Where Did I Get Discipline Part 2

We were talking about the D word - and  actually, there are probably two sources for my slowly acquired, still in process, personal discipline. 

Now remember, I have been praying for years for discipline.  I read The Disciplined Life  several times, starting in my teens.  But knowledge about discipline does not make one disciplined.  No, I think what has helped me the most is this:  witnessing others' undisciplined lives. Observing the result of a life time of undisciplined living has taken me past desire for discipline to implementation - that and hormones that disturb my sleep.

I saw that just a little over eating or over spending is not a big deal in your 20's and 30's.  It is easy to fix those in the short term with Jenny Craig and credit cards. But when those habits continue and  creep into your 40's and beyond, the snowball effect gets huge.  All the sudden you can't lose weight easily or get a higher paying job and there is no quick fix. Plus years of bad habits take a long time to break.  

So when faced with a choice to be disciplined or not, I just thought about what the undisciplined decision would look like multiplied by a thousand in ten years, and it was much easier to get up and run, not buy the dress, clean out the drawer, do the hard thing now.

And my second source of discipline I must attribute to the movie What About Bob and the writer/blogger  FlyLady(.www.flylady.net/‎ )

I realized from Bob that change begins with baby steps. Discipline is not one big leap from 3 snoozes to getting up early for the rest of my life - it is just the baby steps of getting up and putting my feet on the floor when the alarm rings today.  I didn't run a marathon in January of 2011, I just laced up my shoes and started running a few steps for one day. The next day I did it again. Baby steps, in almost any area, are doable.

From Fly Lady, I realized discipline does not have to be done perfectly to work. I always started with these big plans to get up early, run, have a quiet time, etc. Sometimes I only got so far as making the plan before I quit- it overwhelmed me.  But now I have grace in my plan which allows for  imperfect results..  For example,  I may get up early 4 of 7 days a week and I'll accept that.  I don't have to quit because I didn't make it all 7.  And with running, I may walk some - that does not ruin it.  What I did run works and I can think of  the walking as a cool down. if I miss a day on my schedule, I don't have to start all over - i just pick up and keep going.

Tomorrow - I will tell you about the area of my life where discipline still eludes me.

Baby steps,
TVW