☠️ Progress is Everything (but Anxiety is a Killer)
[ 5 Min Read ]Keeping Consistent without Anxiety?
🤬 I HATE being disciplined, and yet it is THE ONLY way to keep growing consistently.
The absolute WORST response ever.
For the better part of my life, I always thought that I just wasn’t cut for discipline.
On the occasions that I had to force myself to stick rigidly to a plan, I always thought that pain and suffering were part of the game.
I always believed that effort and suffering were the only ways to exercise and increase my willpower. Most of the time, this causes me a great deal of stress and anxiety.
When I fell off the wagon, I always felt miserable. A Failure, a complete disappointment. This ended up making me believe, or better (making up excuses), that. I was just not cut for those things; I was more of a “Free spirit.” All that BS.
There must be a better way!
As I grew older, I HAD to stick to plans and discipline, and that is where I started approaching the challenges in the absolute worst way possible. I decided that I had to toughen up and be a BIG BOY.
I should shut up and suffer in silence if I wanted to achieve the desired results.
In the end, I usually did. But at a very high cost. I felt absolutely exhausted, anxious, and stressed.
This was not very healthy for me. Often reached the point of burning out and quitting altogether. I observed a very similar pattern in the business environments. Believing that pushing people to their breaking point is in some way justified. Work It’s work, no?
I wondered If this was the only way to look at the problem.
I truly believe that there must be a better way.
The Beauty of Discipline
A few years ago, I read a passage by Alan Watts, the British philosopher who liked the concept of Discipline with Skills and Art.
“You can’t enjoy any pleasure in life without Skills and Art…
It isn’t an unpleasant task to learn a skill… There is immense pleasure in learning how to do anything skillfully. Discipline is a way of expression.
This concept truly struck a chord, and I started wondering what it meant for me.
How could I Learn a skill in a masterful way free of dread, anxiety, or stress?
To me, All you need is a methodology, a SYSTEM that allows you to evaluate your progress gradually and in a controlled manner.
The key to maintaining discipline and consistency is to adopt a framework that is strict enough to guide you but flexible enough to cut you some slack.
This inspired me to develop the Play
100 Days of…
This Play is a sort of Habit tracker with 100 checkboxes (Days or Actions) that I should complete (ideally consecutively).
To avoid anxiety, I embedded below the 100 Days another set of checkboxes that I named Makeups.
In this manner, I can keep track of my progress but allow myself the occasion to make up if I accidentally I fall off the wagon.
The only rule that I set for myself is that I won't allow myself to not progress for more than three consecutive days.
The third empty box, to me, is the red flag 🚩 that I need to get back on track.
🖋️ Pro-tip: For maximum efficiency, try to set a specific time or location to check ☑️ your progress.
Takeaway
This system isn’t perfect, but it is a good starting point to ‘materialize’ my progress and, at the same time, be gentle to myself. Last but not least, I always keep in mind that there is no pleasure in life without Skills or Art. This is my progress toward becoming more skilled at whatever I’m tracking.
Inspire:
What if we could change the paradigm and see discipline as growing a skill rather than leveraging our willpower?
Challenge:
Discipline doesn't have to be a dreadful, painful process. It could be a gentle journey leading to consistent growth and betterment.
Disrupt:
We have to build a system/framework like the 100Days Play that is strict enough to keep us on track but flexible enough to allow us to be mindful of ourselves.
💬 Let me know in the comments if you want to try this framework.
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