30 Days of Discipline
Tomorrow, I’ll be starting “30 Days of Discipline.” 30 Days of Discipline was put together by a guy named Victor Pride, and the first thing he has to say about his program is:
30 Days of Discipline is the boot camp. Discipline is the required outcome. For 30 days there will be no excuses, no whining, no quitting, and no failing. We will set out to do something and we will do it no matter what.
Here we go.
Mr. Pride’s 30 Days of Discipline boils down to building 12 habits over the course of 30 days. I’m adding a couple more. Here they are:
- For 30 days there is no snacking. Only 3 meals per day may be consumed.
- For 30 days you must wake up daily at or by 5am.
- For 30 days you must take cold showers.
- For 30 days there is no masturbation or internet pornography allowed.
- For 30 days you must do 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 body squats per day.
- For 30 days you must dress your absolute best every single day.
- Every day for 30 days you must have a to-do list that you will accomplish.
- Every day for 30 days you must keep correct posture — stand up straight, chest and head held high and make eye contact with everyone you see.
- Every day for 30 days your answers to yes or no questions must be “Yes” or “No.” Excuses and explanations will not follow your answer.
- Every day for 30 days you must keep a notebook and pen with you.
- You must have one specific and definite goal. This is something you will choose. Every day for 30 days you must do at least one thing to further your goal.
- You can take one lazy Saturday/Sunday morning and afternoon, but Saturday/Sunday evening is used to prepare for the week ahead.
- Every day for 30 days you will spend time reading the Bible (4 chapters minimum) and time in prayer.
- Every day for 30 days you will perform an act of service or sacrifice for someone else.
Why am I doing this? Mr. Pride’s answer is part of it:
You should do all of that because it’s going to teach you discipline and pride. It’s going to help you become productive and creative and alive with fire, passion and energy. It’s going to turn you into a Man of Action.
For the primary motivation, I have to turn to Stephen Mansfield. In Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men, the author explains:
My conviction . . . is that we become what we do, that we are the sum of our habits. I should say quickly I do not believe that we are only the sum of our habits. I am a Christian, and so I believe there is more at work in our lives than the product of what we do. Thank God! To be a Christian is to believe the grace of Jesus breaks the unending, hellish cycle of cause and effect. I don’t want to live forever in the cancerous wake of my evil deeds. Grace intervenes. The Spirit makes me new. I’m freed, even from myself. Trust me, I get all this and have based my life upon it. Still, even after grace comes to us, virtues have to be perfected. Our habits have to be formed. Our actions have to be aligned with the grace we have received. We often miss this emphasis in Scripture. Consider just one verse on the subject: ‘Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (2 Peter 1:5–8 NIV). Clearly, we are given faith and we are taught knowledge, but to make both productive, we have to devote ourselves to a lifelong project of developing traits, attitudes, and habits.
I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life perfecting bad habits. It’s time to build a foundation for some new ones.
Putting myself out there like this is not something that I’m very comfortable with. In writing this first post, I can’t say how many times I’ve nearly deleted all of this and scrapped this entire idea. Yet, one thing has stopped me each time.
When I shared this 30 Days project idea with a friend of mine, he said, “You should blog about it; that could be your goal. That’d be something I’d be interested in reading about… especially the cold showers part.”
I hope that my story of the next 30 days inspires someone out there to take action in their life rather than just being along for the ride.
30 days is just a starting point for what I pray will be a new life of discipline. If you’d like to come along for the ride, you can check my story of the next 30 days here.
Day 2: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”
