Sustainable discipline — a discipline that works
By: Andrei Moldovanu
Tags: Discipline, Detachment, Psychology, Personal Development, Addiction

In my 3rd day of quitting sugar, 1st day without a cigarette I had a massive triggering fight with someone that I love. All these cravings, speaking of either nicotine, sugar or love, have something in common. They all drive subconscious behaviours in most people. And when they don’t, by opposing the craving, there is a massive clash between previous patterns and emerging ones.

That’s why there are industries of addiction and industries of rehabilitation.

This clash between old and new can take quite a few forms in the context of discipline. Most common one is based on resistance, with the underlying layer of motivation being the most spread one. You want to quit sugar and you resist the cravings until the craving pushes you back to the previous behaviour. What keeps you going while you resist? Motivation.

Motivation is not enough

Motivation is like a liquid from the perspective that it has multiple forms it can take. There is no pure motivation to be found. It’s all like the air we breathe, composed from many bits that drive our minds and bodies towards something. Under its purest form, motivation is the one made out of discipline, and it ignites action just by us choosing to do something , without a biological or psychological drive (or even in face of adversities). Let’s take a look at what happens when we try to overcome an old pattern with it.

You decide to do something. You try, do it for a while and then fail. When you fail you can see for yourself that nothing from your intention or mindset since you took the decision to approach a new behaviour or to kill an old one. Yet you are back in point A.

Behind this, there is a psychological mechanism that makes it clear why we can refrain from something with no problem for a day or two but fail rapidly in the next one. We will call this the “paper wall”. The paper will resist a splash of water, but under constant waves it will end up dissolved. Same goes when we resist something for a long time counting only on our pure motivation. It’ll work perfect for you to not hit someone on public transport, but it won’t help you to be kind with everyone if you’re not into that state naturally.

It’s like an immense power that comes at a great cost. Just like running a sprint. You can do it, and it’s amazing but it won’t last for too long. Some people might sprint for 80m others for others 200m before losing speed. Either way, no one sprints at their maximum speed for 1000m, so optimising how and where to engage motivation is crucial if you’re not looking to be out of breath after a 300m in a 42K run.

Practical tips for sustainable discipline — What’s there to be done?

Don’t commit to achievements, commit to trying.

The biggest downer that comes with a failure, if we get past the fact that we are not the centre of the Universe, is that we stop trying. People often start a diet, do it for a couple days and then they fail. They fail once and they continue that chain of behaviour. It’s all understandable, nothing “good” or “bad” in a situation like this. The real problem is that they go through long recovery times before starting again. And they lose momentum and because often behaviour overwrites mindset, they end up losing their grip on a change that it could grant them a better life.

I quit smoking far more many times then I can remember. Sometimes I failed after one hour, other times I just decided to get back after a couple months or years. If I look at what created long lasting change I can clearly see that where I’ve put more effort into closing the gap between tries there was consistency on the long-term afterwards.

It’s simple math. If in one month I try and fail to stop smoking 5 times after 2 days, I’m going to smoke less than if I try only once.

2. Know your shit

The quality of that “paper wall” is often strengthened by the knowledge you have. In times of despair for a coffee or for putting your hands in your pants there will be plenty of thought to befriend yourself with the idea of going back to point A. It’s the mind finding excuses in one way or another for which it might be ok to wait for a while or to not try at all. I say the mind, but the mind is influenced in its turn by the emotions, the body which resorts to all sorts of neurotransmitters to get that pleasant feeling back.

Knowledge proves to be a bullshit barrier through which you protect yourself from yourself. Not being aware that you will be a different human later can be marked as an empathy gap. That’s when your current self can’t empathize with the future you. So, expect the good and the worst, answering as many objections in advance whilst also feeding the mind with the intention behind your change. In the end, bringing sense into suffering makes it bearable.

Taking your own route

Another aspect is mapping. There are quite a few ways to get to the same destination. Let’s take health. We can assume that everyone looks for the same thing at different levels. Having a good flow of energy and mood, functioning at our peak capacities and so on. It’s quite a universal concept of health. Imagine health being a destination. Will the instructions for Norway and Sweden be the same as the ones for Spain and Portugal? No. Often, we move in darkness because we try things that we never did before. Having a brief idea of the challenges that will be ahead can take you a great distance forward. You will get the chance to see difficulties as part of the process instead of seeing them as your own weaknesses.

3. Social support — friends, family, mentors

I remember my first discipline challenges around high-school. I had no “muscles” of discipline back then so to be able to do something that would require discipline solely because I want to would appear impossible. It was my first try of an Oshawa diet, 10 days of hell where I literally cried for food. One thing kept me on track, having a mentor. It was just this idea of trusting what someone smarter than me, in a way that I wanted to become. It was about respect and the joy of sharing that experience with him.

Now mentors might not be around for some people, so we can look at friends and in some cases family. Assuming what’s worst about the human nature, people won’t be to supportive if they didn’t go through the same process at some point or if they are not going through it at the same time with you. If you are smart enough you will be surrounded with people that either want or that they already achieved what you’re seeking from life. Having expectations from people that don’t belong to one of those categories is naive in most cases and can potentially bring a lot of disappointment.

It’s important to keep the drive for our goal consistent and grounded both within and outside at the same time. Going too much outside, and making it all social, for a public rather than for yourself as well as taking it all inside you 100% can be good only in certain conditions, treating yourself with self-care.

The easiest way is to find someone who would go through the same process as you or just someone that you respect enough to honour your accountability promises to him or her.

4. Detachment

A thing that put nicotine, sugar and love in the same box was my response to them when they overstepped my intention. Instead of resisting the splash of water, I just move myself a few steps back. Just enough to stay dry. This psychological mechanism is not flawless either. If there’s a big splash or if I don’t know how to get inside when it’s raining, I’m still screwed. This is detachment.

As cool as it sounds, in most contexts that I’ve been, detachment proved to be poorly understood. Not because my sense of it is better but because most people use it without having a map of this concept at all. I will leave this as it is, for everyone to surf around what detachment is, and I will jump onto some ways that I cultivate it. If I’m not mistaken, showing how it was brought to me, might give an insight in how I see it.

Before going another sentence forward there is something important to mention. You need relevant contexts to practice. There’s no use reading books on it whilst living in a continuous shady comfort with no challenge. You can get a conceptual understanding of detachment but unless you challenge it it’s like training in a Fiat for a F1 race. Now let’s look at some principles behind it:

Everything is temporary

image from reddit r/pics

One of the first things that you learn about how to manage a bad psychedelic trip is to be aware that everything is temporary. I won’t go into the dept of this one. Important to mention that real detachment comes not only by being aware that whatever’s unpleasant will end at some point but also by being aware that the same goes with the things that we enjoy.

At first it will seem artificial and hard to comprehend emotionally but in time, with conscious reminders not only before an experience but also afterwards it will become clear and build towards being ok with whatever comes.

I was, I am, and I will be the best version of myself

This goes under the category where we find understanding for our limits as well as for our greatest powers. If you look at a practical level, we are indeed the best thing we can be in each moment. If things are not how we want them it is because we’re not there yet or simply because we have an altered view of how things should be. I got this insight inspired by a good friend who happens to be an amazing artist. I have no reference for it but you can check his art here.

There’s a lot of proof to think that things are perfect as they are at a larger scale without stripping us from our responsibilities. For me this took the pressure of being in a certain way and judging less when I’m not in my best shape for life. Taking down weight from your shoulders helps you take distance between you and the water. Could you imagine moving on sand with a backpack full of rocks? That’s the pressure.

I am here for myself

It’s really comforting to know that there’s someone there for you. In times of despair when even the closest friends seem apart from me I find comfort in reminding that I have myself and that I’m here no matter how many times I fail or get through tough times. This works well especially around social addiction.

A potential trap here is to get all into “I love myself and that’s all that it matters” ignoring other forms of nurture as being inferior. I am not here to say who you are, but for most of the people and from my experience, there is no way to just replace the human contact. There are plenty exceptions but most of us do seek for approval and acceptance of our peers.

I am experiencing this, but this is not who I am

Being able to defy the illusion of the experience is the ultimate form of detachment. It’s a place where you overlay the experience of getting wet whilst you are dry at the same time. It is not the question if you can do it or not. Neither the question of if in fact this is what’s happening right now. For both the answer is YES. The only thing that you must invest in is tuning into that perspective. For this, countless ways to explore, the intention on its own is one.