No idea how to get this Discipline thing sorted

[caspex]

I am on my path to achieving Self-Mastery. But I just can't for the life of me figure out how to actually achieve discipline. I believe discipline to be some function of consistency, persistence and doing things imperfectly. 
I have been sitting for a few hours, can't get in a few hours of study.
Some days I get in 8+ hours, and other days I cannot manage even a single one.

I believe that Discipline on the outside should look like, for me, getting in 8+ hours of study everyday for at least a month or so (that's what I require to achieve my goal). At first, not being able to achieve this consistency, I went through a lot of emotional labor, but it only grew me more resilient to my own guilt. All the emotional nights didn't actually improve my discipline. 

I don't think, at this point, it's about 'caring' about your goal. I care a lot, but all that does is make me cry myself at night to witness my incompetency. I have now grown more emotionally mature, my failures and incompetency doesn't discourage me. Which is good for discipline, but I feel I still lack something, which is why I cannot get that consistency.

I believe some part of self-mastery to be able to act despite your emotions. I am so far from that. If I could act and if i could focus despite my emotions, I should've been able to get those consistency hours in.

Despite all the stake in the world, and I have tried putting in high stakes and pressure on my self, and I have also tried a very relaxing approach with little to no stakes at all, I cannot achieve that Discipline.

What am I doing wrong?

[LastThursday]

Start with recognising that you're not a machine, but a human. You will have disciplined days and undisciplined days, allow yourself that. You will also have only a certain capacity for discipline, and that may be a lot less than you want to achieve your goals. But that capacity can increase with lots of practice. Use techniques like Pomodoro to help stretch your capacity. 

From a philosophical view you're always doing something, even if it's just sitting there breathing and blinking. You cannot not help but be doing something, 24/7. So disclipline is not a matter of active versus lazy, but of constantly steering your activity in the direction you want. 

Also, everyone is different. Work out your own psychology. For example, my natural tendency is to be haphazard and go from one task to another, so I just go with it, and allow myself to work in small bursts, and lots of differerent sub-tasks of the main tasks. But, I can also work well with timed tasks, such as 1 hour on task A, 1 hour on task B ans so on. Maybe morning versus afternoon works better. Learn what works for you.

[caspex]

7 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Start with recognising that you're not a machine, but a human. You will have disciplined days and undisciplined days, allow yourself that. You will also have only a certain capacity for discipline, and that may be a lot less than you want to achieve your goals. But that capacity can increase with lots of practice. Use techniques like Pomodoro to help stretch your capacity. 

This is precisely where I have seen growth. I don't guilt myself nor stress over the fact of not achieving my daily targets. I realized sometime ago that stressing does not help. I have been relaxed the past few days, but that doesn't seem to help me at all in my consistency. I don't expect myself to work like a machine anymore, but I must at least achieve those targets to achieve my goal. I don't want to give up on my goal.

All the people I admire had this one thing in common; They could control themselves. I believe it's my duty and also my right to achieve self-mastery.

10 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

From a philosophical view you're always doing something, even if it's just sitting there breathing and blinking. You cannot not help but be doing something, 24/7. So disclipline is not a matter of active versus lazy, but of constantly steering your activity in the direction you want. 

Yeah, I don't really identify myself as either a lazy person or an active one. I am who I am. But my issue seems very simple. For one, I know I am mentally and physically capable of studying my target. The problem for me seems to be the inner drive. I need certainty really badly. If things don't go according to plan I give up easily. That's too much emotional tension for me. I have seen some recent improvement in this aspect, but without a plan I can't have enough faith in myself that I am working at a good pace, after all I could be doing it really slowly and not realize it until it's too late.

14 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Also, everyone is different. Work out your own psychology. For example, my natural tendency is to be haphazard and go from one task to another, so I just go with it, and allow myself to work in small bursts, and lots of differerent sub-tasks of the main tasks. But, I can also work well with timed tasks, such as 1 hour on task A, 1 hour on task B ans so on. Maybe morning versus afternoon works better. Learn what works for you.

I have been doing this for the past two months. I have had many insights regarding my own inner workings. But I am afraid it'll be too late before I achieve enough understanding to attain that discipline I need.

[caspex]

I feel I contemplate too much and act too little. If I just do it, it feels like pain. The boredom is so painful. I thought it was my dopamine receptors being fried or something, so I refrained from social media, etc. and life felt really nice, but the discipline did not arrive.

I always seem to be waiting for some 'state' of mind that'll allow me to study my target. That state is all too infrequent. I doubt people who are masters of themselves need to wait for a 'state' to do what they need.

 

I think facing that emotional labor and pain is the only way forward. That is what I am seem to be running away from. That is why I procrastinate. I will never be ready to face that pain, and never not feel that pain unless I actually go do it and get the hang of it.

Maybe what it means to achieve self-mastery is to develop one's capacity to tolerate and operate under this pain.

[Ninja_pig]

I have had success with the BEDS-M Method:
B - Burn The Ships - Make yourself fear not getting your work done. I personally have a thing going with my friend where I pay him $50 if I don't complete my weekly objectives
E - Environment - Eliminate distractions from your environment. Put your phone in one spot in hour house and leave it there always. Disable history on YouTube to disable recommendation algorithm. If these interventions don't work, take even more drastic measures.
D - Distraction Cheat Sheet - Whenever you get distracted or procrastinate, write down what triggered that distraction or procrastination, then eliminate that thing later.
S - Schedule - Create a schedule for your day. Give every minute a job. If you want leisure time, make sure that's in the schedule
M - Minimum Viable Goal - If you can't do your work, just sit down at your desk and open whatever you have to work on. If you can't get up from the couch, just turn off the TV/Close your phone. Find a tiny tiny goal that will get you closer to your real objective and do that. You will be more likely to start your work once you take the first baby step.

Just keep working at it. You will find something that works for you eventually. Lack of discipline is not a moral failing, it's a lack of self understanding.

 

[LastThursday]

17 minutes ago, caspex said:

All the people I admire had this one thing in common; They could control themselves. I believe it's my duty and also my right to achieve self-mastery.

Do you equate self-control with mastery? 

Mastery can be a very long and many faceted process, patience is definitely needed. But mastery is also an incremental process, and you can gain its benefits bit by bit. At some point you won't recognise yourself as the same person anymore, because mastery will have changed you. What seems hopeless at the start is hopeful at the end.

14 minutes ago, caspex said:

Maybe what it means to achieve self-mastery is to develop one's capacity to tolerate and operate under this pain.

Mastery is just what you choose to master. If your hope is to tolerate pain and master it, then that's what you should do.

 

What you're describing about yourself just seems like a problem of motivation. Motivation is complicated. In broad strokes there is positive motivation and negative motivation. Positive motivation are things like, exciting goals, rewards for achievement, satisfaction of completion, recognition, free leisure time. Negative motivation are things like, deadlines, not having money, bad consequences for not completing, letting others down, not keeping to some standard. Some motivation is more neutral, like having a plan, collaborating with people. You need to work with all types of motivation. 

 

[caspex]

10 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Do you equate self-control with mastery? 

Pretty much. This is why I say 'self-mastery' specifically. 
I think the one thing I want to master in life is myself. 

 

13 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

What you're describing about yourself just seems like a problem of motivation. Motivation is complicated. In broad strokes there is positive motivation and negative motivation. Positive motivation are things like, exciting goals, rewards for achievement, satisfaction of completion, recognition, free leisure time. Negative motivation are things like, deadlines, not having money, bad consequences for not completing, letting others down, not keeping to some standard. Some motivation is more neutral, like having a plan, collaborating with people. You need to work with all types of motivation. 

Yeah you're right. But neither positive nor negative motivation worked for me. I had strong positive motivation of going on a trip with friends once a subject was complete. Didn't make it. I also let many people down by procrastinating too. That negative motivation didn't work either. I am so confused man.

[Cred]

Don't try to archieve discipline. It is poison. I have not been disciplined at all in the past month and I've never been more productive not even close.

I've already made some good posts about why that is like this one:

 

[Riccurdo]

@CredI agree, I think the word discpline is mainly part of stage orange. Some discipline is great if you feel excited about it, but you should follow the river and not trying to fix it. Who said being discipline produces the best result? Why do you need to be disciplined? Are you afraid of not being disciplined? Why is that, what happens then?

[Joseph Maynor]

This is a good video on how to not BS yourself with self-help.
 

 

[caspex]

Hopefully this post isn't too old for me to post an update.
-

I have it sorted now. For the past 5 days, I have been studying for 8 hours. Today's the 6th day, already done with 4 hours. I have never studied this consistently and this is what I have been trying for so hard since the start of this year. I am so glad to have made it to the other side.

I am pretty sure I just applied the BEDSM method as posted above(@Ninja_pig ), but I wasn't thinking of it while doing so. I just put my phone away, set fixed times for studying and gave myself enough leisure time to not have the day feel overwhelming. I study 6-10 (AM & PM) to get those 8 hours. I have free time from 10am - 5pm which is great for hanging out with friends, going out, following hobbies, working out or simply catching up on sleep.

I think the one big thing I fixed was my mind's tendency to achieve perfection. Now, I don't care if I messed up the timings, nor do I care that I messed up the efficiency of my study, I still sit the rest of the way through. Better than not doing anything and wasting months (learnt it the hard way). Another thing that helped was reducing my expectations about how much needs to be done in a certain amount of time. I expected to cover 80-90 pages of my study material every single day (Total's about 2500 pages, i.e. 5 Books for my first subject). The truth is, I am not a machine and the study material is sometimes hard to comprehend. I lowered my expectations and that helped me get done more than if I hadn't. Now I cover about 40 - 64 pages a day and make notes alongside it. 

--

I do think discipline as a whole is something I haven't even touched upon yet. I can steadily sit for 8 hours a day to learn about a subject, great, but I cannot yet be disciplined enough in other domains such as fitness and dieting. I will consider it mastered the day I am able to be consistent regarding any action upon which I set my mind to. That is non-negotiable for me. That is a degree of freedom not many achieve before death.

It really hits you during  the 'embodiment' phase of your spiritual journey, because you really need to be healthy mentally and physically in whatever context your nature and awakening has taken place to truly embody those things and then progress further beyond. 

---

I read the other posts here about not going for discipline at all, being a 'passion-oriented' person (@Cred , @Riccurdo ). Maybe I am not ND enough to have that work as fast for me. If you want to call it being 'Mike Tyson' at doing boring shit then that's alright; however I view my concept of self-mastery as being so free and have such control over one's senses and mind that one is able to do anything that simply requires time and effort. 

For me, this notion of self-mastery stems from my need to be truly authentic. While one can define being authentic as letting your mind and personality run free and do whatever it wants, I think that idea is flawed. You are not your impulses, nor are you your emotions. You're not even your logical mind and nor are you your imagination. You are not your personality and therefore you are not your passions and interests either. While there's nothing that needs to be done to be pure consciousness and to be one with God, there is indeed a lot to be done to embody that highest love and let it run through you as if you are its vessel.

I define true authenticity as embodiment of the Truth, embodiment of God. That's because that's truly what you are. I don't plan to achieve this by rejecting my personality, body, interests or passion, because that would be the same trap The Buddha fell into initially, but I do understand that one at least needs a mind that is not controlled by the senses and impulses. This is how I define achieving true self-mastery and discipline.

I read the tagged post about NTs and NDs and it does seem a bit too simplified for how it really works. Discipline always has suffering in store, I don't think I have ever met somebody who could read a book and simply apply those teachings and move on the way you describe NTs. But there is definitely some truth to that post, but I will refrain from labeling myself as either ND or NT.

Edited March 14 by caspex

[Davidess]

As a student myself, this thread is really helpful and giving me hope, thank you.

The book "Atomic Habits" covers stuff mentioned in this thread, pretty sure it might help me to re-read the book.

[caspex]

54 minutes ago, Davidess said:

As a student myself, this thread is really helpful and giving me hope, thank you.

The book "Atomic Habits" covers stuff mentioned in this thread, pretty sure it might help me to re-read the book.

I did read it, really like it but never ended up applying any of it. I think I just learn the hard way.