The Goal Of Discipline Is To Outgrow It

Discipline is one of the most popular concepts when it comes to personal growth, and although it’s become slightly diluted, it remains one of the most important skills a person can build.

Discipline allows you to do what needs doing, even when it’s the last thing you feel like doing. 

A lot of people still rely on motivation. They think that if someone is to work hard and be successful, they have to have some sort of infinite source of rocket fuel propelling them forward.

But that’s rarely the case, because even the most motivated people on the planet have days when motivation completely disappears.

Motivation will take you to the store, pick up a brand new pen and notebook and write down all of your big plans. But it won’t always be there on the way to said plans. Like on the cold, dark, wet mornings with a 5-mile run ahead of you; to get up and go that day, you’ll need discipline.

Use motivation when it’s there, but never rely on it. The only reliable way of staying consistent through the ever-changing landscape of your feelings and life in general is discipline.

Therefore, this isn’t a question of whether you need it or not, we all do, especially early on.

The question is, will you always need it? And if not, what happens instead?

More Discipline = Less Discipline

Okay, this isn’t some sort of annoying counterintuitive idea that makes you think for longer than it’s worth. It’s actually really simple.

The more disciplined you become, the fewer opportunities and situations you’ll have to actually need that discipline. Let me explain.

Imagine you’ve just started working out, so you start taking it easy, but you know that eventually you want to take it seriously, well, that might mean going to the gym 6 days a week.

But, right now, getting yourself to the gym twice a week is hard enough. So you’re going to be relying quite heavily on discipline to get the number of your weekly gym sessions from 2 slowly up to 6.

But what happens after 6? Of course, workouts can progress, and you’ll still need discipline often enough just to maintain that number. But honestly? As the opportunities to increase difficulty decrease, so does the need for discipline.

Could you go to the gym 7 days a week? Yes, but that might start producing diminishing returns. 

Plus, this isn’t just about working out. As with anything, the more you improve, the less you’re able to.

What started as something you couldn’t improve without, and something that single-handedly dragged you from someone you hated being to someone you respect, slowly fades into an old friend you only speak to every so often.

This isn’t because it is losing its effectiveness, it’s simply due to you improving so much that you leave yourself less room for growth. And with less room for challenge comes fewer opportunities to need discipline.

When you struggle to wake up without snoozing your alarm 5 times, or eating chocolate daily, or can barely get yourself to the gym, discipline is everything.

But what happens when what you used to work so hard towards just becomes the norm?

Goals Turn to Standards

There’s a reason you don’t consider brushing your teeth or washing the dishes as being disciplined, and that’s because it’s your standard.

It takes effort, you don’t really want to do it, and yet you get it done without even thinking about it. It’s your very bare minimum.

And, just as these have become your standard, so too can everything else. 

You set a goal, work hard, use your discipline, achieve it, and then it becomes your standard. And once something is your standard, you tend not to allow yourself to fall below it.

To use the same example, reaching 6 gym sessions a week requires a lot of initial discipline, but once 6 is your standard, you’ll get them done without having to consciously think about it.

This is when NOT going to the gym 6 times starts feeling strange, and you may even need more discipline to take an extra rest day than you do to go 6 times. It may look like discipline to everyone else, but to you, it’s like brushing your teeth.

Apply this same principle with whatever else you can think of. Goals are hard, they need discipline, but old goals can become new standards, and with it, the reduced need for force.

It’s at this point that discipline becomes more of a sustainability tool. Now and again, heading out to one of the 6 sessions will feel like hell. Maybe you're tired, maybe your partner is threatening to leave you. It’s on these days that the discipline you’ve built over time can be put to good use.

But again, it’ll feel like an old friend, or lessons you have to re-learn over and over throughout life.

This isn’t me saying that discipline is useless. If discipline is used correctly, it’ll render itself obsolete.

If you’ve figured out what you want to do with your life and are working towards it, the chances are your days will look very similar as you’ve designed them to have the biggest impact on getting you there.

Initially, getting your days to look like this required discipline. But now? Failing to reach the bare minimum will feel worse than whatever minimal effort that’s required to reach it.

And this is okay. You know what you need to do and you’re doing it.

Discipline is one of the most impactful skills a person can build, but even discipline can be outgrown. Build it until you no longer need it!