The Lie of Discipline
It’s been a very long time since I wrote anything that is worth sharing, so here are a couple of facts you need to know in advance:
I decided to write this article one day before you were reading it.
I have been writing another one for over two months and I’m nowhere near finishing it.
And I’m lucky enough to have a month of vacation before my coop training starts.
Let’s begin now..
Dear reader, I know that you may find the last fact not relevant, and you may be correct from afar, but it’s actually the most important one of them all, or because of that fact number one and kind of fact number two exist.
Well let’s start at the beginning.
Or at the problem I realized a week ago.
Something funny about this problem is that I tried to solve it many years ago and I kinda did at the time, but now apparently I am facing the same issue again, and have been for a very long time.
You may wonder…
Since you have solved this problem before, why do you have it again?
And why don’t you solve it as you did before?
Well my dear reader there are a couple of reasons I can name regarding your opinion.
I didn’t understand the root of the problem before.
I grew older and became easily distracted.
I got used to the distractions way more than before.
So yeah I can’t just go back to the good old ways because simply they don’t work anymore!!
Disclaimer:
if you are still wondering about what the problem is despite all of the hints and the title of this article,
please just go.
Let us circle back,,,
Regarding this universal problem, and the lack of forced deadlines upon me, I found myself procrastinating a simple task for weeks despite having at least 12 hours of free time a day. Like, there is nothing scheduled for the next few weeks of my life! No exams to be studied for, no reports that need to be submitted, no requirements that must be fulfilled, NOTHING.
Sadly I can’t remember the last time I had control over my time and I guess that’s the reason why I forgot what I usually do when I have full control over my life. Like for the past couple of years I had control over almost 10–20% of my day?? And the rest was responsibilities and meetings that included other people, so that just takes the hold you have of your time and hands it to others in my opinion. And because of this irresponsible behaviour that I intentionally made, I struggle now to set deadlines for myself and actually commit to them, and I needed to fix that ASAP.
Mark my words:
NOTHING A YouTube SEARCH CAN NOT FIX.
So that’s where I went and got what I wanted.
And it’s fairly simple - hopefully you don’t have the memory of a fish and remember that the first reason why the old ways aren’t working anymore, which is that I did not understand the root of the problem - just understand the root of the problem. Which was surprisingly enough for me to finally find the solution to my problem.
And I found out that we have been looking at it the wrong way all along!!! So what is going on??
Conventionally, if you are putting off a task or a job for way too long or in other words “procrastinate”, people will say that you “lack self-discipline”, or you don’t have enough willpower to fight your desires, and I used to say that to people as well because it made total sense at the time. We were fast to associate these two things together. If you had more self-discipline you could force yourself to do the task whenever you wanted, you could achieve whatever goal you want to achieve, be whoever you wanna be, all you need is for yourself to take responsibility and have enough discipline to follow the plan. Meanwhile most of us don’t have the level of discipline to really commit long enough to achieve anything in the world.
The actual problem that Mark Manson proposed in his video isn’t that we lack discipline, the problem is that we have too many choices to make and too many distractions around us to actively work on what we really want, because it’s easier to stay where you are, to not get out of bed, to scroll for hours and feel bad after it instead of working on something that is fun and will actually have a good impact on your life. We live in a place and time that has too many distractions that are easily accessible, not that we lack the ability or self-control to do it. So what will happen when you decrease the distractions or the effect they have on you?
What will happen when you have less chaos around you so you can see what matters?
I can tell you the answer my friend,
because I come from the future where I’ve known this information for a week now and saw that it actually works so you won’t waste your present on trying something new. Plus I won’t be able to write these words for you and geek about it because I will find something easier to do with the many options that I had in my past world and I will be distracted for the rest of my vacation and I don’t want that!
How did I test this theory?
First:
I rewatched almost every video I saw on YouTube regarding self-discipline and procrastination and surprisingly enough, when I thought about each one of them on a deeper level, like what do they try to deliver to us, I found that all methods and techniques still in one way or another try to minimise the distractions and make the task as accessible as possible for us to choose to do it instead of something else. In other words we are kinda changing the default state of our mind. Instead of grabbing your phone first thing in the morning, do that or write this, so basically the same core problem with another way to look at it.
Second:
After reaching this conclusion comes the next step, which is testing of course!
Having the concept of eliminating the choices rather than building a habit in mind and it magically worked!! Is a week enough time to test a concept and write about it? I think in this case yes so just keep reading.
The example Mark gave was that he went to an isolated cabin with no access to the internet or any communication with the outside world so he had nothing to do but work, simple, but effective. So simply I thought of creating my own cabin by setting a timer and turning off the internet from my phone until that timer goes off. I literally can do whatever I want with anything but my phone and no matter what happens it’s forbidden for me to turn it on before the alarm goes off. The first day I did it for two hours and actually was able to achieve a lot but it wasn’t easy at all. I was counting the hours and kept searching for my phone even though I had something to do just out of habit, and it wasn’t awful. The second day I was brave enough to set a timer for 4 hours and it got easier very fast! I was able to do my daily tasks and work on interesting things, spend time with my family and I was able to watch the shows I’ve been putting off for so long, and over time I felt actually fulfilled and surprisingly content with my life and isn’t that what we always search for?
Every day the periods of time that I would turn off the WiFi for and do everything else increased, and these days it’s close to six hours a day of meaningful activities and I have never felt better.
The idea is not in doing the same thing I did to limit the distractions and doing whatever you kept dreaming of doing but in finding your own distraction and gradually eliminating its effect on you while setting some rules you know you can never break, after that you will see discipline, then procrastination will cease to exist in your life.
So MY TAKE on self-discipline, as Mark Manson said, is that it is actually a lie and all you need to do is find your cabin in the woods and set the boundaries you can’t cross and you’ll do whatever you want to do in your life.
Thank you so much if you are still reading this far and I hope you enjoyed it.
May we meet again.
Roba..
PS: the long article that’s taking forever to write is actually almost finished thanks to this knowledge and you’ll be reading it soon enough.
Resources :
How to Stop Procrastinating (Forever)
Discipline Is Giving Yourself No Choice
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