3 Notes on Discipline— DEFINE IT!
You hear this word all the time. What weight does this word carry? I’ve found 3 simple ways to understand discipline to include it into your life!
Collin’s dictionary describes it as “Discipline is the quality of being able to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules or standards.”
Merriam-Webster defines discipline as, “to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control.”
Cambridge Dictionary defines discipline as, “the ability to control yourself or other people, even in difficult situations.”
From these definitions, I’ve outlined 3 major areas of discipline and listed them below with elaborations on those areas based on the things I’ve learnt and experiences I’ve gone through.
1. Accountability
Discipline can only be maintained when you hold yourself accountable.
Have any of you ever felt that you worked the best when someone was always overlooking you? Like when you were little and you knew your parent will not let you watch the TV unless you finished your homework. You would try your best to finish the homework and actually complete it to the best of your ability. If that threat wasn’t in place, do you think you would have done the homework? Or if you went to college, you’d hand in that assignment or pressure yourself to because your professor will grade it and that directly affects your final grade which then will affect opportunities for you. This pressure, makes you work. This external eyes, the spectator, is a type of pressure that makes you work because it forces you to be accountable for your actions.
You need to be your own spectator and overlook yourself. Taking responsibility and being the master of your actions will give you that power and you will be able to place the ‘external’ pressure that will allow you to welcome discipline into your life.
2. Control
Discipline is all about self-control, or at least that is one thing that people stress about the most. Controlling oneself is not an easy feat but it is possible when you start to take yourself seriously and understand why exactly you need to set certain boundaries for yourself.
When you are practicing discipline, you are essentially practicing a way of life where whatever you set your intention to accomplish can be efficiently achieved. Your life untangles itself into peace and calm where you find your serenity within everyday. To begin that practice, control needs to be welcomed because we are very prone to setting up our own barriers which can lead to inefficiency. And I am not talking just about work, it is also just life in general — moments where you need to relax, rest, unwind and do hobbies or small things that make you happy. Controlling yourself gives you the time and space to discipline your mind.
3. Quality
Quality of your work and the things you practice is super important!
Discipline cannot be achieved if you don’t think about the method in which you are approaching your intention. It is better to do 1 thing well than do 5 things in an incomplete manner and bring more chaos into your life. It is normal for any one of us to feel super frustrated when we don’t feel like we did enough or accomplished what we set out to do for the day.
It is normal to feel ‘useless’, but this feeling can be avoided. You don’t have to feel that way if you think about the quality and spread of the work. Frustration of previously unfinished tasks adds up everyday and can tarnish your drive and motivation.
Discipline and quality go hand-in-hand, so when you go to set out your intentions, questions yourself. Am I doing this task in the way I think is best for me?
Stay tuned for pt.2 of this article where Selena goes over the methods of how to practice accountability, control and quality when it comes to achieving discipline.
DEFINE IT! is a series by Selena Fonseka where she digs deep into the context, connotation and conversations around certain terms. Follow to keep up with her other two series: QUESTION IT! and SOLVE IT!, where she dives deeper into topics thick with content!
A little bit about me as a writer: Being a Creative Strategist at Lock&Stock, a mobile app that promotes digital wellness, really inspires many of the things I write about. I am passionate about many subjects and Medium has become my main outlet to express my words. In my spare time, you’ll find me buried in either fantasy novels or books like Atomic Habits or Sapiens, where I gain a lot of the knowledge I share. I hope you enjoy my content! Follow and Subscribe for more!
