Skill

A friend of mine told me that discipline is skill – that getting up early at the same time, and going to bed at the same time – is not a choice, but a skill.

I asked him why – I’ve been trying to stick to that sort of schedule, and I’ve been very consistent over the course of a few weeks. In my understanding, a skill is something that takes years to develop, and you can’t have if you one day wake up and decide you want to have it. I asked – what is the trainable aspect of getting up early?

He answered.

The skill isn’t getting up early once, it’s having a low error rate – what percentage of days in a year do you fail to stick to your daily commitment? More importantly – why?

Understanding why it happens each time, and committing to routines that prevent those situations in the future – is the skill. And it takes years, because only in trying to implement your routine will you find your natural habits that break that routine. And only in knowing them, and deliberately avoiding them – having tools, tricks, hacks to avoid them – can you improve the rate at which you respect your commitment.

And that is the skill of discipline: knowing yourself.