How do self-discipline and self-forgiveness interact? If you are trying to be disciplined in how you pursue your endeavors how do you find the capacity to forgive yourself when you miss a day or “slip” in your self-discipline practice?

I am not very forgiving toward myself. I am very critical and internally I hold myself to very high standards. When I feel I have failed I am very hard on myself. I also tend to sway towards all or nothing thinking, and if I fail I feel that I’ve let down all the steps that came before that one. It can be a pretty brutal combination.

Someone challenged me on this recently and I have been thinking about it a lot… The questions I have rolling around my head are things like:

How do you balance self-discipline with forgiveness for yourself?
At what point does forgiveness hurt your self-discipline practice?
Can you be too kind or forgiving toward yourself?
What does self-forgiveness look like?
When does self-discipline become a lack of flexibility?

What is self-discipline?
I read a lot of short definitions from dictionaries and a lot of longer posts on blogs, here are my 2 favorites (they jive the best for me internally):

#1 – On the surface self-discipline essentially comes down to having a reason to do something and sticking to it for the long-haul. However, this is not just about the process of pursuing a goal. It’s more specifically about your ability to control your desires and impulses to stay focused on what needs to get done to successfully achieve that goal. As such, self-discipline involves committing to long-term gains without falling prey to instant gratification along the way.

And, they created a nice graphic to explain it (click to expand)…

#2 – Self-discipline is the process of building specific habits over time that can help you obtain a desired outcome, objective or goal. In other words, it’s about taking small consistent actions that help you form the habits that subsequently help you attain your goal.

This sounds a lot more forgiving than the voices in my head. They have a more holistic feel to self-discipline, instead of a one lane road you are charging down and if you step off you fail it is about improvements here, then here, over there, and as long as you consistently improving you are going the right way.

Perhaps I have gotten lost in the weeds and focused too much on the small steps instead of seeing my progress on the big map and appreciating how far I have gone. IE, it isn’t a set of dominos I fail at if one doesn’t fall down because I will move forward the next time. That is a much kinder thought process than one failure = huge deal = you are failing at x.

One tidbit I really liked on a blog post this post by Kristen Lamb was the following:

Just like working out our biceps, we must be wise how we train our self-discipline if we hope for long-term success. If I wanted to build my bicep and I went to the gym and did 500 curls with a heavy dumbbell, then who is the REAL dumbbell? My arm would be sore and likely injured, and it certainly wouldn’t inspire me to want to return to work out. Self-discipline is the same. Don’t start Day One trying to have the discipline of a Shaolin Monk. That is a formula to fail.

This took a long time for me to learn, and I still struggle. I still try to zoom up to 100 and power through instead of applying a light touch and building the habit first.

Why is self-forgiveness important?
This was a hard one for me to answer as it is not something I am good at. I am reading a lot on this subject and psychologists say it is key to psychological well-being (which makes it sounds important ;) ). I am going to continue to explore this one and start trying a few things to encourage this practice (loved this read – highly recommended as all his writings are fantastic).

Why do I value self-discipline?
Because with practice I am able to better prioritize what and why I am doing something, avoid distractions, and get the things done which take me closer to my big goals. I am going to die, and I do not want to look back and see myself wasting time on things that were not important to me, or that I didn’t think deeply about why I was doing them. For me it is about deliberate action/living. If I am outside reading, it is because I love that and want to be there.

“Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us get up and go to work.” ~Stephen King.

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