On Discipline: When Motivation Turns Malignant

In recent years, toxic discipline has become synonymous with punishment and guaranteed resulting success. Let’s flip the narrative.

Life is given meaning from committing to those in which you hate.

At least, that’s what our culture wants you to believe. From the misinformed bodybuilder to the influencer who finished their workout, ice bath and laundry all before the rooster clucks, American society and capitalistic system have cultivated a culture of self punishment disguised as “discipline,” and for the extent of my memory, I have been stuck in the productivity pipeline.

Many have gone at length on the ways in which toxic productivity has permeated our culture. Influencers who get paid to present productive lives are, somehow, the new normal. Through I assume magic, the 9-5 worker is expected to workout, start their side hustle, maintain their relationships, commit to a hobby, and everything else that refutes relaxation. While this recent upturn against toxic-productivity has made many more privy to the issue seeping into the lives and minds of stressed adults and overwhelmed teenagers, it has in other ways only compounded these stressors. Now we’re not only supposed to do the work, but make time to love ourselves for executing such a burden. Getting enough sleep is not conducive to a rise and grind mentality, where sacrifices are praised and punishment is glorified. By propping up the suffering that is apparently inherent to any and all success, the average consumer then wonders, “am I doing enough?” to which the post on instagram fear-mongering failure with a a direct address to “you,” the viewer, says you are not.

So the only option is to be better.

But what is “better?” When is enough, enough? When can a life be enjoyed instead of suffered? Most terrifying of all, when asking myself these questions after a particularly strenuous week of “self-discipline,” I realized I didn’t know the answer.

Thirty. Twenty nine. Twenty eight. Only twenty seven more seconds left in the warm, luxurious waterfall of a shower that provides a moment of respite between studying and work. According to who? Well, myself of course. I struggle to remember a life without self imposed rules. With naps longer than twenty five minutes, without days framed by a to-do list, without arbitrary deadlines that somehow manage to induce the same panic as an oppressive test despite it all spawning and existing in my head. Every day there are a set of goals and I am failure if I don’t complete them. My mind has been reinforcing this dialogue of discipline from the self-help gurus for years, and at this point, it has become difficult to relax at all. Tragically, I’m sure I am not the only one. A crippling fear of failure motivates me instead of passion. Energy drinks give me the life to execute my plans towards success instead of quality sleep. I can’t even play video games without the stalking judgement of myself by myself, which I find to be the most disturbing of all.

On my way to the gym my roommate asked where I was headed. A complete downpour outside would keep the average person from biking, but after a day of relaxing and a voice in my head telling me to be better than average, I told him I felt like going to the gym as I didn’t do much that day.

“Why do you always have to be doing something?” he responded.

And I returned with nothing.

I cannot imagine the people I am trying to impress. I fail to see the goals I aspire to achieve. I struggle, bleed, cry and deplete myself of life’s pleasures to satisfy a falsified crowd that somehow holds greater power over my mind and actions than myself. This is an indicator that my fear of failure is not genuine, but rather ingrained. As a child, I was never taught that relaxing was to be shameful of, but I have been conditioned to treat anything but success as failure, and anything but pursuit of that success as a waste of time. Finally, I realize this, and finally, I find myself living.

In recent weeks I have committed to being kinder to myself, and the results have been profound. In a backwards attempt at controlling every aspect of my life to achieve set goals throughout the day, I only decayed my discipline to the point of immobility. After years of harmful self talk and shame, I found myself navigating life with determination, but not motivation. Energy, but no spark. Success, at the cost of enjoyment. I moved with a lethargic pace from task to task. I would repeat the thirty second countdown eight times in the shower because it just felt so good to relax, even for a moment. By controlling my life I too was restricting it, and therefore reinforcing a distrust in my own intuition. I have to track my goals because I wouldn’t achieve them on my own. I have to time my showers or else I’ll stay in there forever. I have to eat only healthy foods lest I indulge in strictly sugar. I have to make my life insufferable in order to avoid the pleasurable distractions. I was living an extreme, which obviously left me off balance and tipping into self harm. I was, no, I have been at the point of actively limiting my own quality and enjoyment of life for…I can’t even put a name to it, whatever “success” is I suppose.

Ironically, it’s only been by returning to balance that I have found accomplishment and happiness more than I ever have while punishing myself. The fact of the matter is, discipline is important, but anything is dangerous when treated with extremity. Clearly, discipline can lead to an exhausting life, but a lack of discipline can similarly lead to an unfulfilled one. By maintaining a proper balance between those aspects of your life that are both enriching and at times less so, you develop an intuition. This trust in yourself is what discipline actively negates, and when engrained and practiced at a consistent rate, that trust can all but disappear. Now, I trust myself when I shower after a long day that I will stay as long as I need, and that it will be ok if it’s a few minutes more or less than the day before. As a result, I’ve actually taken shorter showers than I have when forcing myself to actually take short showers. By depleting myself of anything pleasurable, I have become fixated on the very thing I can’t have. But by allowing myself those pleasures, by trusting myself that I can accomplish what needs to be done and applying the grit when necessary, I find myself living a happier and more enriching life. I can now feel relaxed and fulfilled, and while I am still navigating the murky waters of self-love and acceptance, I hope you too take the plunge into the unknown, equipped with nothing but trust.