362 Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ How to Be More Disciplined in Life

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 362. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. Today we talk about how to be more disciplined in life and how to make discipline a habit.

This is a really juicy episode. We started out having two different perspectives on what discipline is and what it looks like and feels like to each of us. Interestingly our perspective on discipline was also very different to the official dictionary definitions and we were kind of shocked when we looked at what the dictionary considers discipline to be.

So whether you already consider yourself to be a disciplined person or not, this episode will help you have something for you. I think I am a pretty disciplined person and I really got a lot out of this conversation and it kind of helped me understand why I am good at being disciplined about certain things and why I am not going at being disciplined at other things.

So what will you learn in today’s episode? We talk about what is discipline and why it’s important. We discuss how discipline is different from willpower and hustle, because some people get them all confused. We talk about how discipline is related to commitment, how to use discipline to achieve goals and make new habits. We ask the question: can anything ever be truly effortless and should effortless be the goal? Both of us have talked about effortless and things being easy and effortless a lot in the past and so I think this is a really important question for us to ask in particular. We also discuss how discipline is related to the subconscious, how to get started being disciplined, even if you think you’re not good at it. And finally, how to develop discipline in your life and make it a habit.

 

I hope you find this episode interesting and useful – I think it is super juicy. So without further ado here is the conversation on discipline.

 

Holly: Hi Joanna.

Joanna: Hi Holly.

Holly: I am super-excited about our topic today.

Joanna: We are always excited about our topics.

Holly: {laughing} Not always!! Sometimes you are a bit reluctant.

Joanna: Okay, that’s fair.

Holly: So today we are talking about discipline and you were actually the inspiration for today’s topic, because this is something you have been thinking about, you brought this to the table.

Joanna: I have been thinking about it because as part of the monthly message that I channeled for the month of June, which is the month that we are in as we record this, the message was all about taking inspired action and part of it was about leaning into discipline but not so far as to go into hustle. So it has been something that I have been playing with and thinking about in the soul space group that I run, somebody asked me: what’s up with this discipline piece, isn’t that just pushing yourself to do that stuff, isn’t that against everything that soulsmart stands for, and the intuitive flow-y way, of living.

So I just thought it was a really good thing to get into because I have been thinking about it in my life as well. And yes, so that’s how it came up. Interestingly, when we started talking about discipline, we found that we weren’t talking about the same thing, so Holly looked it up. Do you want to read out some of the definitions you found?

Holly: Yeah! So I looked up some dictionary definitions and they surprised me, they are not what I think of discipline as…some of them. So what is discipline?

“The ability to control yourself or other people even in difficult situations.

To teach someone to behave in a controlled way

The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour.

Using punishment to correct disobedience.”

Ugh! I have a much more positive opinion of discipline than control, obey, correct, punishment. I think of discipline as being a really positive thing. Before we looked this up, what is your overall feeling about discipline, I like it. {laughing}

Joanna: {laughing} Well I have been playing with it for a couple of weeks now, so I am liking it a little bit more than I did. But have to say that my kind of natural reaction would be along the lines of some of these definitions, maybe not as far into punishment but kind of I would be coming at it from the perspective of…you wouldn’t need discipline if it was something that was enjoyable to you. You wouldn’t need to have discipline and willpower in order to do it then because it would be something that you would just do because you want to. So in my mind it has always been linked to getting yourself to doing something that you know you should do but you are not doing because it is hard.

Holly: Right. So how is discipline different from willpower then, is it the same?

Joanna: I think, off the top of my head, because you have just surprised me with that question there Holly! {laughing} I think willpower is more internal, they have done studies on willpower and they have found that we have a finite amount.

Holly: Ooh.

Joanna: That’s why it is best to do the stuff that requires willpower in the morning. And also that you run out, so it is not a surprise that you are going to go for the cookies in the evening.

Holly: Okay, so each day do you have a finite amount of willpower? When does it reset, is it like weekly, monthly? How fascinating.

Joanna: Apparently it is daily, gosh, since you haven’t heard, I have no idea where I read this but I have read stuff about studies.

Holly: How fascinating.

Joanna: But it is still associated with a very kind of forceful way of living, making yourself do something that you don’t enjoy, like maybe running at 5am, setting the alarm for 5am and going running or all the examples escape me that take place at 5 in the morning, I don’t want to be up at that time!

Holly: As you were talking, I googled the definition of willpower and it is exactly what you are saying. So willpower is the ability to resist short term gratification in pursuit of long-term goals or objectives, so yes.

Joanna: So actually that brings us nicely into the most important piece, which is that discipline and willpower, I have come to the conclusion based on my own example that I am trying to lead a healthier lifestyle let’s say, so I am trying to lose the next bit of weight and I am doing it in chunks. It is a very different way of approaching it than I used to in my life. I am doing it a few kilos at a time and then I let things stabilise and then just let go of it all and whatever and then I do the next few kilos.

Holly: That’s really interesting, I have been weight loss journey for the last two years and I use an app called happy-scale which breaks up your weight loss goals into milestones and that to me has made it so much more manageable, so much easier to do, and so much more exciting, I love happy-scale it is such a great app.  If anyone listening to this is trying to lose weight happy scale is great and we will link to it in the show notes but…

Joanna: I am going to get that.

Holly: It is so nice.

Joanna: For me then the difference is that I don’t have to then rely on my willpower or think that I will have to exhibit extreme willpower and discipline for the rest of my life. That just sounds really in-doable and then I start thinking about: but what about this? And what if I want this? Or what if it is my birthday and we go out? So this kind of gives me the flexibility for sprints rather than marathons.

Holly: Yes, yes, yes, I was just talking to Augustin about this last night and I was saying: I miss just being able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, because I practice intermittent fasting and time restricted so I have very specific eating schedules. And he said: well, yeah, there is going to be a point where you can do that. And I said: that’s what keeps me going, when I get to a certain point in my weight, although I will probably always practice time-restricted eating except on certain occasions because I just like it, it makes my life easier, but on my birthday, I am going to eat whatever I want whenever I want because every once in a while I need to do that.

Joanna: See even there, having such a long-term perspective, so I don’t want to be only able to do that when I reach my ultimate goal, which is why I am doing it in sprints so that I can relax things at the end of each sprint, knowing that it is unlikely that I am going to regain everything in such a short period of time when I relax things. I might regain a little bit but for me that journey of making it longer… I don’t know it doesn’t work for me. The discipline thing there, I just don’t, because the habits that I am changing are so deeply engrained in me, the amount of willpower and discipline that I would need is insane, it just wouldn’t work otherwise and so that is kind of how I have been working with it.

Holly: Also your birthday is in December and mine is in July, so… I get a crazy day very soon! {laughing}

Joanna: That’s true! We have different aspects of lifestyle, I have a kid, which means that on weekends we have pancakes and things, so there is that kind of celebratory things we probably have more often than we would if there wasn’t a child in the house.

Holly: Exactly.

Joanna: So it is just a little bit different. So you have to make things work for you which is going to be one of our main points. {laughing} Back to discipline, the conversation that we need to have, is discipline pushing yourself? Is it always about forcing yourself to do something that you don’t want to do? And if so, why would you even do that? Why would you be making yourself do something that you don’t want to do, right?

Holly: Yeah, so I think that is a complex question. So first: is discipline pushy? I don’t think so, I don’t feel that it has that hustle pushing energy, at least not to me. Does it feel like pushing to you?

Joanna: I think it can.

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: Okay, I think the thing with discipline is that you can’t really talk about it without talking about commitment. So this is the main thing, of course it is going to be harder to make yourself do something that you hate but that you should do, I don’t know like if I was trying to clean my house every day {laughing} that’s yeah…that would be making myself do something, not just that I don’t like doing but also something that I don’t find particularly important but I feel like I should do because of various societal reasons. Now just to underline that my house is reasonably clean.

Holly: I have been there; I can attest to this. {laughing} It is not a pigsty by any means.

Joanna: It is a normal, lived in, family home.

Holly: Not I think it is cleaner than normal.

Joanna: Oh good! So the first thing to start with, is commitment, what are you committed to? What changes do you want to see in your life? What kind of person do you want to be? I want to be a healthy, fit, person. I want to be one of those stories of a forty-something-old-woman that turned it around. I have been overweight for pretty much my entire life and I want to tell the story of how aged forty-something, I turned it around by finding my own way, my doing the things that I believe in and living in the way that I believe is the way, right? So I am committed to that, therefore, that is a choice that I am making, it is more a commitment to my vision than making me do something that I don’t want to do with my life.

Holly: It does and I would say the same, there are many things that I am committed to and I am willing to put in the time and effort required to achieve them, weight loss is one of them, healthy eating is one, fitness is another, publishing my books, you know…

Joanna: Yes, writing is another that I have struggled with. Business in general. I am really committed to, I don’t really call myself a business owner anymore, I am more in the writer/blogger/podcaster sphere. I am committed to that and what that means is that I am committed to helping people to think about things in a different way so that they can grow. I can’t do that without talking about stuff, I can’t do that without making sure that I show up and record podcast episodes with Holly. If I go back on those things then I am not committed to my vision and yeah it requires, not episodes with Holly, they don’t really require any discipline, as I love them.

Holly: Yeah they do, because we have got to get them in the calendar.

Joanna: We have to get them in the calendar.

Holly: And we have to show up.

Joanna: It is difficult, I am like: today the gardeners are here, the next day my husband is busy…there is always something.

Holly: There is always something, yeah.

Joanna: So it is true, it does require some discipline.

Holly: And I think that is another important thing, discipline, it doesn’t have to be hard, but it does require putting it in the calendar, showing up and we enjoy doing these things, you know? It is not har and it is not suffering, so discipline comes in different forms, but it still requires time and effort.

Joanna: I think that is really key, we have to start with a vision that we actually want to bring in, that we actually want to align with, or experience, so discipline shouldn’t be forced. It has to be forced to a certain extent, you have to maybe push yourself to do a livestream about your opinion rather than eat cookies on your kitchen floor.

Holly: {laughing} I hope you are not doing that ever!

Joanna: That has not happened, I have no idea where that came…maybe one of the listeners, my guides sometime give me weird language and it is always to do with the listeners. So I am sure, somebody out there, please let us know if it is you sitting on the kitchen floor eating cookies, please let us know it is sorted! {laughing} No, if you are committed to showing up and instead you are hiding in your kitchen then, I just think you have to start with a vision that you actually want to bring forward.

For example, I have a client who hates doing videos…I am still working with some people, basically on getting their business or their work life into alignment with what really lights them up, right? So she hates doing videos and she is like: but I have to have the discipline to do a video. I am like: why? You don’t have to, you could do a blog post instead and use writing. So, yes, she could go through the process of making herself and there is a whole school of thought about that, right? That we need to push ourselves outside the comfort zone, etc. etc. But I don’t come from that space anymore because I think it is much nicer, and easier, to start with making sure that the vision you are bringing in is something that you actually want to be doing and that is actually what your life to look like.

Holly: And I think it is very interesting the language that you use, I think there is a huge difference between pushing yourself outside the comfort zone and choosing to step outside your comfort zone. I find it super rewarding when I step outside my comfort zone and I do something that is scary, but it is choosing to make that step, rather than: I have got to push myself to do it.

Joanna: Yes, so one is mean and one is kind, right? So the kind way is to not push yourself outside your comfort zone but to align first.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: And then go, step outside, it is still going to be uncomfortable but if you find a way that works for you. So as an example, I was running, I wanted to be a runner, and I realised that in order to be classified as a runner I would actually have to go running. {laughing}

Holly: Fancy that! {laughing}

Joanna: It was really shocking and really unpleasant. So I pushed myself to go running and for a while it brought me joy and then I completed not even anything huge but I completed a part of my program that I thought I would never be able to do and I lost interest.

Holly: Huh!?

Joanna: So keeping up with running became really hard because I had no interest in it anymore it was like I had proved to myself that I could do what I thought I couldn’t do and then I had zero interest, I no longer wanted to be a runner.

Holly: So, okay this is really fascinating. So what stopped you setting a new goal to be challenged by within the running sphere?

Joanna: I thought about it, it wasn’t exciting to me.

Holly: So maybe that was just it.

Joanna: Maybe it will come back, or maybe I will be a fall only, as in the season fall, runner. That is when I like to go to the park. What became more exciting to me was consistency and so right now, I am playing with the discipline of taking some kind of exercise every day.

So far, none of it has been running, but what I am allowing myself is to show up everyday and say: what’s the exercise that I am going to do today? It is either walking or cycling, I have a stationary bike at home, yeah, it has never been running, I have never been: I would love to go running, so I don’t know if it is done, or if it’s just done for this season or what, but I am not forcing myself to do running specifically.

Holly: Because it is no longer important to you and that is the important thing these things change so it is not like, if I choose to be disciplined in this thing which is running, or [insert whatever], it doesn’t mean that you have to do that for the rest of your life until you die, you reevaluate as you go along. The things that are important to you change with the seasons, with the days, with the weeks, with the months, with the years, so you have got to be constantly evaluating what is important to you and what do you choose to be disciplined about?

Joanna: Right, so I am committed to living a healthy, fit, lifestyle but that doesn’t have to be running, it can be a hundred thousand other things. And so I am letting myself just go with whatever feels like the thing in that moment, sometimes it means just a gentle walk around the lake, because I am tired and sometimes I say: I am going to take the bike and go up that hill that I can never quite manage, so it does have nuances on different days and it is still discipline to ask myself the question of: how am I going to exercise myself today? It still takes some discipline. It is not forcing myself to do a particular thing that I decided a year ago, or that people say I should do because that is the best form of exercise.

Holly: Because it is not true.

Joanna: So you have to start with a vision of what you want your life to look like. I want my life to be very pleasant, I no longer want to be defined by achievement and right now running would be achievement based and I don’t want to be defined by that right now, so my choices are slightly different, so it starts with the vision.

Holly: It does. That leads me to something that I have been thinking about lately, which is I need to choose for and start doing is with now with the lockdown, I haven’t had kickboxing classes because you can’t see people, but they have been doing online classes everyday and I haven’t been able to do them because my house is super small and I don’t have space to do them. The live classes are during the day when I am working and my husband is working, we both work from home and I haven’t also listened to the recorded classes because I have not been disciplined to do that but also because the only space in the house that I have to do it is essentially his office. So either I wake up early in the morning when I am not in the mood to do it, or it is not happening. But one thing that I can do and I actually made a spreadsheet yesterday and printed it out and haven’t started it yet, is practising kicks, which I can do waiting for my tea to boil. So I printed out a plan on Monday of every day of the week the different kicks to do and then I can tick them off.

Joanna: Right, so you are going to need some discipline to do that because now you have had several months of not doing it. So I think, thinking about discipline as a way to change habits.

Holly: Yes, yes, that is exactly it.

Joanna: It requires some discipline because your habits are routed in your subconscious, it is what you have always done, it is what you think is the safe way, it is the most beneficial way to live your life, because of subconscious beliefs. Your subconscious rules, what is it? 95% of everything you do, some kind of crazy number 90%, 95%… So by using discipline you are going against that and you are kind of rewiring yourself to make choices until those become normal choices and then you will use discipline to maybe do something else.

Holly: Yep.

Joanna: So I think the habit way is a nice way of looking at it and if we go back to our original question: is it against an intuitive, soul-smart flow-y, lifestyle? No. Because a soulsmart lifestyle is intentional, above anything else it is an intentional lifestyle and that starts with a vision of what you want your life to be and it includes making some choices that will be different to some of the choices that you are currently making and choices you were making in the past, because those choices got you to where you are right now. And so, to create whatever else you want to create or experience whatever else you want to experience you are going to have to do some different stuff, that is clear, right?

Holly: Yes, you are going to have make different choices, you are going to have to take different actions, you are going to have to make new habits.

Joanna: Exactly, exactly, so it is kind of like creating a new normal, right?

Holly: Yes!

Joanna: So my new normal is that I do some form of movement every day. And that is unthinkable for, I am not going to say unthinkable but even a month ago it was unthinkable for me to be that kind of person and already I am starting to think about myself as the kind of person who does something every day, even if it is a twenty minute yoga thing, I do something every day.

Holly: That’s a huge shift in one month, it is huge, it is massive.

Joanna: I think it kind of shifts relatively quickly, I imagine that, if we go on holiday and I do nothing it will shift back? {laughing]

Holly: Well it will shift to something else.

Joanna: But yeah, thinking about it in terms of habits is really helpful.

Holly: I agree, and habits are usually something, obviously you are going to be choosing for habits that you want to have, rather than something that you think you should have.

Joanna: That is really key to think about, you know? When you think about what you currently feel requires discipline and ask yourself: is this something that you really want or something that you think that you should want? I think there you will find real gold, I really believe that if something feels too hard, then it is probably not your way, there is something misaligned here, I do believe that, but I don’t believe in truly effortless.

Holly: Yeah, I think we have to put in the time and the effort. But I think this is interesting because for so long, when I was working with PSYCH-K a lot and when I was creating belief statements, working with myself, working with clients, effortless was such a key word for me, I would always program statements: it is easy and effortless for me to… and so effortless was the goal for me for so long. But really, we have to put some effort in if we want to change things and do different things. I think it was more that I wanted it to feel effortless.

Joanna: Yes and that is different and you can still have that, it is feeling pretty effortless for me to go for a walk but only because I have allowed myself to not force myself to go running. Because I have allowed myself to be aligned and my search for the way that makes me feel good that particular day, it is relatively effortless and the thing is I also have the choice of not doing anything, nobody is forcing me to do anything and I understand that so it is choice, right? But it is effortless because it is aligned, so it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to do anything, but I am doing things in ways that fulfil me, that make me feel good and that benefit me in some real way. I think the whole effortless conversation, first of all I think it is rooted in something really important and that’s that all of us are really fucking tired. I mean being raised as over-achievers and living as over-achievers is just exhausting so I am not surprised that everybody is wanting effortless but I think once you go in that direction you can find things that feel effortless.

Holly: There is a difference between feeling effortless and being effortless.

Joanna: Yeah and I think we should be having more conversations about the things we think are worth the effort. So it is again, it is a matter of commitment to a certain vision, so I will give you a non-weight loss or running example, in the current black lives matter conversation I would like to commit to being part of the change, right. I don’t exactly know how to do that, it is a very big statement but I would like to be part of the change, but that is my vision that there is change and that I, in some way contribute to the change in a way however small.

Yesterday I was witness to a thing where someone was basically defending racism, they were saying that they are not defending racism, but the stance was, for me, quite clearly denying racism, they were denying systemic racism. So I had a choice in that moment to do nothing which is easier, certainly more effortless, or to say something. The thought process that I had was to remind myself was that I wanted to be committed to being part of the solution, part of the change, and that means calling it out when I see it, calling racism out when I see it. Was it effortless? Hell no. I was terrified of what the person would say back to me, I was terrified of what other people in that group would say, it was uncomfortable, and it was in no way effortless.

Holly: And it was a step outside of your comfort zone.

Joanna: It was certainly a step outside of my comfort zone. But it was in alignment to my commitment, not only to myself and the kind of person I want to be, but to the kind of world that I would like to live in and that is discipline to be willing to make the choices that not only stand for where you are now but where you want to be, right?

Holly: Yes, yes. So why is discipline so important?

Joanna: Because otherwise we will just be acting from our current subconscious so nothing will ever change.

Holly: And we will never change and we will still be doing the same things.

Joanna: Because it is consistency that matters right? You were saying it doesn’t matter if you fast one day, you have to fast for a series of days in order to see the results that you want.

Holly: Yes because no matter how good my life is right now, my life is pretty good, I don’t want to be here forever, I want to do other things, I want to achieve other things, I want to accomplish other things and all of that stuff takes discipline. So I don’t want to be stuck in the same place forever no matter how good it is.

Joanna: Yeah indeed and I think anybody listening to our conversations also wants to make some kind of change, you are not necessarily miserable with something but there is something that you would like to see different in your life, in the world, something. And that requires taking different actions and that requires consistency because as we know that calling racism out one time isn’t going to do anything.

Holly: No, it is a start and, as you said about something else, it is a marathon not a sprint, we need to keep choosing for… well actually you said that it is a sprint and not a marathon! {laughing}

Joanna: That’s why I am laughing!

Holly: Well some things are a sprint and not a marathon and some things are a marathon not a sprint, that is why we have two different types of running: we have the 100 yard dash, we have all different types of track and field…{laughing}

Joanna: There is a lot of running talk in this episode, is it a sign? Should I go back to running? {laughing} No, but it is important because I think discipline is important for consistency and it is very easy to kind of give up on new things and everybody knows how easy it is, you know? You start some kind of new routine, you want to change something, you get all fired up and by day five you are like: meh, I want a cookie. So it all falls, and you forget and you get caught up on something else, so the discipline is important to get the momentum going. Like, I might not have changed anything with my one comment but maybe some of the resources I suggested were taken up by somebody who didn’t take part in the conversation but saw it. Maybe I inspired someone to speak up in another situation where they see something similar, you don’t know what momentum your discipline is going to create and the same thing in things that are just for your own life and business, if you have the discipline to show up for your writing every day, you are going to see some kind of result.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: There is magic there, I have very clearly noticed that when I show up and write, even 500 words a day, then in a week I have something! {laughing} And if I don’t, I have nothing!

Holly: Right, and again it is about doing what works for you because every time I hear someone say: if I show up and write every day, I am like: I want to write every day but I can’t… I write in chunks of time in workcation weekends of big chunks of time. So it is about finding what works for you.

Joanna: Yeah exactly, I don’t have big chunks of time, so if I were waiting for a big chunk of time it would never happen. I have to write in windows between things and so small bits. I also get bored really quickly so I write several things at the same time, so I have this…Holly if you saw my computer right now you would not be happy. Holly is actually making a face! I have several different documents open and when I have time to write I see which one I feel like writing into. {Holly: laughing} Exactly what you are not supposed to do!

Holly: No, no! That’s really important that you said that because if it works for you, it works for you, for me it would be totally overwhelmed. For me, I have workcations planned out between now and the end of the year, what I am going to work on each month and that is what I am going to work on each month.

Joanna: Now I am making a face! {laughing}

Holly: Yeah I know. I need that kind of structure and you need that kind of flexibility.

Joanna: So again, discipline doesn’t need to look in any one way either. It doesn’t have to be…I think it is important to relate discipline to the commitment that you have made. So I have made a commitment to be a writer and therefore I need to write. Now, again, if I was waiting to have a free weekend when I could go away, I would be waiting forever. So because in my personal situation it is more difficult, different constraints. So this is the way it works for me, and I fulfil the commitment I have made to myself and to the vision to my life. So.

Holly: The important thing is, if you want to be disciplined, you have to choose to be disciplined.

Joanna: Yeah, so first you have to choose for what you want and want to be disciplined about. That is, I think, honestly I think that is the most important part, not choose to be disciplined about everything and anything, whatever your mother said was important or what the magazine says, you know? If you spend a significant amount of time working out your vision, I come back to the vision because I think that is the most important piece, everything comes from that, then the discipline will feel very different and even the choosing the discipline will be a lot easier because you will know why you are doing it.

Holly: Also when you are looking at being disciplined and making changes and creating new habits, start small and don’t try to make too many changes at once. As you are talking about this I am reminded of this very dear friend of mine who always would go through this habit, every few months, she would be like: I have decided I am going to start doing yoga every day, and I am going to go for a run every evening and I am going to quit smoking and I am going to start being vegan and I am going to do…she would have seven or eight huge lifestyle changes and she would be like: from now on I am doing all of these things. And I would just be like: okay. And then she would fail because it was so many big changes, so many lifestyle changes, at once and rather than just picking one, making it a habit and then picking the next one, she would try to do everything at once. So don’t do that it can be overwhelming and it probably won’t work. {laughing}

Joanna: Yeah you will lose steam very quickly and as you are talking about this I want to give another example of something to be disciplined about, where I think everything in my life is coming from, because what you have just illustrated is that point between discipline and hustle, where you are going to just the doing, doing, doing, pushing, pushing, pushing, and that is not what this is about, right? So it makes me think that the main commitment that I have in my life, to myself, to my vision, etc. is to feel good in my life, that is the main commitment I have. So I am very disciplined about that commitment and making everyday choices that honour that commitment which is why I will not go running if that’s not what feels good to me that day. But I will do a form of exercise because that makes me feel good, even if I don’t want to go, right?

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: So you could have this overarching commitment in your life that you could filter the other things that you might want to be disciplined or you might choose to be disciplined about through, does that make sense?

Holly: Yes. So we have kind of hinted at this and we have touched on this a little bit, but what is the difference between discipline and hustle, because I really don’t like the word hustle and I do like the word discipline, to me they are very different energies.

Joanna: I really think that hustle is just doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, it is that…

Holly: Pushing.

Joanna: Yeah, that pushing forwards, and it feels exhausting. It is the sort of thing that leads to burnout, right? It is that kind of exhausting energy that leads to burnout. Discipline can be when it is aligned, I really can’t underline that enough, that everything starts from that vision and everything doesn’t have to…discipline doesn’t even have to be about doing. It doesn’t have to be about specific habits; you could start by choosing to feel good in your life and being disciplined about that. And what does that mean? If you are disciplined about that, if it does not feel good you are going to stop it. {laughing} And you are going to reassess and realign whatever it is.

Holly: So how do you develop discipline? How can people listening to this make discipline a habit? I think it is, as you said, first of all focussing on what you do want, not what you don’t want, and getting clear on what you do want because I think so many people (and this was myself for many, many, years), I didn’t like what I had, I didn’t like it, I didn’t want it, but it was like I didn’t know what I wanted instead.

Joanna: Yes, I think that vision is the most important piece, and everything that I run, and all my programs, vision is the first piece. We do visioning workshops regularly, as you know Holly, because without that anchoring you, you have to be intentional and specific, even if is unspecific in that you are just creating a happy life. There has to be something guiding you, otherwise you can’t really be intentional, because you have to be intentional about something. So I think figuring out what you do want and one question to ask yourself, if you look at some of the things in your life that you think maybe you need a lot of discipline for, or maybe you want to be more disciplined about. Ask yourself, not just if it is really what you want, but why you think you want to do those things.

Holly: And make sure it is something that you want, because if you are not clear in your vision, you are not clear on what you want for your life, then you will fall into the “shoulds” that other people will give you, your family, your friends, your colleagues, you should want this, you should want that, you should do this, you should do that, because you don’t have your own vision.

Joanna: Exactly, we are being fed visions every single day through all sorts of things: you should want this kind of lifestyle, you should want to work from the beach, you should want to take vacations in Bali, you should want this sort of thing, you should want this sort of body. Those things are manipulated to make you feel a certain way, I am going to just stop talking about this right now because otherwise I am going to go into a huge long rant and this episode will never end. I have realised how passionate I am about how society, and the messages that we are getting, how they are all designed to keep us in a certain place, and I didn’t really realise how passionate I was about this until I am pretty much done with the first part of my book and it has really come out in there. Once I allowed myself to write that piece, it has really come out and I think you have to be really careful about your vision and what you actually want. And just become really aware of the messages you are being fed about what you should be disciplined about, what you should want in your life. You should be a runner, right? I don’t see the message as much high interval training stuff…

Holly: Oh I hate that stuff.

Joanna: That’s everywhere I look!

Holly: Really?

Joanna: That’s the exercise. I have tried it and I actually paid for a program, which I quickly quit, after failing my first burpee, I was like: I don’t think this is great, but you know, I got sucked into it because that is what everybody says is best for you and the thing that is going to keep you alive basically right.

Holly: That’s a big warning!

Joanna: I know. I think if just get collectively curious about the stuff that we are being fed and just start assuming that everyone has an agenda. So start looking behind what they are saying to see what kind of agenda they might be pushing, I think life gets really, really, interesting. It doesn’t mean that you don’t buy those magazines or watch those tv shows, it just means you are aware of where that ends and where your energetic space begins. Slightly different conversation but it relates to discipline because I think we are fed a lot of stuff about what we should be disciplined about.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely. So, we have touched on this as well, but how is discipline related to the subconscious? You and I are both PSYCH-K facilitators, we both worked on consciously reprogramming our subconscious minds with belief statements, we have done a lot of subconscious work in the past and I think this is a totally different way of approaching the subconscious mind. As you have said, when we do take different actions consistently and when we are disciplined, we are actually rewiring our subconscious mind by forming these new habits.

Joanna: Yeah, one way the subconscious learns is through repetition. So even discipline of thought, even discipline when it comes to no longer thinking: I am poor. I used to say “poor me”, all the time.

Holly: Oh.

Joanna: Yeah and my family says it all the time, if anything happens: ah, poor you, poor you. And I made a really conscious effort just not to use that word anymore even though the context was different, it wasn’t financially poor, but still, it has that meaning obviously. Even discipline of thought and not using certain words anymore and using different phrasing instead, that creates change in your subconscious because it takes repeated things as the new truth but if you actually, actively, no longer feed it the old truth and start feeding it the new truth. This is why affirmations work and why they don’t work in one day, right? You do it one day you are not going to believe the belief or the affirmation.

Holly: Unless you turn them into belief statements and use PSYCH-K to reprogram them.

Joanna: Even then, I think it takes a bit of time to recalibrate.

Holly: Oh absolutely.

Joanna: So yes, and discipline is of course, you can have discipline of thought and discipline of action and repetition, the subconscious learns through repetition and so you can reprogram old stuff.

Holly: Yep, yay! So how do you get started being disciplined if you think you are not good at it? I think a lot of people just believe, “I am just not a disciplined person, I am not good at that, it is just not me, I can’t…”

Joanna: The first step is to figure out what you want. I know I am saying that constantly, but it is, if you feel that you don’t have discipline then question what you were trying to be disciplined about.

Holly: Question why you want them.

Joanna: Yes and find something that you really can commit to and you will find that the discipline comes a lot easier. Also if you still find that you are undisciplined then I would ask myself then, some really, really, maybe harsh and difficult questions about why you are not willing to a certain thing, why are you not willing to commit to a vision, sometimes it is scary to commit to a vision because you think it is scary, or this or that, that is why it is important that those things that you are disciplined about or choosing to be disciplined about are aligned, are right for you, feel good in some way. Going outside for my daily walk or whatever, in the end it feels good to me, I don’t hate it. I might not feel like I want to go when I am leaving but I don’t dislike actually being there, that commitment piece is really, really, important, otherwise you are just drifting. And if you want to be a drifter then that’s fine, but then just stop thinking about discipline and stop judging yourself as bad at discipline, just choose to not be disciplined because you want to drift through life and that is fine.

Holly: And also understand the consequences of that.

Joanna: Yes indeed. Don’t complain that something isn’t happening like me with my food and body stuff, my weight stuff, I didn’t particularly want to be disciplined about anything but that I think is because I didn’t find my way. Once I tried a bunch of different things and kind of found my way around it is much easier to be disciplined, so play around with it, if you think you are not good at it, it could be because you have committed to the wrong thing or haven’t identified what you are actually choosing to be committed to.

Holly: And always ask yourself: this thing that I am committed to, is it worth the effort? Maybe it is, maybe it is not, maybe you need to tweak the vision or the goal or the objective and make it different or make the path to getting there different. We have been talking about exercise and weight loss a lot but I used to go to the gym every day and it was a big part of my life and I loved it. But now, I am not a gym person, there are so many other things that I would rather do, fitness is important to me, but I am not going to go to the gym.

Joanna: When I was younger, in my twenties, and I lived alone and had no responsibilities and all that kind fo thing I used to get up at 7.30 on a Saturday morning and go to a ballet class. I would go to the ballet class and then I would come home and have something to eat and then I would go to the gym. That was my thing and I loved it. I loved both those classes so much that I still miss them. So people looked at me and were like: wow, you are so disciplined, but it was what I wanted to do with my time. It is a choice.

Holly: Yeah and it was your way, it was your things that you love. To me the idea of going to a ballet class, hell no.

Joanna: Just think about it as a choice of the things that are right for you. We could say a lot about this but.

Holly: That is such an interesting example because I just said: ballet, hello, no. When I was in the second grade I remember a bunch of the girls were doing ballet and so I thought: oh this is what girls do, they do ballet, so I guess I should sign up as well and remember telling my mom that I wanted to ballet, and I hated it. It was like combination tap dance, I hate dancing, oh my god it was so awful. But I did it because I thought that was what I was supposed to do because that was what all the other girls were doing.

Joanna: My story is the exact opposite when I was a little bit older maybe in fourth grade or fifth grade all the girls were doing dance, ballet and tap dancing, exactly the class you are describing. I really wanted to do it but my parents wouldn’t let me, they wouldn’t pay for me. If you went to a ballet class right now it would be trying to be something that you are not. Me, I am going back to exactly who I am. So same action and totally different story and different amounts of willpower required because for one of us it is the right thing and for one of us it is not.

Holly: So wrapping this up, discipline does not mean doing stuff that you hate, if it is too hard then maybe the vision isn’t right, or the path isn’t right, you haven’t found the right way, I love fasting, other people hate fasting, do what works for you.

Joanna: So also it doesn’t have to be that black and white either, there are shades grey. Holly says, I love fasting, some people hate fasting. I love fasting on some days. My whole life lesson is to not take one of the extremes, not take yes or no, but take the sometimes path. I have seen this in everything that I do, and I always end up there, that is always the most aligned way for me. So I love fasting on some days and some days I don’t, and it works for me and that is the most important thing.

Holly: Exactly.

Joanna: And my commitment and my discipline is more to myself and making sure that I do the things that work for me on a particular day, so just you know you can play with this in lots of different ways and it doesn’t have to be either/or, it doesn’t have to be that harsh, the lines between different choices don’t have to be that hard.

Holly: Yeah, exactly. So find out what you want and then choose what you want to be doing and then…

Joanna: Do it!

Holly: {laughing} Yes! It is that simple!

Joanna: Right we are done.

Holly: Yes we are done. So hope you found this interesting and useful, let us know what you thought of this episode, you can find us online and get in touch or you can email me at [email protected] or Joanna?

Joanna: There is something wrong with my email so please just PM me on Facebook or DM me on Instagram. I love talking about this stuff so do let us know what you think.

Holly: Yay and be disciplined if you choose.

Joanna: Bye.

Holly: Bye.

That’s all for now, please drop me a line and let me know wha you thought about this week’s episode, furthermore if you have any ideas for conversations that you would like me to have with Joanna on this podcast, or things you would like me to talk about on my own, please let me know.

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Next week I will be back with another solo episode, not sure what I am talking about yet, but it will be. And remember to visit: https://hollyworton.com/362 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you so much for listening.