met up with a friend this morning and then worked out at my CrossFit box, , went for a run, did a couple of chores, and now I'm here sitting in front of the microphone recording episode number 97 of the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast.

 I'm your host, Aisha Tahir, and I'm here to discuss three myths about discipline. I published an episode yesterday about discipline. That discipline is easy. And in that episode I discussed how some people think that. It's a misnomer, and I got a lot of dms this morning about that episode. And I wanna talk about three myths that I think people have about discipline, and I wanna debunk those myths in this episode.

First one was that discipline is restrictive and rigid. Second thing that people mentioned was discipline means being on the go all the time. No rest or no time for recovery for yourself. And then third thing that I heard most from people was that motivation fuels discipline. So if you're not a motivated person, you can't be disciplined.

So let's talk about all of these in a little bit more detail. I wanna go into detail and I wanna give you my side of the story and from what I've read and what I've practiced in my own life, what I've found out, how discipline really plays a huge role in my success and success of people I work with success of my clients.

Why all of these three things I mentioned are myth. So the first one, discipline means being harsh or , strict, or being restrictive. The truth is that discipline creates freedom. By establishing sustainable routines and habits, not through extreme measures or being hard on yourself, but it's about guiding, not really controlling through fear.

I feel like people are maybe mixing it up with control, which instills fear, and that is not what discipline is. Discipline gives you the structure you need. It gives you the type of commitment you want to make. If you want real freedom, if you want real flexibility, guess what You want? Real discipline.

So there are two kinds of freedom in life.  The first one that I believe is the better kind is positive freedom where you have structure, but you get your most valuable asset back, which is your time.

Yes, time is your most valuable asset in life. Now once you get back time, it's up to you how you wanna spend it. Do you wanna spend it with your family? You want to exercise or just relax or you know, do some activity that helps you recover from a busy day. Rest and relaxation are the best part of a disciplined or structured lifestyle.

All my workdays follow a certain structure. From 5:00 AM to 5:00 PM I kind of like run like a Swiss watch going through morning routine, work blocks, exercise, lunch break, evening workout, time with kids. But then at the end of the day I have at least two, three hours, to myself. I can do what I want to do sometimes that means talking to you guys like I'm doing right now. So structure creates freedom by providing a stable framework, just like river banks create like a structure for the water to flow through. It is a framework that channels energy. It reduces decision fatigue, and it creates dedicated time for rest or creativity, transforming chaos into purposeful action, and it allows you to focus without guilt.

So really discipline isn't about rigid restrictions, but intentional boundaries that protect your time and mental space. Yes, we all have a limited cognitive load or mental space during the day, so why wouldn't you use it in a structured manner? And it gives you the security to explore and achieve goals more effectively.

So if you want real freedom, you need discipline. Second thing that most people sent me dms about was that people who are disciplined are motivated. They're just naturally motivated. Motivation, in my opinion is unreliable. Discipline relies on systems. And habits that work, even when motivation is low, because you can have good days and bad days.

Some days you will be super motivated. Some days you're stressed out or just not feeling good, like physically not feeling good, you're not gonna have motivation on those days, right? But if you have a system in place, if you have structure in place, which is what discipline is, then you don't have to rely on motivation.

If you have systems in place, making the right choice becomes the easy choice. That's right. The right choice is the easy choice if you have discipline, and discipline is a skill which can be built through. Systems, habits and environment design over time. You don't have to do it all in a single day. It probably won't happen in a single day.

And if that's what you're expecting, guess what? You know you're gonna fail and you're gonna be really hard on yourself and, get frustrated and that's not the goal., Discipline in no means is a personality trait. Willpower alone isn't enough to be disciplined. I always suggest my clients and my patients that start making small appointments for yourself. Like start micro shifts, whatever that means. Drinking an extra glass of water, keeping a bottle of water on your desk, buying a standing desk and standing for two to three minutes a day instead of two to three hours. Actions that take two minutes to complete. Two minutes or less to complete.

That's all I'm asking. Those are what micro shifts are. So start with those. Another thing that I like to do is to automate stuff like programming your coffee maker, to brew coffee at a certain time every morning. Second one, which is my favorite, is automatically transferring money to your investment account  so that you're not tempted to spend it and guess what? Motivation doesn't have to come into play over here. And because of AI and all the technological advances, all these things are so easy to do. You're just setting things on autopilot. You're creating systems. You are disciplined. Right.

So when you stick with doing an action on a daily or weekly basis, even if it takes two minutes to do. Those actions, become the pillars you can build the rest of your life on and move forward with you become free to achieve your goals and reach your dreams.

A powerful example of a system to help automate good choices and make discipline easy is a meal prep strategy. So Sundays are my meal prep days, and I spend a couple of hours prepping meals like lunches and dinners For most of the weekdays, I would say like four days out of five.

Instead of facing the daily willpower draining decision of what's for lunch or what's for dinner, which often leads to expensive, less healthy takeout. I make just one single decision on Sunday, and I execute a system once a week.

So here's how it works for me, the single decision on Sunday afternoon, I commit to cooking five healthy lunches and five healthy dinners for upcoming work week. The system I choose simple recipes like grilled chicken and some form of roasted vegetable, broccoli, or squash. Zucchini. Cauliflower, you name it, you can use any vegetable. I buy all the ingredients at once, and then I dedicate two hours late Sunday afternoon to bulk cooking. I use the storage containers to portion out five to 10 meals for Monday through Friday, and then I place them in my fridge.

So in the morning I just have to grab my container and my Greek yogurt. And I'm on my way. I have healthy meal with me. So the choice now is automated when lunchtime comes around during busy work week, there is no debate.

There is no instant gratification monkey to fight with, and my lunch is already packed. It's , healthy. The daily discipline is eliminated because the weekly system or structure as I like to call it, took care of the decision making in advance. So discipline is the framework where real freedom lies.

Listen, friends life is an endless series of opportunities and options, and behind every door waits something new, something different. And honestly, you are free to choose any of the options, right? Yeah. You can choose any option you want. The only thing I feel like we don't realize is that we can choose the options we like.

We just can't choose all of them. But if you have a structure and you have discipline to follow the system. You'll have way more options than other people who don't have discipline or who don't have structure. So those are the three myths that I wanted to debunk, and I hope I was able to communicate to you how discipline is restrictive and it's not based on motivation and it doesn't mean that there's no rest or recovery and you're on the go all the time. It actually means that you should structure or schedule rest on a daily basis and have time at the end of the day to spend however you want to spend.

So that's all for today. Thank you so much for listening to me. I'll be back with another episode tomorrow.

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