Building Discipline & Finding Your Why

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What is Discipline?

Discipline is the practice of using your resolve to accomplish something you set out to. It is staying on course and doing mundane activities to help you accomplish something much grander you set out to.

What are some challenges with being disciplined?

We wouldn’t need discipline if we were so inclined to make the best decisions. As this is the primary challenge with discipline… it is not the easiest thing to cultivate.  

Why? Because the nature of the mind is to be distracted and to allow our many other desires to take precedence.

Why does having discipline matter?

When someone seemingly lacks discipline it may allude to ones lack of meaning, purpose, or “why” in their life.

When one is lacking direction, not only are we less productive but life can turn into this haze we exist in where nothing really matters.

When we feel aimless in life things like mental health problems and substance abuse are more easily able to influence our behaviors leading us down a dark road. 

To remedy the potential negativity that an empty life void of direction can bring,  the answer may be to work on something big or small that is aligned with our higher purpose to make us more strong in the face of adversity. 

How Rajiv cultivated Discipline through finding his purpose?

In our 3rd episode of our Empowered Life Hacks talk series, Rajiv Nathan came on and opened our eyes to the value discipline can bring in ones life.

For example, Rajiv doesn’t have many memories of being stressed cramming for an exam even as a little kid. But this was because his Dad would rule with an iron fist… of love and patience. Rajiv shared that he and his brothers would try and fight the “you must prepare early” rule. Unexpectedly he eventually discovered in university that he seemed to excel without much effort because he built the habit of being disciplined unexpectedly.

But today Rajiv is disciplined not because of habit alone, but because he found his purpose, his “why”! And because he has his why, he is able to now have many endeavors he is passionate about that he excels at. He is a rapper, podcaster, DEI workshop facilitator, Finding your Why workshop facilitator, business owner, and yoga instructor too!

Here are some actionable ways you too can cultivate discipline and find your “why” like Rajiv:

1) Break things into small chunks – Discipline is easy if you break things down into itty bitty bites. For example, reading 1 page a day for a month would mean you’ll read a 300 page book a month!

2)Think of discipline as a practice – Like yoga or doctors have a practice, make discipline it’s own respective journey. Treat it as an ever growing and evolving activity you look to improve by creating a schedule and growing your discipline daily, little by little.

3) Don’t compare yourself to others – It’s easy to compare ourselves to others but if we focus on yourselves we are much more likely to feel grateful and satisfied with our progress in the present moment. This will help us stay disciplined and not be discouraged. 

4)Be excited about the unknown – fathom how much you have learned and look forward to all that’s out there to make discipline more fun and exciting!

5)Surrender – Accept that there will always be more things out their you don’t know then you do know. Also accept that no matter how much you study, how many books your read, and how long you prepare… sometimes the only way to reach a particular goal is through patience and experience. 

6)Find your Why – Rajiv found that not only is finding your why crucial to help build discipline but from his experience running workshops people who lack in purpose are also the saddest.  The good news is he broke down finding your why into a science over the years.

After years of experience Rajiv suggests asking these questions to find your why:

7) Find your “What” and “How” – Rajiv suggests after finding your “why”, continue on to the next steps of Simon Sinek’s model shared in our episode. After finding the “why” behind what you are doing, then focus on the “how” you plan to fulfill that purpose, then find your “what” (the things you will do to get there). 

Here is an example… Rajiv’s why is helping people be more self expressive, the what he does to get their is he focuses on leveraging story telling to get people to open up… his how is podcasting, his business, yoga teaching, workshops etc. 

***Use all of these tips and tricks together – when you pair some or all of these together it compounds***