On Discipline - Part 2

But how does one maintain and build this kind of discipline? At the best of times, I seem to cling to it tenuously. Maybe you can identify.

Author James Clear writes that we don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems. Expanding on that premise, Clear says the question to ask ourselves is not ‘what disciplines or habits do I need to form’, but instead ‘what kind of person do I want to be?’ The habits and systems then follow. 

In approaching discipline that way I am more likely to want to set up systems and build habits to achieve that outcome. Even so, the outcome is not the thing that needs to change, it is the systems that I set up and the habits that I build that precede it. I want a clean room, so I clean my room. But it’s a mess the next day. I need to establish some habits or systems to keep it that way. Make the bed every day. Put away my clothes before I go to bed.

It follows that in my spiritual life, if I want to be a man of faith and I allow that desire to guide me, I am more likely to make the kind of choices that are consistent with that. Or conversely not make the kind of choices that prevent that reality. 

The same is true of the fitness analogy. I don’t really want to go to the gym 3 times a week. But I do want to be a healthy person that lives long enough to enjoy my kids and someday grandkids. So I’m going to try and keep that picture in front of me and hence will be more likely to create systems and build habits that bring that to pass.

Who are you now and who do you want to be? What systems are you putting in place that will help you form the habits necessary to see that result come to pass?