Values equals what do you spend your time now and what do you spend your money on.
Sleep is a discipline. It has been proven in numerous studies that lack of sleep hampers your ability to think well. You take impulsive decisions which are most probably not best for you or others.
Discipline is about being aware of your thoughts and either approving them or not approving them. Discipline is about having the courage to say yes to things that work for you and no to things that are not worth.
Think not what do I write, about what do I think about, what do I want to be true, but what changes are you going to make to make your ideal a reality.
At a time where we’re stuck in the ‘feeling’ generation we do things because we want to ‘feel’ a certain way but then when we feel things we don’t know what to do with it. So I’ll give an example of what I mean by that – when
we feel guilt most of us don’t know how to shift from that feeling into thinking and doing something different in order to not to feel that guilt again . If we want to feel happy we just try and feel happy not realizing that you have to change your thoughts and what you do in order to feel happiness or whatever.
Happiness is cannot be pursued but it must ensue because it is a result of all those small mundane and repetitive things that are done for a prolonged period of time. It’s the result of getting those small and big things right and then you just feel this kind of feeling of Happiness as a byproduct. you don’t as you said you don’t go today I must feel happy right it’s it’s the result of having meaning and purpose and and taking the right actions
Control what you put in not the outcome which may or may not happen as you expected. We just want the feeling so we try to cheat it or steal it or we feel guilty that we don’t have it. When really you could start small right now and just get yourself closer to it.
It is going to be unpleasant to get in there and put in the time and effort but we need to force ourselves until we reach the momentum. That’s the muscle that you want to cultivate yeah. I think people want to be the person on the other side of that wall but they don’t realize that the way you do it is by just starting it slow and be consistent with it.
Seneca points us out on one of his letters we’ll push ourselves, we’ll take risks to succeed financially, to succeed in business, to succeed in our careers, to buttress our reputations but then we don’t want to do it in the other places where most of us would admit it actually matters.
People will become people they don’t want to be in order to achieve something that they are not passionate about. They end up doing well but inherently they suffer because they want something else in life. The pursuit of doing it inwardly with your family with your friendships, chances are you’ll become the person you want to be like chances are you’ll become someone that you’re proud of being.
It’s like look optimizing your professional life or maximizing your professional life very unlikely to improve your personal life but if you have optimized and maximized and improved your personal life, got your house in order, you’re going to be better at what you do. You’re going to care less in some degrees about things that used to bother you so much.
That’s the beauty of process. You get great by minor improvements compounded on top of each other showing up day in and day out All of humanity’s problems arise because of the inability to sit quietly alone for 30 minutes as Pascal said.
Not to be physically still but have the Mind still while the body is in motion. This requires like so much discipline so much self-control so much self-awareness. A lot of people are just doing doing doing and they’re not even aware they’re running away from something they’re not even aware of that it makes them uncomfortable to be still and observe their thoughts.
Discipline is not just squeezing blood from the stone it’s not just whipping yourself. It’s trying, failing, learning, unlearning through out the journey while having a clear direction and goals. You’re not supposed to really ever get there but that it’s like the Horizon it’s always a little bit further away.
Always consider the problems and challenges and mishaps and tragedies as playground for your practice. Whenever something unexpected and someone behaves in an unfavourable way , say that this is also a practice and work with the situation.
Most of the times we get overwhelmed by the situation in front of us or we lose hope just by visualizing the amount of time, effort it takes or not have faith that we will get the results if we try it long enough. But the real method is to do it a little bit today and keep doing and pursuing the things little by little daily consistently. After a while, it turns out to be a beautiful result.
Unflinchingly accept the reality of that situation, the unfairness the, unexpectedness of it, your blamelessness or your blame worthiness for it, and then simultaneously say that this is wonderful that it happened but I can make choices now. The Stockdale Paradox is a technique to navigate challenging and ambiguous times by combining the ability to confront the brutal facts of your current reality, even as you maintain unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end, no matter how distant that is.
You’re setting yourself up for disappointment or frustration or
resentment or despair by attaching to an outcome that’s not yours. There are so many variables and unforeseen circumstances which could impact the result either negatively or positively. If you get lucky sure you’ll feel wonderful. But for instance if you work for years on a book then success or failure of it depends on your expectations. What is your meaning of a successful book. Did It win awards, did it sell lots of copies, did your
parents read it , did your spouse and children find it valuable, did you get a lot of money out it. Those are things that are not in your control but if you attach your definition of success to things like how much you learnt while writing the book, how many new things you learnt, how confident you became as a person, how fulfilled you feel because you finished the book which may be helping someone out there etc,. you are already celebrating the work you did and you are experience the joy of success without validation from external factors.
The work that you’re doing now is the result of work I did a long time ago and have been doing ever since. Success a lagging indicator of discipline, faith, sacrifice, commitment, study and practice. The work you are doing right now may bear fruits after 10 years or 15 years or may be later. Anything that you are working on for a greater purpose is a leap in the dark and you have to continually take that leap with faith that it works out.
The hard work I put in and the effort and time i dedicate in pursuing something may work or may not work. But that is the trait of a creator or someone who wants to do it for the sake of doing it. That makes you a person who goes against the tide. That makes you leader and not a follower.
*Do read the Disclaimer