Discipline: A Necessary Foundation
This is a blog-series on the idea of discipline. Discipline solidified its place in my life during the years I competed as a professional golfer. Since then, I’ve begun to realize how crucial discipline is for living an honorable life, for living a life worthy of the calling to which we've been called. Because of my growing belief in this necessity, I created an 8-week online course titled: Never Settle | Developing Discipline. I’d be honored to have you join this journey alongside me as we each strive to instill discipline as a part of our being.
Can you imagine what a day would look like if all you did was follow your feelings?
It'd start by not getting out of bed when the alarm goes off. You'd hit the snooze a dozen times, and then finally roll out of bed when you felt like it, likely an hour or so after you had planned. Then you may decide to stay in your PJ's for most of the morning, spending the first hour scrolling through social media, news apps, or playing games on your phone. Then you would finally eat some breakfast, mid-morning, consisting of cocoa puffs and maybe a leftover piece of cake from the night before. After dumping a bunch of sugar into your system, you may feel like taking a quick nap, so you lay down and then get back on your phone for a bit. At this point, your work is calling you asking where you are, to which you reply: "home sick." Now that you don't have to go in for work, you feel like watching another episode or four of your favorite show (which turns into binging the next three seasons of that show). At this point in the day you've eaten sugary sweets for breakfast, some dark chocolate for comfort, four bowls of popcorn while you binged your favorite show, and a couple cans of your favorite soda... I'll spare the rest of the story; you get the picture.
Following feelings is a recipe for a lot of decisions we'll end up regretting. Our feelings are not the best guides for our life. Our feelings are not a good foundation to live off of.
One of my favorite quotes was an illustration by Plato (that, in doing some research, I discovered had not directly or originally come from Plato). The paraphrase of Plato's point is summarized as follows:
"If the chariot is the body, the horses are our emotions, and the rider is our mind - if the horses are dragging the rider against his will, danger is coming." - Plato
This is a powerful picture Plato (or whoever paraphrased him as saying) paints. If our lives are driven by our emotions, we will run into a lot of danger throughout our days and our lives.
Emotions are not a great foundation for living, but discipline is. Following the path of our feelings is not a recipe for success, despite what is often sold to us through endless marketing and sales tactics.
Discipline is the necessary foundation for a life well-lived, and we would all benefit from building our lives on the sturdy foundation it creates.
Why Are Foundations Important?
A foundation is essential if what's built on top is to last. A foundation is the cornerstone putting the rest of the building in place. A foundation is the corner-pieces to a puzzle, creating the structure for the rest of the pieces to fall into place. A foundation is the feet that holds the rest of the body upright and together.
Having a good foundation matters, and here is why:
1. Foundations Produce Stability
I'm sure you have experienced the challenge of standing without support in a moving train or subway. If you're like me, you revel in the challenge of not losing your balance despite the jostling and sudden jerks the train makes. The challenge comes from an unpredictable--a shaky-- foundation. Having an unstable foundation leads to us spending the majority of our energy and focus on maintaining (or recovering) our balance. Obviously, this takes away our focus from most everything else in those moments, and this is similarly true in life. If we are operating from a shaky foundation, we won't have the stability from which we can focus our energy and attention towards other important issues or tasks.
Discipline is a foundation that produces stability in our lives. It creates a sturdy platform for us to stand on top of. It provides a place that can be trusted so that we can offer up our full focus, attention, and energy into other pressing issues in our lives, and, more importantly, to better serve and love the people in both our communities and our lives.
2. Foundations Aid Performance
Through having a solid foundation, we are better able to perform in our work and in our lives. Imagine trying to hit a golf ball on a moving train or subway, constantly jostling about. That would be one heck of a challenge for sure, but I can guarantee it wouldn't produce the best results. While the fun in the challenge may increase, our performance would inevitably decrease. Similar to shooting a basketball in an earthquake, or trying to shoot a target while riding a horse, or trying to take a selfie when driving a car; trying to maximize our performance in our work or our life from an unstable foundation will inevitably hurt what results.
Discipline is the foundation that will allow our ultimate performance to ensue. If we want to have a successful meeting, we don't try to run it in a noisy cafe full of distractions, we reserve a quiet room and come prepared with an agenda and goals that are clearly communicated and understood. If we want to be a good driver, we maintain disciplined focus on the task at hand--NOT texting, scrolling through social media, or checking email on our phone.
This is commonsense, but still a reminder we all need (including me!). Our performance is important, and the most beneficial tool for optimizing our performance is operating from a foundation of discipline.
3. Foundations Create Consistency
Our world is constantly in motion...literally. The earth is rotating and revolving at the same time, moving at all times. As humans, change and motion are the constants in life. With constant movement, a foundation is needed. Without a consistent place to operate from, a foundation, we will get swept up in the motion and constantly be adrift in our lives. Without a Sabbath--a day of rest--we get so swept up in our work that we lose sight of the purpose or reason behind that work (and our lives). Without a foundation of rest and recovery, our bodies slowly begin to break down and our own cognition begins to suffer. Without a foundation of love and support from those who are close to us in life, we become deprived and unable to give love and support to others around us.
Foundations are essential for providing a semblance of consistency in the midst of variance and motion. Discipline is the foundation that creates a consistent place for us to operate out of. It provides the grounding force that helps us weather the storms of our experiences throughout life. Consistency and change are the ebb and flow we constantly see-saw between, and without the consistency of discipline, our teeter-totter will begin to teeter too close to the totter until the balance is too far gone.
4. Foundations Provide Flexibility
Human beings are horrible at predicting the future. This has been widely studied, yet we still place too high a confidence in our predictive powers than we ought to. When we hear this we often try to become better at predicting instead of working on becoming more flexible and adaptable to an ever-changing future. The way we accomplish this is not through a focus on flexibility but rather a focus on building a solid foundation from which we can then adapt from.
Flexibility, an ability to adapt and adjust, best flows from a sturdy foundation, and discipline is the foundation that we must build. Through operating from a place of discipline, we create the structure from which we can most freely explore, knowing there is solid ground to return to at any point. It provides the ability to iterate, change, and adjust to the new inputs, ideas, or experiences we face on a daily level, without ever getting lost and swept away. Through the solid stance of discipline we are able to have an array of response and actions versus the limited choices we have when our stance is less sturdy. This flexibility is one of the most underrated and hidden aspects of building a foundation of discipline, yet it is understandably the most empowering.
Foundations Are Necessary
One of the most famous parables of Jesus is the parable of the man who built his house on the rock.
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
-- Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV)
In this story, Jesus teaches us that the foundation you choose to build your house on matters. If we choose wisely, we will be able to weather the storms that are inevitable in life. If we choose poorly, our foundation and all that is built on it will be eroded, swept away, and eventually destroyed.
Foundations are necessary.
Life is not a walk in the park, it is a blustery storm more often than it is a sunny picnic.
If we want to sing in the rain and walk through the park even in the midst of the storms, we must build our lives on the foundation of discipline. Discipline will provide stability, aid our performance, create consistency, and produce better flexibility for each of us on our journey.
But if it is meant to be, it is up to you and it is up to me.
Discipline will never happen by chance.
It's time we put in the work, and I'm here to provide some help -- Join Thane Marcus Academy today.
