The 2nd post of Pavlina's on Self-Discipline is here, called Self-Discipline: Acceptance.
He begins by defining acceptance, in the context of Self-Discipline.
The first of the five pillars of self-discipline is acceptance. Acceptance means that you perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what you perceive.
This may sound simple and obvious, but in practice it’s extremely difficult. If you experience chronic difficulties in a particular area of your life, there’s a strong chance that the root of the problem is a failure to accept reality as it is.
Why is acceptance a pillar of self-discipline? The most basic mistake people make with respect to self-discipline is a failure to accurately perceive and accept their present situation. Remember the analogy between self-discipline and weight training from yesterday’s post? If you’re going to succeed at weight training, the first step is to figure out what weights you can already lift. How strong are you right now? Until you figure out where you stand right now, you cannot adopt a sensible training program.
If you haven’t consciously acknowledged where you stand right now in terms of your level of self-discipline, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to improve at all in this area. Imagine a would-be bodybuilder who has no idea how much weight s/he can lift and arbitrarily adopts a training routine. It’s virtually certain that the chosen weights will be either too heavy or too light. If the weights are too heavy, the trainee won’t be able to lift them at all and thus will experience no muscle growth. And if the weights are too light, the trainee will lift them easily but won’t build any muscle in doing so.
Similarly, if you want to increase your self-discipline, you must know where you stand right now. How strong is your discipline at this moment? Which challenges are easy for you, and which are virtually impossible for you?
I can't see much wrong with this section - "know where you are", like "be where you are now", being both a great spiritual understanding, and a pragmatic and practical, and necessary way to move forward in the real world.
But, as he mentions, the difficulty is in the "knowing". In some things, I have self-discipline (as an example, today has been a completely focused day - I am writing this coming off a 5 mile run, as well as an hour and a half doing weights in the gym, and in the morning, a 30 minute meditation, as well as cleaning up the house. I've been focused all day today, and yes, it is good! But tomorow? May be another story!), but in others (giving up sugar, being more proactive in career), my discipline is, how shall I say it, close to non-existent?
Then Steve lists various ways to take inventory of one's discipline:
Similarly, if you want to increase your self-discipline, you must know where you stand right now. How strong is your discipline at this moment? Which challenges are easy for you, and which are virtually impossible for you?
Here’s a list of challenges to get you thinking about where you stand right now (in no particular order):
* Do you shower/bathe every day?
* Do you get up at the same time every morning? Including weekends?
* Are you overweight?
* Do you have any addictions (caffeine, nicotine, sugar, etc.) you’d like to break but haven’t?
* Is your email inbox empty right now?
* Is your office neat and well organized?
* Is your home neat and well organized?
* How much time do you waste in a typical day? On a weekend?
* If you make a promise to someone, what’s the percentage chance you’ll keep it?
* If you make a promise to yourself, what’s the percentage chance you’ll keep it?
* Could you fast for one day?
* How well organized is your computer’s hard drive?
* How often do you exercise?
* What’s the greatest physical challenge you’ve ever faced, and how long ago was it?
* How many hours of focused work do you complete in a typical workday?
* How many items on your to do list are older than 90 days?
* Do you have clear, written goals? Do you have written plans to achieve them?
* If you lost your job, how much time would you spend each day looking for a new one, and how long would you maintain that level of effort?
* How much TV do you currently watch? Could you give up TV for 30 days?
* How do you look right now? What does your appearance say about your level of discipline (clothes, grooming, etc)?
* Do you primarily select foods to eat based on health considerations or on taste/satiety?
* When was the last time you consciously adopted a positive new habit? Discontinued a bad habit?
* Are you in debt? Do you consider this debt an investment or a mistake?
* Did you decide in advance to be reading this blog right now, or did it just happen?
* Can you tell me what you’ll be doing tomorrow? Next weekend?
* On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your overall level of self-discipline?
* What more could you accomplish if you could answer that last question with a 9 or 10?
Just as there are different muscle groups which you train with different exercises, there are different areas of self-discipline: disciplined sleep, disciplined diet, disciplined work habits, disciplined communication, etc. It takes different exercises to build discipline in each area.
My advice is to identify an area where your discipline is weakest, assess where you stand right now, acknowledge and accept your starting point, and design a training program for yourself to improve in this area. Start out with some easy exercises you know you can do, and gradually progress to greater challenges.
For what this recommends, it sounds great - but it is important to recognize the ability to do the above ALREADY pre-supposes a host of skills:
a. The ability to be honest with oneself, WITHOUT collapsing into "I'm a failure"
b. The ability to, patiently, analyze oneself, for various and distinct areas of life.
c. The ability to plan successfully, for various types and forms of discipline.
So, if one is moderately disciplined, or weakly disciplined, there is a very real chance that the "self-analysis"called for above, will never actually happen.
An example of this - the inventory mode for Getting Things Done. That is something I have failed to do, because you have to get everything together, that takes a few days, and I've never gotten it together enough to be "organized enough to get organized".
The same failure principle applies here, and Pavlina glosses over it.
The rest of this particular post is the typical "rags to riches" spiel - NEEDED, but you find the same spiel in any self-transformation book - the ugly duckling becomes a swan!:
I have personally reaped tremendous benefits from pursuing the path of self-discipline. When I was 20 years old, I lived in a small studio apartment, and my sleep hours were something like 4am to 1pm. My diet included lots of fast food and junk food. I didn’t exercise except for sometimes taking long walks. Getting the mail seemed like a significant accomplishment each day, and the highlight of my day was hanging out with friends. At the end of a month, I couldn’t really think of many salient events that occurred during the month. I had no job, no car, no income, no goals, no plans, and no real future. All I felt I had was a lot of problems that weren’t getting any better. I had no sense that I could control my path through life. I would simply wait for things to happen and then react to them.
But eventually I faced the reality that trying to wait out my life wasn’t working. If I was going to get anywhere, I was going to have to do something about it. And initially this meant tackling a lot of difficult challenges, but I overcame them and grew a lot stronger in a short period of time.
Fast forward fourteen years, and it’s like night and day. I get up at 5am each morning. I exercise six days a week. I eat a purely vegan diet with lots of fresh vegetables. My home office is well organized. My physical inbox and my email inbox are both empty. I’m married with two kids and live in a nice house. A binder sits on my desk with my written goals and detailed plans to achieve them, and several of my 2005 goals have already been accomplished. I’ve never been more clear about what I wanted, and I’m doing what I love. I know I’m making a difference.
Now, that's great for him. I have a feeling though, that again, the ability for sustained focus, capacity for organization, no "self-sabatoge", existed for Steve Pavlina at the age of 20. Many of us are battling other demons, which are also glossed over.Lastly, a point - this series isn't about tearing down Steve Pavlina, or any other self-transformation guru. And the advice Pavlina gives, IS very good, and very practical. But I want to flesh out a deeper, fuller, picture, not the cardboard cutout version of "self-improvement rags to riches".
Thoughts, as always, are appreciated!
