Often, beginnings and endings are easy. They are filled with a natural enthusiasm and volition where we move into things with lots of energy and ease, and complete things with a certain flare and celebration for what we’ve accomplished or gotten through.
Middles, not so much. Middles tend to be difficult and our enthusiasm naturally wanes. It’s easy to lose focus and make excuses and even completely drop the ball.
Consistency and constancy are at first glance, rather unsexy and boring. Discipline in all it’s forms can feel confining, even enraging.
But there is another side to discipline. Discipline brings tremendous freedom. That’s the exciting aspect of discipline.
I think it’s challenging to be accountable to yourself over the long haul, day in and day out.
I think it’s harder to make baby steps each day over a longer period than it is too make big jumps.
21.5.800, in it’s 21 days, gives us an opportunity to make little steps each day. To keep writing for 21 days. To do yoga 5 days a week. To keep going.
In a challenge like this, we get information about how committed we are to ourselves and the ways in which we either let go or keep a hold on that commitment.
Discipline is a type of confinement at first glance. In order to to say yes to something, you’ve got to say no to lots of other things. We have created a container with our 21.5.800 idea, which when you bump up against those boundaries, can feel claustrophobic.
The act of doing something each day, the same thing each day, can take your life from the level of amateur to professional.
It’s really hard to write 800 words every day. It’s really hard to get to yoga class. It’s really hard to unplug and take Savasana for 20 minutes. It’s really hard to organize your life and make the necessary choices in the yes and no department to have these things happen for these 21 days. I know. I’m over here engaging in the same challenge. And sometimes failing, but keeping at it with you. I want to take things to the next level internally for myself so that my external life changes also. Everything starts on the inside.
Ask any working artist what the difference is between a pro and a hack, and they will all tell you that doing whatever EVERY DAY is what separates the two.
And it’s also what separates being frustrated with what you want to do in life from being fulfilled. It’s simply discipline.
The simple fact of the matter is that things take A LOT of work. If you want anything in your life to move or grow, you’ve got to log the long everyday hours doing it. There’s not a lot of glory along the way.
Middles are where we delay gratification. Delaying gratification is an amazing powerful tool to develop in ourselves.
Use 21.5.800 to strengthen your discipline muscles. If things are waning for you, contact other participants. Ask them what they are doing, how it’s going. Contact someone you don’t know but feel attracted too. Maybe even get a buddy to be accountable to each other as a way to be accountable to yourself for the next leg here.
What is your relationship with discipline? How can you strengthen the consistency of your commitment to yourself?
What’s the same old thing you do to yourself about dropping the ball that you don’t want to do this time?
How can you make week 2, the middle, expand the boundaries of your own capacities?
How can you make discipline your ally on the road to what you want?
{ 22 comments }
Nike stole the “Just Do It” motto from me. It is my catchphrase, my raison d’etre. Do it. And if you don’t? Try again tomorrow because every day is a beautiful new start
I feel that is so simplistic in comparison to your beautiful post. But I’m a simplistic sort of gal!
.-= Rachel @ Suburban Yogini´s last blog ..backbends, my nemisis =-.
I’ll be thinking more about discipline as I go through today (funny…it was my first thought on waking, a half hour before my alarm. I made myself get up anyway and did my first yoga-from-the-start sun salutations. Yet again another eerie cowinkydink with the project).
But I gotta say that I LOVE middles. When the early enthusiasm is it’s peak, I’m suspicious. I doubt my commitment. I get overwhelmed with the pace. In our first week I wrote little, whined much, struggled to Savasana. When followers were joining a hundred a day, I was on the list often and eventually couldn’t hear myself think.
So I stepped back. I ended up with an introverted, quiet weekend. I have found my feet, the feet that always come in the “middle”. This is where I know my strength. I can do this. I can tell that inner doubt to “shut up” because I’ve found my own pace. I’m a turtle. I won’t be the biggest star. I won’t be everyone’s favorite. But I will finish and I will have learned things along the way. I will have been challenged.
Well, here I am writing too much for this comment! I really just wanted to say, “Yay for middles!” “Yay for discipline!” “Yay for perseverance!” (Isn’t the best part of any sandwich the stuff in between?). This is where we LIVE. “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives” (Annie Dillard)
.-= Tia´s last blog ..The annoying, self-defeating habit of the turtle-shell retreat. =-.
I did adho mukha svanasana last night before bed, before writing on paper. Again. It makes me uncomfortable to face that blank page, and I want to pick up my iPhone to check Something Important or shut the light off and sleep, but I keep writing until the end of the page. And I make it there safely, and slightly changed.
Today I return to yoga class.
.-= Leanna @ Beets, Butter and Mountaintops´s last blog ..A Not Unsatisfactory Hike =-.
Funny, I just wrote about completely dropping the ball on Sunday. I had some pretty educational experiences with my lack of discipline, but clearly, your words were something I needed to hear. Too bad you didn’t write this post on Saturday!
Thanks for this post, Bindu.
Discipline is something I have been learning over the past year. I’ve learned that writing a little every day keeps me from believing that I’m either “a writer” or “not a writer”…which is to say, “writer’s block” is irrelevant now and I don’t take it as a sign that I am not meant to be doing what I love. It’s also been interesting to see how *making time* to do what I love actually *creates time*, rather than me always being “too busy” to get writing in. Discipline also keeps the rewards of work coming, and I don’t rely as much anymore on outside validation. Self-worth and discipline go hand in hand for me.
.-= Juliana´s last blog ..Today is my “Before”… =-.
For me, I think of discipline as surrender, not as in I surrender to an opposing army but as in I surrender, swooning, into the arms of a lover. If
- I envision the practice to which I submit myself as my lover,
- love infuses the act of surrendering myself to the lover,
- in surrender I reach out, not closing but rather opening to the fullness of the experience, as my vulva, vagina, cervix and uterus swell with blood to support the sexual experience
then the whole experience of submission or surrender to discipline is transformed.
There are some things in life – especially, for me, I have noticed, the subtle experiencings of my emotions, soul, spirit and heart – that require aspects of to submission or surrender, an opening and turning toward, for me to experience them at all. Otherwise they pass unnoticed.
I *love* the experience of discipline when I think if it this way. One of my yoga teachers said that if we are ready, the experience will happen. (I’m sure this is not unfamiliar to many of you.) Surrendering in love to discipline is how I make myself ready.
Bindu, thank you for opening the space in which I can reconnect with the juiciness in me in relation to this topic.
Shulamit
This really is much of what my writing on fear was about. Commitment. It takes courage and discipline to commit. It takes courage to believe in yourself and believe in something enough to do it every day. Those require results and the expectations of you and others that move you to do more.
.-= C…´s last blog ..#215800 Challenge Day 4 of 21 =-.
Thank you for this challenge and the inspiration to take my life from amateur to professional. I’m a fantastic starter but it is that middle part that’s tricky. Thanks for shedding light on the middle today and reminding me that even though it’s not as sparkly or shiny as the beginning and the end it’s still well worth it. In one of my 800 word musings I decided to write about commitment and then I read your post on discipline today and they seem to be quite interrelated. Check it out if you feel called: http://katemoller.com/just-get-on-the-train-or-the-freedom-of-commitment/.
I like to keep discipline simple, and keep it sexy by letting the fireworks be all about my goal, not whether or not I’m putting the work into to get to my goal. So I still get fireworks, but no discipline drama!
This is written on my office wall:
Discipline is remembering what you want.
I’m not a middle person. I’m really a starter and a reluctant finisher. I usually hope for someone else who likes middles to come along and help me out
For me, middles are the danger point where I can get distracted into starting something else. I’ve avoided so many middles that way. Perhaps the answer is to team up with a group of 3 – a starter, a middler and a finisher. There is so much joy in collaboration and in recognising our strengths rather than our weaknesses.
In truth, though, everything has a middle. It’s the point where you can relax for a while and consider how the end is going to work out. It can last as long as you like. It is a space where indecision and ‘not knowing’ can exist. Perhaps it’s really the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end? That sounds better to me
OOOO Sinclair! I love the simplicity of that. Am borrowing it for my office wall as well!
Dawn, I love your idea of a team of 3. As long as all 3 share the final vision, it seems like a brilliant way to play to each others’ strengths.
.-= Tia´s last blog ..The annoying, self-defeating habit of the turtle-shell retreat. =-.
You’re right about the beginning and ending being packed full of motivation and energy and excitement. So, I find ways to eliminate the middle and beat back the boredom.
I use smaller goals and challenges (like the #215800) to spice it up. Find creative methods of motivation. Find smallish “beginnings and endings” to fill up the middle, so there’s no middle.
My husband says I’m more of a sprinter. So I sprint to different goals, all leading in the same direction – towards a bigger collective goal.
It works for me.
.-= mandythompson´s last blog ..There’s something about amazing art that mysteriously makes me want to cry… =-.
I made my way over her via Lindsey at Design so Vast and love what this is all about here, particularly 21.5.800. I am just days away from finishing my own self-imposed promise to blog something mindful about parenting every day for a year. I hope to tap into the encouragement pulsing at your blog to carry forward with the commitment to write daily on a work of fiction haunting my psyche. For now I just wanted to say thanks for being here and namaste
.-= Privilege of Parenting´s last blog ..When writing gets leathery =-.
I’m not a natural at following through – more of a starter than a farmer.
However, I notice that pretty much anything worth doing takes continued daily-ish effort over a period of years.
And most things that can be gained in three weekends are on pretty shaky ground at best.
I find the ordinary hard – which is why 215800 is helping. Just a wee bit of witnessing, a tiny bit of community helps so enormously.
.-= Andrew Lightheart @alightheart´s last blog ..How to worry less =-.
Ugh, I am so stuck in this middle at the moment!
I didn’t think this challenge was going to be very hard for me, as I write a lot and I have an almost daily yoga habit anyway, but the truth is, on days my almost-daily habit doesn’t happen, it is so hard to make it. And now I even feel cut off/unfitting into the 21.5.800 group. As if I’m the only one? >.<
I will keep on trying. I like you thoughts on becoming a pro at life. That's cool. I'm keeping that one.
So glad I slept on this one! Major lightbulb moment helped me “reframe” how I view what I’m “good” at or not. Ironic funny….Sinclair’s quote on discipline was reposted by a totally unrelated source on facebook yesterday too. Like the universe wanted to punctuate that point in my consciousness.
215800 is definitely helping me strengthen my discipline. I naturally do things on impulse (I’m a go-with-the-flow kinda gal), but having some measures set for me for 21 days is a good challenge. There have been days where I couldn’t fully reach 800 words (harder than I expected!) but I knew that it got me to write and that was the important thing
I think this project is a great way to start habits. I’m hoping that my writing and yoga habits I take from this stick with me afterwards.
.-= Bianca Filoteo´s last blog ..I’m not a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of girl =-.
My beginning did start off well and I know I have to fully embrace discipline because in the past it’s gotten me to finish projects and reach certain goals. What I’ve found during this ‘challenge’ is that something has shifted – between the yoga (which I was doing pretty regularly anyway) and the writing (which I was not) – and I’ve had to throw out discipline because I’m sick. It’s about self care now and maybe that’s what needs to happen to me during my middle. I need this time to rest, reflect, get better and then get back on my feet again. My body is taking the lead. I am still practicing some restorative poses so I haven’t completely taken a break, but my mind is too foggy to concentrate on writing. Only a little detour…
Definitely lots to consider about discipline. I guess I’m kind of a rebel and I tend to give myself permission to slack off a lot, just so I am able to keep a certain lightness in my life. In that sense, discipline works great for me, as long as it includes lots of playtime as well as work time. Too much seriousness can get in the way of longevity, when the idea is to engage in a long term fulfilling process.
What you have done is amazing!! I am watching from the sidelines (via twitter and reading your posts) and I am in awe of the community you have built around this project and the support that people are giving to each other. It’s a beautiful thing!
Although I love to write, and know I SHOULD do yoga, my top priorities for now (and the next 21 days) is to study for a huge and important medical exam (USMLE Step 1) and to run (my method of meditation). It would be a much more pleasant journey to have kindred spirits on this ride. Your project is a great model! Thank you!
.-= Sherry´s last blog ..More fathers on Fathers day =-.
well written blog. Im glad that I could find more info on this. thanks
Great stuff from you, man. Ive read your stuff before and youre just too awesome. I love what youve got here, love what youre saying and the way you say it. You make it entertaining and you still manage to keep it smart. I cant wait to read more from you. This is really a great blog.