A former boss of mine used to preach “if you do what you’ve always done, you will always get the same result.”
He’s right of course. It’s silly and self-defeating to expect different results when you don’t do anything differently.
After completing the introduction to The Discipline Project – my endeavor for 2012 – last night, it occurred to me that I needed to do something immediately to build positive momentum as soon as possible. I’ve had many other great ideas in the past, even blogged about them publicly, but then allowed them to quickly fade and be forgotten about.
Not this time.
Yesterday
My plan all along had been to officially begin The Discipline Project on January 1st. Why not, right? It could officially serve as my New Year’s Resolution and it would give me two weeks of freedom to be as undisciplined as I wanted to be. Except that following this lame, lazy strategy would be the same thing I’ve always done. I would simply be procrastinating away the challenge of replacing bad habits with good ones, which is never an easy thing to do, while giving the excitement I have for this project time to dissipate.
I decided right then and there, moments after hitting Publish on last night’s post, that I wasn’t going to do that anymore.
So instead of frittering my night away watching football or busting out the Wii for a bit or aimlessly browsing the web, I decided to take some action. I didn’t really have a plan, so I just started doing things. I cleaned some dishes that had piled up. I did some laundry. I prepped two MSF articles for publishing in the morning. I took my dog for a longer-than-usual nighttime walk. I did some research on goal-setting. I emailed a good friend of mine to wish her a happy birthday.
I acted.
There wasn’t a tremendous amount of organization as I basically just jumped from one thing to another, but I did stuff, all in the name of discipline. I had time to get some of these menial tasks out of the way, which should free up my time later this week to work out or write or spend time with family, all things that most certainly will be in my goals and on my to-do list (once I get to that part). If discipline is holding myself accountable to my own goals, then at least my actions last night contributed toward goal achievement by maximizing time that otherwise would have been wasted.
It may seem insignificant, but to me it was important. Instead of putting it off, I acted right away. For me to add more discipline to my everyday life, this is what I need to do more consistently. One night in and of itself means nothing. It’s not like I haven’t had ultra-productive nights before. But it was a good start, a different start, and it helped me build momentum for today.
And sure enough, today has been positive and disciplined as well.
Today
I got up and did some proofreading, posting, and promotion this morning for MSF. I arrived right on time to pick Derick up at the auto body shop where he was dropped his car off, and thus needed a ride to the office. I knocked a number of tasks off my to-do list in the morning (a to-do list that is still in my head, but will soon be written down — gotta get there), then I went home to walk Rebel, got a quick workout in, and I still got back to the office right at 1:00 to continue plowing through everything on my plate today.
Nothing spectacular. Nothing earth-shattering. Just a disciplined day with far less wasted time and energy than normal.
It’s something to build on, and it’s a stepping stone to a productive afternoon, a fun evening with the family, and then yet another produce day tomorrow.
Best of all, it feels different. Nothing in this post may sound all that remarkable to you, and really nothing about last night or today really is remarkable. Except that it is, to me, because I know that in the past I’d have made far less disciplined decisions.
It’s only one day, but it’s a great start. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some positive, disciplined momentum to continue.
About Jerod Morris