Don’t Control…Create!

This is the time of year where, as I like to put it, “something’s got to give.” With the busy-ness of the holidays, calorie-dense food and drink everywhere I look, the cold and dark creating an unfriendly environment for exercising, a variety of illnesses infecting my household, and this year my husband being away, I start to feel like I just can’t do it all.

Currently, it’s my healthy eating habits that seemed to have flown south. Turns out that brownie-in-a-mug is a delightful companion for an overworked, lonely mom watching late-night television…though it never sticks around for long. I digress…

The real reason for this post is to note a big difference I’ve come across; the difference between the words “willpower” and “discipline.” Both words sound unpleasant and carry negative connotations. I have always used the them interchangeably and not thought about the distinction. But now I realize that I haven’t given discipline a fair shot.

Discipline is defined as an activity or experience that provides mental or physical training. On the other hand, willpower is the control exerted to do something or restrain impulses. Discipline involves building the life you want by repeating deliberate actions to produce desired results. Willpower involves maintaining the life you think you should be living by controlling or abstaining from unhealthy impulses. Discipline focuses on creating. Willpower focuses on extinguishing.

For example, discipline is the daily practice of choosing not to drink a bottle of wine (or two) because I have learned and accept that there is no benefit in it for me, and drinking does not create the life I want. If I tried to rely on willpower, I would still have the desire to drink and the belief that its effects would somehow enhance my life, and therefore be denying myself “the pleasure.”

Discipline is waking up every morning to a practiced routine of writing, mediation and prayer. It’s making time to exercise regardless of weather, darkness, or how many mom-taxi trips I have to make that day. It’s choosing to be positive, despite circumstances. Best of all, when you cultivate discipline, it multiplies.

Willpower is “trying” to make healthy choices while my mind chatters endlessly about how good the unhealthy option would be. It makes exercise, writing, and quiet time feel like a chore, while eating junk food, drinking alcohol and watching mindless television are rewards that I’ve earned and deserve. It’s letting my brain sabotage my best intentions, because willpower never lasts.

This season, I’m going to focus on being more disciplined and consciously training myself to create and live the life I desire, instead of trying to restrain unhealthy impulses. Willpower is temporary at best (just look at the chocolate-stained mugs in my dishwasher). Discipline is the foundation of a healthy, balanced, happy life.