This has been the first year ever, in the history of my health and fitness journey, where I have worked out consistently throughout Winter. Lesotho is an incredibly cold country, with temperatures in Maseru dropping to -4 degrees on your average Winter morning. I managed to wake up at 05h15 in that cold temperature at least three times a week almost every single week throughout Winter and this blogpost is a reflection on how and why I managed.
1) Discipline is the cement.
I’ve always found cement to be incredible tedious. When a house is being built, the cement mixing and laying is probably the most annoying and time consuming task (this is based on observation, I’ll never willingly build a house with my own two hands). Then there’s all the aftercare part, making sure it dries properly, ensuring that the rain doesn’t interfere or someone’s pet doesn’t stick their paws into wet cement. The point is, you can’t build a house without cement and unfortunately, this comes with the admin and mundane meticulousness of the cement process. Worse still, the cement laying process is not a one-time step. It must happen all the time, between each brick. There’s no getting out of it, because without it, there’s no building. Just a bunch of bricks which will inevitably collapse. Discipline is to your life what cement is to any building.
2) Motivation is a feeling, Discipline is a choice
I like feelings. I think they keep us in tune with ourselves, showing us what needs attention and guiding our intuition. Feelings, for all their merit, are also very temporary. Their fleeting nature means that we can’t rely on them to drive us to action every time they visit (this is a good thing because acting on your emotions every time you feel them, is not the wisest move). Motivation is a feeling. Some days you’re more motivated than others and other days you struggle to even make your bed. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s the nature of feelings. The problem comes when we try to use motivation as a fuel for action because we can’t control how long the feeling lasts or when it visits. Because of this, I will always advocate that motivation is nice but it’s not necessary. Discipline, however, is very necessary because it’s something you can control. It’s not a feeling, it’s not fleeting and it’s seldom affected by anything external, Lesotho’s blistering Winters are no exception.
Harnessing discipline is one of my lifelong goals, it will never end and I wake up every day on the pursuit of better ways to exercise discipline as a practice. It has such incredible results and I don’t even have to look far, my body is evidence. I harness discipline through three primary ways:
- I start by listening to the wisdom of my body. I can’t always trust my mind because it’s been fed quite a lot of nonsense from society, from my childhood, from insecurities and from limiting beliefs. I can’t always trust my emotions because they’re hot and fleeting. What I have always been able to trust is my body, which efficiently lets me know when something is wrong and more importantly, when something is right. Either through my health/aches and pains/fatigue/hunger/thirst etc, the body’s wisdom cannot be doubted. When I exercise, the body becomes better. I can see it physically and more importantly, I can feel it internally. The muscles get firmer, the heart rate stabilises, the headaches minimise. My body will always tell me what to do if I learn to watch and listen to it. This guides what I should be doing more of.
- I do not negotiate with myself. Ever. I will negotiate with my boss, with my fellow Bankers, with my friends and family but I will not negotiate with myself. Once I have committed to something and made the decision to follow through with action, I do not allow room for my brilliant voice of persuasion to derail me. If I have agreed to wake up at 05h15 every weekday, when that alarm rings, we are up. I may hit snooze a few times but if the deal is to wake up and work out, I’m getting into my gym gear. I may do it swearing and mumbling under my breath but that will not stop the workout.
- Build your life around harnessing discipline. Yes, your habits will either make or break your discipline practice. I don’t know what came first between the chicken and the egg. In the same way, I don’t know if good sleep hygiene contributes to me waking up early to workout, or waking up early to workout contributes to good sleep hygiene. All I know is that they need each other in order to sustain themselves.
Okay, I’ve said enough so my parting gift is this: commit to harnessing discipline in your life and everything else will fall into place. Listen to your needs in order to glean where you should be pumping that discipline, you’re the only one who can decide what to commit to. Lastly, try to move your body every day. You’ll be a much happier person xx
