the promise of a future worth having
discipline vs. devotion vs. small and simple
Question: How do you summit a mountain?
Answer: One step at a time.
For a long time I brutally beat myself up for not being “more disciplined”.
As a teenager with undiagnosed ADHD, self-discipline was an entirely foreign and elusive concept.
If I wanted to learn guitar, why didn’t I just practice?
If I wanted better grades, why didn’t I just set aside time to do my homework?
If I wanted to avoid the stomach-plummeting shame of forgetting things, why didn’t I just right them down?
If I wanted to be thinner, why didn’t I just exercise more or starve myself more?
I saw myself as lazy. A half-asser.
Someone who must not truly want what she said she wanted or she would just do it.
Right?
What I didn’t know at the time was that my brain doesn’t really process information that linearly. It holds onto and follows information based on novelty, excitement, and urgency. NOT necessity or preference or because I knew I should do it.
Fortunately, I’ve collected a lot of supportive tools and strategies over the years that help me take care of the wildly boring but highly necessary tasks like paying my bills on time (mostly), making sure there is food in the fridge (usually), and cleaning up my room (except for that one chair that always has a big pile of clothes growing on it).
In my mid-twenties, I thought I’d discovered an incredible new upgrade.
What if I rebranded “discipline” as “devotion”?
Instead of looking at these necessities as something I must do and dreading the need to do them consistently, what if I saw them as acts of devotion?
Committing to my personal health, meditating, and exercising regularly would instead become acts of self-love and devotion.
Doing the humdrum day-to-day work needed by my business would become a barometer of dedication to myself, my vocation, and my vision.
I thought this reframe was working until I emerged from cultier side of the personal development space, and realized that this rebranding of discipline as devotion was just that - a rebrand.
It had changed in name but the driving spirit within was the same judgment I had leveled against myself so violently at seventeen. The new, ugly conclusion I held within was that if I didn’t do the tasks I thought I should or had been told I should, then I must not be devoted. I must not truly love myself. I must not really be dedicated or committed to my vision.
The discipline/devotion had become the point rather than the creative flow - or the abundance, or the stability, or the inner peace - that the discipline/devotion was supposed to be fostering.
How then was I supposed to create the life, career, and community I wanted?
One step at a time.
This “strategy” emerged from a state of surrender. Not because I had diligently meditated and reached a transcendent non-attachment. I arrived at it’s doorstep because I was so ill, so tired, so sleep-deprived that I couldn’t do more than the next step even though I wanted to.
What was the next step that I could actually see?
The next right step is almost always small. Small and simple.
Some people may summit mountains by dropping $15k on a helicopter ride, but for those of us who cherish experiencing the lookouts, the quiet moments shared with an unsuspecting flower blossom on the path’s edge, or the surprise spotting of a bird of prey - our path to the top is found one, simple step at a time.
In hindsight, I had been introduced to this concept before and it’s been an idea re-offered by many teachers and philosophers over the ages — from Julia Cameron to Martin Luther King Jr. to Henry David Thoreau to Friedrich Nietzsche.
What is the next right step as my life is constituted now?
The answer to the question of the next right step is always there waiting when I prioritize listening patiently and kindly within.
The next right step presents itself consistently and clearly when it is asked quietly and when we are welcoming of “small” answers.
Question: What would feel good for health this week?
Answer:
Yoga - scheduling one to three classes happens easily.
Spending Sunday night alone - my room gets tidied as I listen to a new sci-fi mystery.
Writing some thank you notes - one of these notes receives a response in an alien code I get to decipher.
Spending time with that friend I haven’t seen in ages - My text illicits a last minute invite to a yule burning ceremony.
Questions: What would feels stabilizing this week?
Answer:
Paying my rent early - logging in and getting it done doesn’t feel hard like it once did.
Taking Thursday afternoon off to run errands - I request to move a meeting and the other person shares that works better for them too.
Asking for some feedback from a trusted confident on a topic that is weighing heavy on my heart - they suggest getting a nice dinner to catch up on all that and more.
What would feed my soul?
International travel - a friend “randomly” reaches out and invites me to South America.
Playing ukulele more - I pull it out from under the couch and find myself playing it almost every day for two weeks.
Starting a new knitting project - I stumble upon the most sumptuous wool at a local farmers market from well-loved sheep, spun by well-used hands.
The question is asked from a curious heart and answered by a settled one.
The action that follows does not require the hefty labor and effort that was always entangle with discipline/devotion.
The behavior looks like I am disciplined and “getting things done” but the truth is that I am listening and trusting that as my needs shift and so must my practice of living.
The behavior may look the same but the energy beneath it will determine the quality of the experience and the outcome.
Right now I do yoga 2-3 times a week. Next year I may get into olympic weightlifting or running and forego yoga all together. At one point napping daily was the health practice my body needed.
Two years ago, meditation was huge for me. Now, a lot of my peace comes from giving my brain permission turn off by tuning into engaging novels on audio.
For a long time I woke up between 6:00 and 6:30am to support a regular morning routine that energized me, now sleeping until 7:00 or 8:00 (or even later) supports my energy best.
By listening - not with mind but with body and soul - to what brings you more peace, more calm, more steadiness, and more aliveness the path is so much clearer, easier, and simpler than the over-engineered plans we think are required for success.
Our responsibility is to focus on the next right step. And then the next. And the next.
Remembering that the next right step is almost always small and simple.
It’s washing out your paint brushes.
It’s texting that friend.
It’s moving the ukulele from it’s hiding spot into your line of sight.
It’s looking up the class.
It’s going on a walk without media on so that you can hear your own thoughts and the quiet space around you.
It’s quietly reminding yourself and the Greater Mystery that you’re open to being surprised over your morning cup of coffee.
It’s journaling even just one sentence in your notebook.
The Truth is that with time more is always revealed.
What is the right next step - the small, simple next step you can already see?
And in taking that step you whisper to the dreams in your own heart as they shake off the cobwebs of slumber…
I promise you a future worth having.
Extra Goods:
My favorite songwriter and lyricist for many years has been Tom Waits. As a singer, I usually gravitate towards vocals I want to drape around myself and so I’d struggled to like Waits’ original music because of his harsh, unmelodic voice. I found out that I loved his music because I had a tendency to hear a song by a beloved musician, fall in love with it, look it up to discover it was a cover of - you guessed it - Tom Waits. I just discovered that I’d only ever heard a handful of his later tracks in which he’d intentionally affected his voice to sound much more gravelly and raspy. It’s feels bit like unearthing a hidden trove of vinyl albums in a grandparent’s attic that are in like-new condition. With each new song my ears are alert, wondering, and ready to love something they hear. In my exploration of his earlier music in which he sounds more like a “sailor that has come ashore at the local piano bar” crooning his tunes for the regulars, I’ve also found my ears warming to his raspier eras. It’s been a while since my taste buds of
Come On Up to The House covered by Sarah Jarosz:
Come On Up to The House original by Tom Waits:
I highly recommend gathering several not-yet-known to each other friends or people you’d like to get to know better and organizing your own Artist’s Way cohort. It’s exceptionally hard to do it alone, although you can if that is your creative style. It’s a 12-week, self-guided journey into your own creativity that has rendered powerful insights and wonderful new artistic endeavors each time I have done it. If you want any tips on what I have found that works, just ask!
Get a copy at your local bookstore or from this online secondhand bookshop.
A song for the dreamer within you: