I was pretty terrible at school. Not because I didn't understand what was taught, but because I simply did not have the discipline to organize myself, do the work, study in time for tests and basically adhere to the system. I wasn't an overt rebel and this wasn't a stance I took in my teenage years, I just never wanted to do any of the work with few exceptions.
My report card often came back with comments like 'Bright, but lazy’ or 'Does not apply herself'. There was no ADHD diagnosis at that time in the country I lived in, as such there was also no concept of any extra type of support.
To everyone's surprise, including mine, I did manage to pass high school and made my way into university.
Here, is where I started to figure out how to learn.
Turns out, sitting still in a classroom is something I can force my body to do, but I don't retain much. While this is great to know, it doesn't help you pass university level Macro Economics or Psychology 101, or much else for that matter.
With certain subjects, I could still manage, but the problems of focus and retention hit me hard, especially in my second year.
I'd sit in the library trying to study in a group and stare at the textbook, not understanding what I was reading. One day in frustration, I shared this with a friend. She welcomed the break and asked me what the chapter was on. We ended up having a conversation about what I thought it was on. She wasn't in my program and naturally she asked questions, which I couldn't answer. Somehow this helped, I ended up looking through the textbook for the answers to her questions and realized that though we were mid-semester, I didn't actually understand very basic concepts covered in the intro.
I also realized I have to speak or say things out loud, in addition to writing or reading them out to understand them.
To do this for every course and chapter would take hours. So, I did it for some, scraping through my first year courses.
In my later years, I figured out a solution. I would only take 1-2 lecture-heavy courses and balanced them with different types of courses (preferably ones where I could skip class or ones that had more papers and group work, rather than tests).
This worked to balance out the need to learn through social engagement; and not needing to attend every lecture in order to hand in essay-type assignments.
At the time, I was just trying to get through school, so I didn't realize that I was making choices in alignment with my learning style.
But we aren't in school forever. I continued to have problems when I started working.
I realized quickly that I'm not a 9am - 5pm employee and I worked in places that followed that structure.
I used to rush and force myself to get to work at 9am and spend a good chunk of the morning trying to focus on my tasks while pushing through feelings of overwhelm, frazzled anxiety and procrastination. I will say, it is easy to push through when you are very motivated by what others think of you - and I was very motivated by that.
I would often work late, because in truth, that's when I was productive - between 4-8pm, but that lead to exhausting days, weird eating habits and a limited social life.
A few years into my career, which happened to be in a tech-shop, flexible working hours were more permitted. You had to show up for meetings of course, but aside from that, it started to become accepted that folks were productive at different hours. I was lucky I ended up in such an industry, and was quick to take advantage.
What I realized was that I naturally got a lot better, more efficient and more creative at my job.
I had other problems, like overworking, unhealthy sleeping and eating patterns, insecurity and comparing myself to others for a long time. These, as I learned, were all features in my journey of discipline.
Discipline and Lifestyle
The things is, different people have different experiences of how their chemical and electrical impulses in mind and body work and as such, some of us are in fact wired different. We are energized for different things at different times of the day or the week, and so productivity is no longer this Industrial Revolution style 'show up at 9am, make widgets and leave at 5pm'.
This isn't new and shocking now, but it's amazing how much of our world is still tethered into that paradigm.
I am not the person who wakes up at 5am and feels amazing after a high intensity workout and protein breakfast. But I know people who are; and they not only love it, they thrive in many aspects of their life. They start the day by doing self-care things, and then they can happily sit for hours after that, working on a laptop. They can even come home and have the energy to play with their young kids.
That is truly amazing and something to celebrate!
Unless of course, you spend all your time and energy comparing yourself to this type of person and use it as an excuse to self-shame of judge yourself; or, use their daily structure as a model of success and make yourself a failure.
The thing with discipline is that it isn't just for one area of life, like work or chores. It is actually a relationship that shows you how you live - including work, sleep, rest, play, eating, social activities.
The folks who live, work and learn in a manner of traditional discipline, thrive when they know what is expected and when. Everything from their organization to their digestion and sleep functions comes from this place. It's not that they cannot handle a change in paradigm or are stubbornly rigid (though they can be sometimes). More likely, changes for them require a bit more grounding, time and processing to allow for their natural day's structure to evolve.
As someone who doesn't vibe with traditional models of discipline, it was hard to give up comparing myself at first. I would see my coworkers, you know, the ones who show up at 8:45am, with their smoothie after having worked out, pumped and bringing their A+ game to a meeting that I didn't even know we had!
I, on the other hand, would rush in 3 mins late with my hair looking like a mop and coffee on my sweater. I'd feel inefficient and lazy and I couldn't figure out why they had such an easy time while I struggled.
The problem with comparison is that you are so focused on what others are doing, that you forget to figure out what you need to be doing.
Our entire model of what success, worth, work, productivity and value is, comes from that traditional, more patriarchal model.
I should say that by patriarchal model, I mean the multi-century paradigm that requires everyone to adhere to one collective thing or style; claiming it is for the benefit and efficiency of all. This model often ignores the cyclical nature and rhythms of all things Life, and while it is valuable and needed at certain times for certain things, it has been used as 'the only way' for far too long. In this paradigm it is hard to evolve naturally, and when generational or cultural shifts come, it feels like a fight.
People who align naturally with this model may not have to spend as much time figuring out what 'works for them', since it has been the dominant way for a long time. The rest of us, do!
Unruly Discipline
My mother would tell you that I'm more unruly in my lifestyle, rather than disciplined. She isn’t wrong. It’s just that she is familiar with the traditional paradigm, as that’s all she has known.
In truth, I live, work, play, eat in more cyclical fashion. It isn't that I am undisciplined; it's just that my discipline takes different forms at different points through the day and month.
This took me a while to figure out, and I didn't know it until I knew it. I had to go through cycles of trial and iteration to figure this out.
Earlier in my career, there were some evenings where I was amazingly productive, and got a weeks’ worth of work done; but then there were other evenings where I could spend 30 mins on a 5 line email unsure of what I was trying to say. I had no idea what type of day or evening I was going to have, so I couldn't plan for it. This affected my social life too, because when I was productive, I would bail on friends and eat junk food.
The cool thing these days is that there is a lot more support and a lot of options to try. I had to do this alone, mostly because I was too embarrassed to tell anyone I was struggling, which, it turns out, is quite a limiting factor in getting sorely needed help!
A religious Minister I once (randomly) heard said that he saw the word discipline as an act of love; it shared roots with the world disciple, and only in perfect love does one follow another.
I'm not sure about the last part of the sentence, but I did like the act of love bit.
The people who love structure and thrive in it, likely feel themselves thrive! That's a beautiful nourishing expression and experience of self-love as it honours the person's unique chemistry, vibration, drive and intention.
What I love is change. The same thing at the same time repeatedly works well for me in the very short term, but not past a week. I get bored and just don’t want to do it anymore. Since it had such a resistant and limiting effect on me, I realized that whatever I did had to be cyclical, or at least in phases.
I started to figure out what my equivalent of 'protein shakes and high intensity work-out’ was.
What was the thing that served and nourished me, that I enjoyed?
And, could I find a way to do that in the morning or even through the day?
Possibilities for Living Your Day
For a long time, this was the structure of my day:
When I could manage it, I kept meetings between Noon - 5pm; this gave me the morning for me-time. I would walk to work and get fresh air and sunshine (joy); or in the winters, I'd have a moderate work-out session. Other days I'd meet colleagues or co-workers for morning coffee, or I'd catch up on emails and make my list of things to do. This left the afternoon for meetings and the evenings for doing actual work. Turns out, morning coffee and mid-week brunch is an excellent way to get social time in and in this way I rarely bailed on friends. This worked for me as I wasn't much of a pub and bar person anyway and dinner was rarely my main meal.
It's amazing when you try something new and tell other people. I wasn't a senior person at my job at that time, but everyone knew I wasn't a morning person and they all accommodated my meeting preferences. It made for a creative and trusting dynamic at work in many ways as well!
For a few years, I worked full time and had a tech-startup. I was overworked of course, but I was good, successful and had fun at both jobs. This had seemed impossible for me a few years ago!
The cool thing about having different models of working, is that you can define it for yourself and it doesn't have to stay the same through your life.
On the contrary, it should change.
How we work isn't going to be the same when we are in school learning, working at the office or working from home while our kids are doing online school. It is dynamic.
As are we!
In recent years, with more of us working from home, my entire routine and lifestyle had to change again. Just like everyone else's. Showing up in virtual meetings is very different than in person ones and we all have more distractions and procrastinations to manage, while also wanting to do good work. Working from home in a co-living environment with non-existent boundaries between work and family was also something to sort out.
Since I have an existing love of astrology, I started using planetary energetic themes as a template. This honoured my need to do things cyclically, and over the weeks I got to playfully and creatively work through my days.
I used the Moon as a model, since it shifts positions in the zodiac every ~2.5 days. I would plan to do things like organize big projects, accounting and coordination when the Moon was in Earth signs; I'd leave creative pursuits and new things I was trying to when the Moon was in Water and Fire signs. I would start, end and transition things most often when the Moon moved through Air signs.
This wasn't a rule. I would simply plan around this as much as possible; knowing that if I procrastinated, I'd only have about 2 days before the elemental sign changed. This provided my the flexibility and motivation required.
It is not the only way of course. It just happened to work for me, because I find astrology fun! If it seems weird and crazy to you, that’s great, because you can find your own way.
I know women who use phases of their menstrual cycle to plan certain activities during certain times of the month, as much as possible. They plan their month in ~28 day chunks. This gives them time to close up projects, rest, reflect and be with family during their actual flow phase and do their heavy lifting with longer work days and full swing business during their luteal phase. In this way, they don't burn out and get to focus on different parts of their lives, balancing out the home and work-life.
I also know both men and women, who structure their weeks in really interesting ways to leverage time at the office and at home, with the family and farm (4 days on and 4 days off); their week is 8 days in length. Since living on a farm is more physical, they balance out their week in a way that enables them to get different aspects of their work done.
Even if you really vibe the structured work day, there are so many ways to harmonize with it, so it works for you. Taking walking meetings for certain types of conversations for example, helps a lot of people in the idea generation or brain-storming phase of a project. It actually doesn’t work for me, because when I tried it I got distracted and lost threads of the conversation. But, it still helped me because in the time that we were mostly working from home, I switched to sitting on the floor in my living room. Being close to the ground, sitting in lotus pose did wonders for my hips and back and allowed for a change in posture and perspective.
Work is one thing and we can get a groove going. But some of us are also life longer learners, and learning as an adult is different than when we are young.
Recently, I decided to learn about crypto currencies and what it all meant. There were economic, financial and market concepts that I had to learn as this was all new for me. There was also a lot of financial and economic world history that I just didn’t know about. I was thrown back to my university days of not understanding basic concepts and being frustrated with myself, until I discovered a new way of learning.
For conceptual things, I have to listen, rather than read. And while listening, my hands had to be busy. I took to cooking while listening to Youtube videos. For those 1-2 hours, I'd listen or re-listen to stories and concepts and I realized that I did retained and understood them better. Maybe because I wasn’t resisting the learning, and it was coming through in a different way than I was used to in school; I’m not actually sure. What I do know, is that I understood, and I could explain and eventually make decisions from my new found learning.
A few years ago I was at a medical conference, and I met a resident whose fingers were covered in threads. He was at the conference, intently listening, while his hands practiced suturing. He told me he wanted to get good enough to do it well in his sleep, and this was how he was doing it, by suturing everywhere he went during the 4-day conference. He also told me that most people would take one look at him and know it was a resident, so it saved ‘small-talk’ that he wished to avoid.
There is a lot that may not work for us. This if a gift, allowing us to figure out what does.
I love that we live in a time where we can explore how it is that we live, play, work and learn in a way that aligns to our uniqueness. This allows every one of us to develop a curious and dynamic relationship with what we understand as discipline, and as an extension, what we believe work, productivity, wealth, success and value to be.
Understanding what how we work, in addition to how to metabolize our stresses are pillars in appreciating who we are, our uniqueness and what we bring to our world everyday.
Most importantly, we are not alone. We can ask for help and receive inspiration and support in the most surprising ways, and collectively bring our A+ games to life, love and all collaborations.