Word of the Week – Discipline

by Clark Hibbs

I’m pretty excited to bring about a new series for the blog. The title will be pretty self explanatory…

“Word of the Week”

Tah-dah! Each week, I’ll write and talk a little bit about a particular word that I believe holds some value for all of you. I aim to have these done and posted for Monday mornings to give you some food for thought for the week! (Bit of a fail this week… I’ll make it up next week, promise.)

The inaugural word of the week: discipline.

There are a few ways you can use the word. The most common are either as a verb or noun. For example, you could look at discipline in the realm of punishment (the verb). “To punish or rebuke someone for an offense.” I don’t necessarily want you to associate punishment with discipline this week.

Here’s how I want you to look at and be mindful of discipline.

“Discipline: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.”

There are many things in life that we know we should do, yet we make the conscious (or subconscious) decisions to avoid them, or not execute them fully. This could be anything from making a better decision about what food to get at a company lunch, getting out of bed in the morning to get to the gym, completing projects on time, or even pushing yourself a bit harder in your workouts. Every day we are making decisions. 

Discipline is what’s going to get you closer to your goals, no matter what your goals are. If your goal is to lose weight, have the discipline to monitor your nutrition. If your goal is to save money, have the discipline to stop spending it. If your goal is to get that promotion, have the discipline to show up and execute your job better than anyone else in the office. I truly believe we all have the inherent ability to be disciplined. What the majority of us need to work on is recognizing our discipline, or lack thereof, and act on it. 

There’s a Navy SEAL named Jocko Willink. He’s blown up recently with his aggressive “go get it” tone on social media, multiple Ted Talks, and plenty of appearances on the big name Podcasts (Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, etc). Jocko has a saying that is having a massive effect on lots of people…  

Discipline equals freedom.

Seems slightly contradictory, right? Discipline should feel regimented, structured, and boxed in… right? Discipline has no room for creativity, fun, or time off….yes? 

Not according to Jocko.

“The more discipline you have, the more freedom you have. I have financial freedom because I have financial discipline. I have more time in the day to do what I want to because I have the discipline to get up early every day. I have freedom to do anything physically because I have the discipline to workout.”

**Drops the mic** 

This week, let’s train our discipline to help mold, correct, or perfect our mental faculties, physical capabilities, and/or moral character.

Put your discipline on display.

-Clark

#YouCanDoThis

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