Photo by Dave Lowe on Unsplash
Although I’ve learnt the game of ‘celebrating my successes’, it’s always been one that I’ve done because I’m meant to, rather than because I feel naturally inclined.
In my previous management roles, I used to talk to my staff about the importance of ‘cashing the cheque’ – when a good piece of work had been done, it was important to sing about it from the rooftops. Otherwise, all that hard graft would most likely go unnoticed. I accepted this as part of the game, even if I had a personal distaste for it.
Yet there is a fundamental issue when our value comes from the showing rather than the doing. The laborious, harder graft has become devalued.
Discipline has become a dirty word. As someone with the misfortune of being a fan of English Cricket, I witnessed what was probably one of the most disappointing Ashes tours of Australia. The series build up started with high hopes, only to end with an anti-climatic 4-1 loss. England’s ethos of aggression morphed into a happy-go-lucky approach leading to reckless dismissals and a lack of accountability.
I remember watching a video between former England bowler Stuart Broad and former Australian batter and coach, Justin Langer. During the discussion, Broad hesitated around using the word ‘discipline’, to which Langer interjected angrily that discipline is not some sort of dirty word. Discipline is about having a level of self-control and principles to do what you’ve set out to do. Without it, it’s practically impossible to succeed.
Discipline has certainly been lacking in my previous workplaces. We were in the midst of the meeting when she suddenly exclaimed ‘s**t!’. She was scrolling through twitter and news broke that someone important had passed away. It completely derailed the meeting.
I used to try and highlight how bad multitasking was for productivity. People seemed to agree with it in principle, but never follow through with it themselves. It drove me up the wall.
In my personal life, I’ve noticed a few people I know putting up Instagram stories of their latest gym sessions. To be clear, I’m not against posting videos, I’ve actually done so of my own workouts.
But the actual value of filming yourself is to see whether you’re doing the exercise correctly. I’ve noticed in these videos how poor people’s forms often are, even from my pretty untrained eye. Things like putting a machine at the highest setting then brute forcing it to show strength. It might look flashy, but in reality it doesn’t properly target the muscle, so is fairly inefficient. It can also create bad habits, or even injury.
I think my mismatched affinity towards discipline is partly cultural. My ancestral heritage and culture has been one where slow, repetitive work was far more valued. Even in the pandemonium of modern day South Asia, slowness and tradition still has a respected place in society.
It was recently rather validating that my Sanskrit teacher recently said that he was pleased with my progress. He spoke about seeing how I came regularly and was sincere and attentive, and that this meant that good progress was possible. I have never had a western teacher highlight these things as positives.
In the West, I feel like discipline is increasingly getting thrown out the window. I’ve been on workshops where I’ve said I came simply because I’m interested. This has been met with a sense of quiet confusion and dismay – how could I possibly want to do something without having some big goal in mind?
I was once on a coaching course and would always prioritise making the weekly calls. After a while, people would drop off early or simply stop attending. The course leader didn’t seem to be overly bothered. If I was being generous, I would say it was because their mindset was one of ‘its your choice’. If I was being less generous, I would say it was because they had already been paid.
This cultural disconnect around discipline is probably why my methods are chronically undervalued in the workplace. My natural inclination is to build better systems and focus on incremental improvements. Such things are seen as optional extras rather than fundamentals. People only seem to care about these things when something goes horribly wrong.
I do not value discipline for discipline’s sake. I value it because it is required. Anything genuinely meaningful will require continuous dedication. This can take years, or even decades.
If the idea of exerting self-control is something that we find ourselves avoiding, then its probably time to take a long hard look in the mirror.