Let’s Ditch the Discipline Dilemma

I’ve been thinking about the concept of discipline this past week.

After all, we’re at the beginning of the year, and January is when most gym memberships are made, among other resolutions.

I recently joined a gym program online and feel very motivated to complete it. I had the brilliant idea to do it together with my husband and his sister, so we are keeping each other accountable.

Maybe the word we hear most often is discipline, especially when it comes to renewing our habits and creating a new beginning for achieving our goals.

Chills, anyone? Did your hair experience a tingling sensation? Did you maybe cringe a bit?

It feels like something big. Discipline and change.

I want to introduce minimalism to our home. I imagine myself taking out all the things we don’t use or don’t bring us joy. But it feels like pressure, like a trend. As much as I would like to achieve minimalism, with three small kids, it is no small feat. This requires a lot of patience from myself and towards the actual goal. It is not necessarily about discipline but about inner fulfillment—an energy for releasing what doesn’t serve us as a family.

Almost everyone I talk to complains about not having enough discipline. As if you can get a bag of discipline and feel better.

Perhaps this is also your “weak point"—that you can’t stick to what you set out to do.

• Routines just don’t stick to you.
• You start with a lot of energy and motivation, then you give up and do nothing.
• The energy around your motivation disappears somehow.
• Yes, discipline is important!
• Consistency is important!

The energy around “discipline” can be rigid and lacking in flexibility.

We need a more feminine, gentle, and permissive approach.

This approach, however, shouldn’t lead to neglect. It should help us direct our energy and action toward our desires.

Instead of discipline, how about 🙏 practicing dedication & devotion? 🙏

Think about dedication and devotion that honor your body, your mind, and your life.

You don’t start doing pilates every morning because that’s what your calendar reminder says and because you have to be disciplined.

For me, this approach doesn’t work. It feels like homework, and I remember how traumatizing homework was when I was in school. If anything feels like homework to me in my adult life, I tend to reject it. Or I need to look at it from a different point of view.

Think differently!

I started thinking about my devotion to my body.

Maybe sometimes it’s not pilates. It’s aerobics or running.

For me, it doesn’t work to exercise just because I said I needed to exercise. It is messed up to believe there’s no other way, and if I miss a day, I fail.

Devotion to your own body is expressed in so many other ways!

You don’t start organizing your finances because that’s what you set out to do and because you have discipline. But because you have dedication and respect for your own life, you understand the greater purpose of this.

Masculine energy structures take initiative and apply pressure to succeed and accomplish rigid goals. We need that too, to an extent.

Feminine energy has devotion and dedicates itself to something pure.

It treats things with respect. It treats itself with respect.

Does it make sense?

I’m not a structured person. I need a lot of change and diversity. No external influence can make me do something I don’t want to, don’t feel like, or don’t see the purpose of.

But I am a dedicated person.

I seek to understand the purpose behind it, and once I understand, I bring a lot of energy to everything I do. Especially if the purpose comes from my inner willingness to achieve something. That is the good type of energy I need to find in myself.

When I experience a disorder or don’t get what I want, I realize later that this is the universe’s feedback. It tells me I didn’t respect something enough.

Structure comes, sometimes, as a form of dedication and devotion to that thing.

How does dedication & devotion versus discipline sound to you?

I’m curious if there’s any difference or if it feels like two similar concepts.

---

***I originally published this story on Medium.***

💗 Thank you for reading! I appreciate your support.💗

You could also buy me a coffee or a tea and/or let me know your ideas in the comments section.