“You were one of those kids who just shoved homework and papers directly into your backpack, weren’t you?”

TIPS & TRICKS

Cultivating Discipline

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“Self-control” is one of the fruits of the spirit, and it is also quite possibly one of the most practical and helpful attributes that a businessperson can obtain in his pursuits. As we rise through the ranks in our respective businesses, or as we obtain more and more success, something strange happens:

We have more responsibility, and yet we also have more freedom.

When you were a low-level employee, you couldn’t just cancel a meeting, but now – you could. When you worked for someone else, you had to be in the office by a certain time, or you might get fired, but now – the boss makes the rules, and the boss is you.

As we ascend in our careers and personal lives, order is less imposed on us and more required from us if we want our companies, families, communities, and others who depend on us to thrive. For that, we require self-control, which is made up of discipline.

Here are two classic tips from psychologist and (Christian?) Jordan Peterson.

Wake Up at the Same Time Every Day

“The first thing you should do if you aren’t very industrious is discipline yourself,” Peterson says. “Get up at the same time… Get up early in the morning and get your things done.”

When we are juggling a lot of responsibilities, a travel schedule, and deadlines, we tend to play fast and loose with the regularity of our routines. Some of this is unavoidable. Some of it is manageable. But one thing we can almost always control is what time the alarm clock goes off – and if we can get into the habit of not changing our wake-up time according to whatever happened the day before, we will be starting our day with discipline every time we get up.
“You’ll have half your day done by the time other people haul [themselves] out of bed, so that’s a massive, massive advantage.”

Avoid decision-fatigue, the anxiety of uncertainty, and a feeling of failure when you wake up after a late night of working. Get back up at the same time in the morning, and do it all over again.

Make Your Bed

This advice became a meme some years ago because it sounds funny in isolation. “How can ‘make your bed’ be a life-changing principle for someone?”

Again, it starts with the decisions you make at the very start of your day that impact your mindset throughout the rest of it. If you start every day by neglecting a basic task, by allowing that chaos to remain in your bedroom rather than creating order, it will be easy to continue making that same decision over and over again.

“I don’t need to organize my files today.”

“The client can wait another week.”

“The staff needs to be straightened out… but maybe they’ll solve it themselves.”

You get the idea.

But when you train yourself in the mundane aspects of life (like making your bed right when you get up), that training will create positive inertia in your thinking process. You will be more likely to just go ahead and organize what needs to be organized, have hard conversations right when they need to be had, and stop procrastinating on that project that you don’t really want to do but has to be done.

“It’s a microcosm,” Peterson says. “Take those microcosms seriously… You might as well start with what’s right in front of you; it’s a lot harder than it looks. Because to clean up your room means to accept that it’s actually necessary for you to take that little bit of chaos that’s in front of you, that chaotic potential, and cast it into habitable order. Then you have the right attitude toward it.”

Don’t Knock It Till You Try It

Navigating this life successfully really does take the faith of a child, but oftentimes, we feel above that sort of thing. We want the secret sauce, the advanced moves, or something that pays homage to our dignity, our net worth, or our accomplishments.

And yet, the greatest among us understand that there is no secret sauce, no magic spell, and no easy button – just a dedication to the fundamentals day in and day out.

“Gentlemen,” Vince Lombardi said to his professional football team on day one of training camp, “this is a football.”

He wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek, and neither is Jordan Peterson. If we want to have discipline in our finances, in our risk-assessment, in our relationship-management, education, or work performance, we need to start with the humble, simple principles that Peterson so helpfully focuses on.

Wake up at the same time every day, and make your bed first thing. Then, see what happens to your mindset at work.

Quick Hits

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• Pastor Mark Driscoll was kicked off stage at a Christian men’s conference after criticizing the strange Las Vegas style performance that opened the event and reportedly featured a male stripper, drawing praise and criticism online.
• Fox News Reports the top Christian colleges and Universities in the U.S., featuring Wheaton, Biola, and others.
• iPhone sales slump and Samsung regains the top slot in smartphone sales.
• The Wall Street Journal reports a big contraction in the residential solar panel industry.