I’m drawn in my reading today to the type of concept I’d usually recoil from. It’s from a former US Navy Seal called Jocko Willink whose mantra is ‘Discipline equals freedom‘. The concept which has caught my imagination is this:
“If you want to be mentally tougher, it is simple: Be tougher. Don’t meditate on it. … It’s possible to “be tougher”, starting with your next decision. Have trouble saying “no” to dessert? Be tougher. Make that your starting decision. Feeling winded? Take the stairs anyway. Ditto. It doesn’t matter how small or big you start. If you want to be tougher, be tougher.” Jocko Willink quoted in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss p414
Why does this resonate? Well, another of Willink’s concepts makes sense of this: “Take extreme ownership of your world.” I read this as follows: in wrapping one’s mental discipline around the tasks you want or need to undertake, you create more self-sufficiency. I believe this mental discipline potentially allows for more freedom and margins within our human relationships. In a still relatively new relationship, I’m aware that as I grasp my own nettles more firmly, I’m less likely to glance sideways and ask my partner to grasp them for me. Similarly, I’m going to avoid the temptation to blame my partner if I get stung by a nettle I tried to brush pass instead of tackling head-on. Furthermore, if my partner has developed a certain mental discipline, and I haven’t, the disparity will cause frustration and discomfort to us both – the invitation is open for me to rise up and regulate with my partner’s level of mental discipline – to resonate at the same frequency.
Another reason I might feel inclined to toy with the seemingly rough and ready theme of mental discipline? I’ve just written up my overview of where I got to with my MEDS protocols for the MEDS Project. I did so much good work, but on reflection, if I’d had access to really strong mental discipline and inner toughness, I’d have been able to give the ideas a better run for their money. I know that the MEDS protocols are my foundations for health and wellbeing, therefore they are also my foundations for peak experiences – so targeting the last inner barrier to success in my health and wellbeing will ever be a gift to myself. And so it doesn’t feel soft and gentle? Well that’s ok. My mind and ego play hardball with me, so I’m happy to generate some internal steam to order to match their energy-dispersing forces with my own focus-gathering decisiveness.
And it’s not all about Navy SEAL austerity, it’s about pushing to completethings (as G says), so that then leisure can be taken properly. In the same book (Tools of Titans p408), Maria Popova quotes H Thoreau on the theme of work:
“The really efficient labourer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is earnest to secure the kernels of time and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.”
Sounds like a cocktail by a pool, but really, to create the balance of true ease and true action, it takes… mental toughness. No?
Sure thing! Your inner child loves the clarity of boundaries. Your inner being loves the vividness of the decision and action. This is the sacred act of non-drifting.
Aha! Yes! Drifting…. Say no more.
Our inner barometer will always be seeking areas of low pressure where the work can get done without threat of squalls. You have the power to create your own inner weather conditions. The fun (peak state) begins when the internal state can be fine-tuned at will.
Good! Well inner toughness and mental discipline starts with obeying one’s day own schedule… It’s time to get up!
