Discipline: The Rebrand You Didn’t Know You Needed (PART 1)

Now, this one was tricky for me. Another behaviour I came to learn – sometimes the hard way – was discipline.

I find it to be quite a harsh word. I'm sure a lot of us do. Brings up associations from childhood where power was exerted over you because you'd done something wrong.

But I'm here to rebrand it.

In 2023, I was living alone and working a lot. Probably to distract me from a deep sense of loneliness, but never mind. My days felt, like I'm sure most single people do, like they revolved around sleep, work, perhaps some form of housework or cooking, then crashing in front of the TV in the evening.

As my healing journey progressed, though, I was beginning to get an appetite for life, and I wanted my days to have more. I was so jealous of those people with the energy to meet friends after work, try new hobbies or do a morning gym class. And jealousy, I’d come to learn, isn’t an inherently bad emotion — it’s just a sign your brain wants something someone else has. A sign that maybe it’s time to make it happen for yourself.

I’d always denied myself the idea of doing things before work.

My anxious brain would automatically quip back and say “oh you don’t have time for all that” or “but you’re so burnt out, how can you add more in?” each time I thought about trying to fit something in.

Trying to keep me small and stuck in a world it ruled.

But I was changing now. I wanted to be like those people.

So, I crash-landed into the world of self-improvement. I devoured podcasts and self-help books. I gorged on Instagram reels the algorithm fed me, mostly from glossy and hyper-productive accounts by creators who definitely had it all figured out. They called themselves the 5-9 girls. Many of them woke up at 5am am, worked out, meditated, ate a suspiciously small breakfast, and were out the door with a fresh face on their way to run help run a multi-million-pound business for 9 am.

So, I thought I’d give it a go.

Instead of establishing my own routine though, I did what anyone who’s feeling a bit adrift does: I copied the influencers.

At first, it went surprisingly well. That first Monday morning, I set my phone alarm for 4:45 am, dragged myself out of bed, and went to the gym for 45 minutes. I came back and meditated for half an hour (tried to anyway), made an elaborately healthy breakfast and got ready for work.

It went well at first, but by the end of the second week, I was exhausted. My alarm would get stuck in an endless snooze cycle, and my pre-work morning had shifted from productive gym sessions to doom-scrolling through Instagram in bed. I'd watch the lives of those people who had managed to fulfil their morning routines, riddled with envy that I couldn't be one of them.

Sometimes, I reached my daily social media allowance of 1.5 hours before I’d even got up.

I’d gone too hard, too fast, leaning into the pressure I imposed on myself. I couldn’t keep up with people on the internet, so I labelled myself a failure. My mornings were now filled with shame and guilt instead of movement and mindfulness.

There was always a nagging sense I should try again, but my mind kept swinging between two versions of ‘no’.

One said, “You’ve already tried and failed, so why bother again?”

The other whispered, “That was too much for you last time—you were exhausted, remember?”

Classic anxiety doing its best to keep me safe from failure.

A couple of months later, though, I was still stuck in the same old pattern – sleep, work, home and sleep. Repeat.

Nothing had changed. Including the feeling that I still really wanted things to change.

Yes, that hadn't gone anywhere...