‘Discipline equals freedom’ – who would have thought that? It’s among those counterintuitive ideas that make absolutely no sense if we hear it for the first time. Well, it’s not something new, as the famous saying goes by Aristotle years ago “Through discipline comes freedom.”
But discipline is not easy, it is rigid. It involves a lot of hard work and willpower to say ‘no’ to things. In short, discipline is all about holding faithfully to straight and narrow. Now the question is, how discipline can possibly lead to freedom?
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What is Freedom?
Well if we ask the biggest search engine – Google about it, it says that-
“Freedom is the right or power of speech, act or think as one wants without any restraint or hindrance”.
We all agree to the fact that you can do anything you want as long as it is not illegal, doesn’t hurt anyone physically or emotionally and you are capable of doing it.
However, it doesn’t imply that you won’t be facing consequences for your choices. If you are exploiting the freedom given to you, there will be severe consequences you’ll have to face. On the other hand, if you want to enjoy long-term freedom, you know you have to earn it. You have to prove that you can handle responsibilities given and overcome challenges without any issues.
In simple words, if you want to enjoy long-term freedom, you’ll have to apply discipline to your behaviors. If not, your freedom will be snatched away from you.
A true sense of Discipline:
We all want freedom, we all aspire for freedom. But what most people overlook is the time. Yes, we all need time to enjoy our freedom. What good a freedom is if we don’t have time to enjoy it?
The fundamental key to having more time is ‘discipline’. You must possess the self-control to say no to the things that are not beneficial for you and can be assigned to someone else. Don’t say yes to unnecessary things or commit to tasks you shouldn’t do. If you are in a dilemma, revisit your goals and find out that the choice you are about to make will align you with your goals or side-track you from it. It’s simple, if you want to say ‘yes’ to those game changers for your business, you have to say ‘no’ to so many awesome things.
The next comes in discipline is routine. Although routines are boring and laborious, they are a fundamental requirement to achieve more. If you want to set the pace and tone of your day, you need to wake up at your routine. And for doing so you have to make a committed bed time. It is important that you stick to your deadlines and most importantly your goals.
Plan everything beforehand and be disciplined enough to stick to your plans. You need to have that discipline to know that when your work took control over you making you overwhelmed.
Conclusion:
While it may seem like you have sacrificed your freedom by being more disciplined, the opposite is true. You’ll experience more independence and freedom by being structured. Because you are planning out how you will spend your time, you will get more time to enjoy your freedom. And because you said no to something unnecessary, you got to say yes to something important.
Be mindful about how you are spending your time and you will get the freedom for which you have always been looking for. Discipline doesn’t snatch away your freedom instead it paves way for it.
