Two Reasons Might Explain Your Lack of Self-Discipline

Photo by Diana Schröder-Bode on Unsplash

No matter how isolated you are, your mind will never be alone. It will be rich in knowledge and ideas. It will never be bored or feel lonely. That’s the power of a rich mind. ~ Darius Foroux

The sentences I heard the most during this global pandemic lockdown were:

“I feel so bored. I watched all the movies and series on Netflix. I played all the games. I tried so many new dishes recipes. I don’t know what else I can do to kill the time. Can’t wait for this nightmare to end. When are things going to come back to normal?”

Living on auto-pilot

You got the point! Those are the people who have been living on auto-pilot, whose self-awareness endowment has been out of service their whole existence, who are too attached to their familiar patterns, who derive their worth from the outside, who stopped learning from a very early age — and I am excluding the educational system and the news here which are anything but coming from the curiosity to grow and create, who are pure consumers and who entirely depend on their impulses.

This category of individuals feels bored quickly because they stopped being curious, wondering, and creating. Result? They unconsciously look for a distraction. This quick-fix numbs their anxiety and only postpones their suffering until the next well-being illusional means they would use.

Truth is this pandemic has nothing to do with their lack of self-discipline. They had the chance of their life to break their denial circle, start pondering and set themselves free from the prison of their life-time of conditioning, and what did they do with it? They threw it away and added more distractions to the long list.

They are unable to stop looking for those quick fixes or produce anything of high quality because it takes two main ingredients:

• Passion: one of the manifestations of your emotional intelligence, the fire in your heart, a drive much bigger than yourself, your day-dreaming tendency which makes you smile peacefully, visualizing how you might serve and contribute to making this world a better place for the generations unborn & other living creatures — how you honor the life you’ve been granted, as well as mother nature!

• Being principle-centered: why is that relevant at all? Because there are three groups of people who would produce an output of high quality — the perfectionists/top-performers who are deriving their sense of self-worth from their achievements, the principled servant leaders, and many manipulators who have an incredible capacity to memorize gigantic amounts of data. This latter observation confirmed by many experts is most probably an acquired coping mechanism to compensate for their lack of character and inability to create. Everything they produce is learned or stolen. It is so common they take credit for someone else idea or excellent work. I’m pretty sure you all knew someone like this at some point in your career, given they are sadly so many.

More to the point, those who produce the highest quality outputs and who will never get bored, at the same time, are the passionate servant leaders!

It is crucial to understand narcissists, psychopaths, and other disturbed individuals and tormented souls don’t suffer, in general, from any lack of self-discipline. Even for the covert / vulnerable narcissists who tend to portray themselves as victims most of the time, they don’t really struggle. Interestingly, they are the laziest ones and love taking advantage of your kindness, as simple as that.

Manipulators are the masters of self-discipline because they are too selfish. They never lose sight of their self-serving goals. They are also talented in terms of technical skills, given what has been introduced above — their memorization incredible capacities.

Hence, it is no surprise we find them on the executive board in most organizations. It is a reality that breaks my heart daily. But, let’s agree on something: not anyone who is self-disciplined is a manipulator!

Some kind souls happen to have a very high IQ level they developed over the years and love what they are doing as a job even when it is not their inner talent. What they love, in reality, is the recognition and celebration whenever producing excellent output. They are chasing that validation.

Also, servant leaders who have been successful in developing their four forms of intelligence, reaching their wholeness balance, and maintaining it will automatically and gradually become disciplined — while always making space for flexibility!

Should you be interested, I explored the wholeness concept in detail here. 

Setting the servant leader in you free

As counterintuitive as it may sound, whenever you re-write the invasive subconscious program, destroy your limiting beliefs vehiculated to you by your environment, and break free from your life-time of conditioning, you may drastically struggle with self-discipline — at least for a while!

Your curiosity will become limitless. Your rich mind is constantly alert. You reconnect again with the natural giver in you. You struggle, in general, with channeling your energy and efforts effectively whenever some topic sparkles your interest and that you feel the urge to educate others around it.

Moreover, you become aware of the human dimension implying much more flexibility than when dealing with “things”. It is, specifically, what is removing the guilt attribute whenever you screw up in respecting your schedule. You are a slave to your planner.

There are times when principle-centered « Important but not urgent » living requires the subordination of schedules to people. ~ Stephen Covey

 

A third sub-reason is the time and help that you need to better your birth’s gifts & talents which you need to discover. If you are lucky, you may meet your mentor who would see some potential of which you are not aware yet, who would take a chance on you, guide & empower you, give you space to do things wholeheartedly, including making mistakes!

Early in my adult life, someone saw the potential within me that far exceeded what I saw in myself. He saw beneath the surface, beyond the obvious and evident. He looked into my heart & eyes & spirit and saw the raw, undeveloped, unseen seeds of greatness that lie within each one of us. So, he entrusted me with a charge and responsibility far beyond my experience and perceived ability. He gave me his trust without evidence; without proof. He simply believed and expected I would rise to the challenge, and he treated me accordingly. It was an act of faith. But that act of faith so affirmed my worth and potential that I was inspired to see it in myself. I aspired to the highest and most noble inclinations within me. I was not perfect, but how I grew! It also became a philosophy of life to me. Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don’t see — their potential. ~ Stephen Covey

 

Last thoughts

If you struggle with self-discipline, you should celebrate yourself for a trivial reason: you are a kind soul!

Whether you see yourself in the folks who are still living on auto-pilot or belong to the freshly unleashed servant leaders, there is hope for you. 😊

The self-discipline process will be longer for the first group, given they will first need to rewire their subconscious program. But, listen, you are a seed of greatness, waiting for you to clean the conditioning dust.

Now, you hopefully know better about the root causes of your lack of self-discipline.

Choose wisely, and your future self, humanity, and the universe will be grateful to you!