Structure is a vital part of a productive life, but is something that is severely lacking for most people. When you have structure in your life, it ensures you’re optimizing your time to the best of your ability. Without any sort of guide or plan, minutes, hours, days, months, and years of time will be wasted in the void of procrastination that stems from not the slightest idea of what to do with your time. Instead of productivity, people tend to fill their time with Netflix binges and other time wasters not even considering that they are squandering their most precious and valuable asset. It’s a fatal error most people make and it’s not one you can afford to make for too long.
Structure isn’t easy
The thing about structure that most people don’t like is that it often involves doing things you may not specifically want to do a lot. For example, I am running a marathon on July 22nd. It is going to be my first one and the journey to be prepared for this endeavor is something I work on every day. Commitment to waking up on time, getting my runs and lifts in, and sticking to my eating routine are all things that are part of how I structure my day. A lot of the time I really don’t feel like running, or I would love to stop eating chicken and get a nice juicy burger. Never do I give into these temptations. I know that these vices will keep me from achieving my goals and shatter the structure I’ve worked so hard to create that encapsulates my day-to-day life. Discipline is the quality you need that most people don’t have that allows you to set up structure and stick to it. We as a whole are in a drought of discipline as most people want expediency over what is rewarding and valuable and this is the crux of what is so wrong with our society today.
The lost art of discipline
Discipline has been forsaken by our peers in favor of instant gratification. This is a poison that spreads like wildfire and is the killer of all dreams and aspirations. Discipline is the foundation of all great things. There is not one example of anything great anyone has ever done where there wasn’t a component of discipline involved. Literally any achievement you could possibly think of has resulted from some sort of discipline you exuded whether you recognized it or not. With that in mind, wouldn’t it also make sense that if you multiplied your discipline it would multiply your results? What I mean is that the more discipline an achievement requires to accomplish, the more rewarding that achievement is. Isn’t that something you want more of in your life? Isn’t that something we as a society need more of? We constantly hear about depression and anxiety being through the roof and my opinion on the matter is that part of it is stemming from the lost art of discipline. Because without it, there is no achievement and without achievement there is no worth to life.
It can be said that the structure discipline creates encapsulates the true meaning of life where we can all maximize our potential on this earth. Why has this art been so forsaken? Why have we gone off the deep end into the abyss of the structureless and what can we do to get back on track?
Pick something difficult and go for it
There is an influencer I’ve heard of that once got an email from a fan who said they were going to kill themselves. That influencer engaged in a conversation with the person who said they were going to kill themselves, and during that conversation the influencer mentioned something quite interesting to the fan. “Go to the gym and get a 6-pack. If you still want to kill yourself, I don’t know what else to tell you.” That fan went to the gym and busted his ass. He kept the influencer up to date with his progress and eventually not only did he get a 6-pack, but he became a professional bodybuilder! The fan was happier than ever before. This is because structure and discipline create achievement. The man set out to do something extremely difficult. The goal required discipline and structure every single day. It created a lifestyle change and eventually, the goal was achieved. Along the way, a passion was unlocked and that person that was ready to kill themselves had a new mission in life, a purpose.
The moral of the story is to pick something difficult. Something that you could give yourself to and be all in. Something that requires structure and discipline. Train yourself on these qualities. Shoot for something extremely challenging that will make others doubt you. Use their doubt as fuel. This will make you stronger. Use all of this to ignite your passion for life and your purpose in it. I live by this and it has opened up avenues and led me to so many amazing people and opportunities in my life and this is just the beginning. The same can be true for you. All you need is some structure and discipline.