Discipline is Self-Trust

Misalignment isn't laziness; it is the result of breaking trust with yourself by avoiding the things you said you would do. 

True discipline is becoming someone you can actually rely on, starting with being impeccable with your word. Stop just managing your day and start leading it with intention.

𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲, 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀:
  • Why skipping your morning routine leads to emotional instability.
  • The difference between being "busy" and being "aligned."
  • How inconsistent actions lead to inconsistent income and results.
  • The psychological impact of breaking trust with yourself.

Transcript

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How you spend your time matters, and it's so easy to be busy and not actually be productive, not actually be working towards the life that you want to have. I cannot believe that we are here doing season two of Bold Clarity. This started as something that I thought about for a really, really, really long time and knew that I wanted to do. And so to actually be doing the action and being able to present this podcast, I am just so grateful for that experience. That being said, season two is going to be all about aligning your actions. And so in season one, we talked a lot about some of the identity work and figuring out who you are and your values and who you want to be. And so this season we want to actually put some action behind that so that we can look at what we're doing to make sure that it's getting us to the place that we want to be. And so to kick off season two, this episode today is going to be about self-trust and discipline. And I think this is the perfect way for us to start our conversation around what actions are we doing to get us to this place that we say that we want to get to. So let's go ahead and get started. Um, so I think the first thing that I want to bring up is that discipline is self-trust. I'd never really thought about discipline in this way, right? Like I knew that discipline was this thing that allowed you or motivated you to do the things that you say that you're gonna do, right? Like, okay, yeah, disciplined people, um, if they want to work out, they wake up and they work out, right? They're showing discipline because they're doing it. What I didn't realize is that you are building trust with yourself through your discipline. And so when we decide what actions we're going to take, we are telling ourselves either that we are keeping our word or that we're not. And in the same way that we build trust with other people around us, it's really important to build that trust with yourself because it translates into so many other areas. And so I want to start by just reframing um how we look at discipline and thinking about it as a way that we build trust with ourselves. Um, and and just to kind of set this up a little bit, um, I have had moments in my life that I categorized myself as lazy. And that's a whole nother thing to unpack. And what what I realized is it wasn't really that I was lazy to the point of, you know, I'm just not doing anything. It was really more so that I was making promises to myself and I was not keeping them. And that made me feel lazy because I'm saying I want to do all of these things, and yet when it comes down to it, I'm not actually doing them. And so to kind of think about it that way, um, of you know, what we may classify as lazy and pinpointing that a lot of times when we think about lazy, it's really not because you're just sitting on the couch all day, every day, not doing anything. A lot of times that feeling is coming up because there's a misalignment between what you're doing and what you say you're gonna do. And what you say you're gonna do is is probably gonna be more in line to who you say you want to be. And so it's kind of a trickle-down effect when you don't actually do those things that causes you to feel unproductive, misaligned in what we say as lazy. And so thinking back to the times where I felt that um and coming to this realization that this was really more of a misalignment thing, um, that helped me to then think about okay, so what do we do about this, right? I'm not just a lazy person that doesn't do anything at all. I'm just not doing the things that I say that I'm going to do, and that is causing this anxiety, it's causing this disappointment that is now translated to laziness. And so I want to talk about well, what do we do when that happens? Um, so I'm gonna frame this with uh, you know, part of my journey as a realtor, especially being new and coming from um the education environment. I'm gonna walk you through uh the moments where my actions were not aligned to who I wanted to be. Um, and within that show, how I made that shift so that I was more on point with what I was saying, what I was doing, and then ultimately being on this path that I said that I want to be on. For example, I know, I know the importance of a morning routine, right? I know that how you start your day is so important for how the rest of your day goes. This is knowledge that I've had for quite some while. And if you were to look at me during this specific season of my life when I was really an unproductive realtor, but more importantly, I was not doing the things that I wanted to do to become the person I wanted to become, um you would see just so much of a gap between what I'm saying and what I'm doing. And you would see this kind of spiral that would happen um as a result of this misalignment. And so when you think about um people who, you know, have goals that are outside of, you know, maybe if they have a traditional career, right? Like a nine to five, you're reporting to someone. Um, if you think about somebody like that and somebody who maybe is self-employed, this is all on you, right? What you do when you wake up, it's your choice. And nobody is going to tap you on the shoulder every single day and say, Hey, get up. All right, hey, do this, hey, do that. And even if you're lucky enough to have that person, right? They can't actually make you do the things. And so what I experienced was I knew what I wanted to be doing, and I knew what I should be doing, and I wasn't doing it, and I was starting my mornings off, and what I can now say is chaos. I was waking up at the last minute, and despite having this beautifully planned intentional calendar with time blocks, which we'll get into later, um, I wasn't actually doing those things on my calendar. Why? Because I wasn't starting my day with intentionality. And so let's say I wake up at the last minute and I look at my phone first instead of going and, you know, doing my morning routine of journaling and praying and drinking water, all those things. Well, I look at my phone, and as you can imagine, um, for most of us, you're constantly getting notifications, right? I'm pretty sure that anybody right now, that if you pick up your phone, there is something that you could respond to, right? And so that is what I was doing. That was my routine, is that I was waking up and I was reacting. I was reacting. And when I started my day reacting, uh, my day continued to be based in reactions. And so what happened was all of these things that I'd so thoughtfully planned out that I knew, hey, if I do this and I do this and I do this and I do this with consistency, I know that this is gonna get me to where I want to be. All of those things went out the window. Why? Because I didn't have time to do those things, because I was reacting to things that felt so important and so urgent, but in retrospect, they weren't. And this pattern of reactivity just widened that gap between what I want to be doing, what I know is going to get me to the place I want to be, and how am I actually spending my time? And so by being reactive, I left myself with very little space to honor my commitments to myself and to others that were, you know, aligned to this path. And by the way, no one can get you from reaction to intention because that's a decision that you're going to make for yourself, and then your actions follow suit. And so it's hard, it's really difficult to say, okay, I know that there are a million things that I could react to right now, and they may even feel so urgent and so important, and yet those are not the things that I took the time to plan out and say, these are the things I need to do. And so, as much as I might feel pulled to the reaction, that's really not what best suits me. You know, I what best suits me is to, with a very, very high level of intentionality, honor my word to myself and do the things that I say I'm gonna do, right? Uh, as I mentioned, if you were to observe me, I wasn't just sitting on the couch all day. I was doing things. And in this season of being an agent and wanting to be a top producer, I know as a real estate agent that's building my business, the most important thing that I can do is create opportunities for me to get in front of people and talk to them about their goals. And we call that setting an appointment. Even though I knew that was like the number one thing, that if I did that, it would make every single thing else easier, better. Even though I knew that, that's not what I was doing. And what I was doing is, oh my gosh, you know, I've got five nurturers, people who I've talked to, um, but I haven't actually met with them face to face, who are asking me to set them up on these very specific home searches, and um I'm gonna spend two hours doing that. Is it aligned to real estate? Sure. Is it even helpful in getting you towards your goal? Possibly. But here was the problem that I was exchanging the things, aka setting an appointment that I knew were aligned and the most impactful, I was exchanging those for these things that yes, they could have an impact, and yet they weren't the most impactful. And when I made that switch and started really not using my time wisely, it showed up in my results, right? Um, and so just as some examples, right? Like thinking about spending hours setting people up on a custom MLS search. Um, cool. Here's the thing though, I was doing that for people who were customers, not clients, meaning they had not yet made the commitment to work with me. And I knew that, and that was okay, that I would spend two, three hours doing things for those people instead of me taking time to set an appointment that I knew if I do this every single day, if I set an appointment every single day, I know what result I'm gonna get. Didn't make sense to exchange that for something else that was a maybe. And so for you, maybe it's not real estate, right? Um, it could be any industry that you're in, it could even be thinking about personally. Um, I know a big one that a lot of us struggle with, myself included, um, is you know, physical health. And I know that moving your body 20 to 30 minutes a day is good for your physical health, right? And so that should be a thing that that I do with consistency because I know when I take care of my physical health, it's gonna trickle down, I'm gonna feel stronger, I'm gonna feel healthier, I'm gonna be able to show up better with a better attitude. And yet, what I might decide to do instead is I'm gonna do some research and I'm gonna go on TikTok and I'm gonna for 45 minutes look up what types of exercises I can do. If you have a person who they're spending 30 minutes every day actually doing the thing, which would be working out, compared to the person who they're spending 30 minutes doing their research on social media, and then maybe they're doing a five-minute workout after they've done all this research. If you look over time, one of those people is gonna be a lot closer and be making clear progress to get them where they need to be. Whereas the other one, they may be making progress, but it's gonna be so much lower. How you spend your time matters, and it's so easy to be busy and not actually be productive, not actually be working towards the life that you want to have. Um, and so it is important to choose the things that you know are going to have the biggest impact on getting you to where you want to be and choosing to do those things with consistency and acknowledging that while yes, it's totally fine to do your research and you know, scroll TikTok for inspiration on what workouts you want to do, that that is not the highest uh return on investment, so to speak, that you'll get what is is actually getting in and doing the action. And so when you when you have taken the time to plan out these things that you know make a difference, do them. And remember if you plan it and you say a week in advance that this is something that's important when that day rolls around, it's still important and you need to do it. As you can imagine, this misalignment um absolutely can cause this spiral, right? Because you look at what you're doing and you look at the outcomes that you're getting, and you're like, okay, wait, I'm doing things, but I'm not getting the results. And then I'm not getting the results, and that's making me feel frustrated. And then because I feel frustrated, I'm not super motivated to actually go and do the things that I want to do. And then when I don't feel motivated, I am then going back to making these choices to do things that aren't getting me where I need to be in the in the time that I'd like to get there. And then the cycle just continues. And for me, it was a constant every day, every week, going through this same cycle of I'm I'm busy, I'm doing things, I'm not just sitting on the couch, I'm not just scrolling all day, I'm not just you know, looking up recipes on on Instagram. Why am I not getting results? That was frustrating, and it's very difficult to move out of that frustration. And yet, the first step, I think, is acknowledging that you are in this cycle so that you can be strategic about breaking that cycle. And so if you are like me when I was in that season and you're putting forth effort, you're doing things that you think should get you results, but you're not getting the results, I encourage you to really take the time and slow down to look at how am I spending my time and what's actually having the biggest impact. And is that impact the impact that I want? And if it's not, take a step back and adjust your strategy and how you're spending your time. Ultimately, to bring it all back, right? What this led to, which I think is the most dangerous part of this um, you know, what appeared to be a lack of discipline, um was it that I did not trust myself because I would spend an hour at least, and this is no lie, I would spend at least an hour every single Sunday doing my time blocking, looking at my goals, making sure that what I have coming up next week, those are high value activities that are important to me, whether they're aligned to being a top producer or being an engaged leader or being a present mom. I wanted to make sure that I planned all these things. And I would spend at least an hour every single Sunday adjusting and in putting together this puzzle of what is my week gonna look like. All to just look up and say, wait, my business isn't where I want it to be. Wait, I said I wanted to be this kind of mom and I'm not. Okay, I said I want to be this kind of leader and I'm not, but I'm busy, but I'm doing activities and I'm planning. Why am I not where I want to be? Why am I so frustrated and and seemingly unable to do the things that I say I'm going to do? When you don't trust yourself and you break a promise to yourself, you start to think about, well, should other people trust me? Because if I can't keep my word to myself, how am I gonna keep my word to somebody else? Right? I'm in charge of me, I'm in charge of my health, I'm in charge of my happiness, and if I know the things that I say I want to do, and I don't do them, and I'm my most important person, what does that mean for how I show up for other people? And why would somebody look at me and say, Yeah, I want Asia to support me in this, I want her help on this project in this particular season. I want Asia to be my agent. Why would somebody look at me and and and think that? And this is where I went mentally, is gosh, I have a huge problem. And it it it honestly made me feel fraudulent because I can't keep my word to myself, and I'm walking around making commitments and telling other people that I'm gonna keep my word to them, but how? How am I gonna do that? What a dangerous and scary place to be when you don't even know if you can keep your own promises to yourself. And I think that was my turning point because I value uh integrity. That's so important to me. And integrity is about how you're making your decisions, right? And and and making sure that the decisions that you're making are decisions that you're proud of because they show the things that are most important to you. They they show love, they show care, they show honesty. And to this day, integrity is so important to me, but I felt like I was not operating out of integrity. And if that's a core value of yours, which I I'm gonna take a guess and say that it is, when you're not living that out, it's sad. It's it's sad, it really is. And um, it takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to transition back into operating out of integrity. And so this didn't happen in just one moment where I woke up and I was like, oh, I don't have integrity with myself. It was a buildup, right? And I could point back to times where I said I was gonna do something and I didn't do it, whether it be something that I was doing solely for myself or for somebody else, nonetheless, I put out to the world or to myself or to my community, I'm gonna do this. And then it never happened. That did not feel good, and so from that space of oof, I don't know if I'm trustworthy. Um I was like, okay, this is something that is worth taking the time to investigate and to change because I cannot live my life um as someone who lacks integrity uh with myself, who doesn't follow through on the things that I say I'm gonna do for myself. I can't do that. And so what that led me to was okay, Asia, if these things are truly, truly important to you, and if you really want to be a top producer, you really want to be an engaged leader, you really want to be a present mom, then there's gonna be hard decisions that you're going to make and you're gonna make that hard decision very frequently with a lot of consistency, okay? Because then you're rebuilding that trust with yourself. It's very similar to you thinking about rebuilding trust with somebody else, right? Um, I know that as a teacher, I remember we talked a lot about hey, when you have a negative interaction with a student, it takes so many positive interactions to kind of counter that broken trust, right? Or that broken relationship. And the same goes for yourself. When I had this negative interaction with myself, where I felt like, oh my gosh, I do not keep my word, it took so much time and so much effort and so much energy for me to rebuild that trust with myself and rebuild that relationship with myself. And for me, that looked like uh implementing a lot of systems and you know, utilizing things like do not disturb and being honest about you know what my time commitments could look like in a way that I could, you know, not be burnt out and that I could do things and do them well. And so this season we will talk a lot about what some of those strategies um look like for for me. And I think the important thing here is if you find yourself uh questioning your discipline, I encourage you to investigate how you're building or breaking trust with yourself. And then once you identify that, make a plan put it in place so that you can do things that build trust with yourself versus things that break that trust. Because having gone through this process multiple times of building and breaking trust with myself, I can say confidently that your life feels so much lighter, it feels so much more aligned, it feels so much more impactful when you are every single day building trust with yourself. So I hope that this was encouraging and started the process for you to have this conversation with yourself about your self-trust and your discipline and what that looks like in your life right now. So, my challenge to everyone is I want you to think and share it in the comments. What is the one thing that you've been saying that you're gonna do? You know it's important, you know it's valuable, you know it's gonna have a high impact. What's that one thing that you haven't done and you're gonna do? I would love to hear about what things y'all are going to implement um to start rebuilding that trust with yourself. Um start with just that one thing and do it and see how good you feel and how proud of yourself you are when you honor your word to yourself. So I hope that this was impactful. Until next time, be honest, stay intentional, and choose bold clarity. If this episode was valuable for you, please like, share, subscribe, and I will see you all for episode two.