Talk Notes
Discipline Is Not A Dirty Word – Talk Notes
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Overflow Podcast. My name is Craig Booker. The title of this episode is Discipline Is Not a Dirty Word. Again a lot of this material is from Pastor Craig Groeshel’s book The Power To Change Mastering the Habits That Matter Most.
So we’re going through, as you know we’re going through Pastor Craig Groeshel’s book on the power to change.
The title is Discipline Is Not a Dirty Word.
The opening quote, “Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now.” and that’s from Craig Groeschel.
Recap
A recap from last week. We discussed training versus trying. Trying doesn’t work. Training does. Trying is an attempt to do the right thing by exerting effort in the moment. Training is a commitment to strategic habits you do before the moment that equip you to do the right thing in the moment. So that is a summary of last week.
In order to embrace training versus trying, it will require discipline.
Depending on your interpretation and your experiences growing up as a child, you will probably know that discipline is painful. It’s not something that we typically are really excited about. At least I’m not. I don’t hear the word discipline and get really excited.
Here’s a verse in Hebrews 12:11 from the New Living Translation that says, “No discipline is enjoyable while it’s happening it’s painful full but afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” So here it is in Hebrews that it is telling us that discipline is painful, so you may think depending on you know your upbringing and what your experiences were growing up. discipline might have meant making your bed. It might have been doing chores every day or every week. Getting to school on time definitely takes discipline when you’re a kid.
Another quote from Craig Groeschel. It says, “You’re going to experience pain. Discipline may feel painful, but if you don’t live a disciplined life, you will experience the pain of regret.” Pastor Craig goes on to say, “Not choosing what you want now feels painful, but if you do choose what you want now, you will later experience the pain of not having what you want most.”
So it kind of compares and contrasts, you know, having what you want now versus having what you want most in your life, uh, and so I titled this section, Choose Your Pain. You’re either going to have the pain of discipline, the pain of not getting what you want now, or you’re gonna have the pain of regret, not having what you want most.
So these are two types of pain that we’re all going to experience in our life. It’s just a matter of do you want what you want now or do you want to experience the regret of not getting what you want most in your life.
Another quote from Craig Groeschel is, “Desire alone won’t get you what you want most but discipline will.”
You know, you might say, but I’m not a disciplined person. You know, if you look at your life and you’re thinking about your own self, you may think, “I’m just not disciplined.” You know what am I going to do you say that I’m going to need discipline, but I’m not a disciplined person, so you’re asking me to be something I’m not.
And I understand this thought process because, you know, reading through this material and going over it, you know, I’m thinking much the same thing, right yeah. I don’t really feel like much of a disciplined person, and so I really understand that feeling if you’re struggling with that, but the truth is that it’s just not true that you’re not disciplined.
When most people consider whether or not they are disciplined, they tend to focus on the areas of their lives where they lack discipline. So they’re looking at the worst parts of their life where maybe they want to improve things, and that’s what they’re focusing on.
So I ask the question, “How do I know this is me?”
I tend when I think about me being a disciplined person, I see all the areas I want to change yet have failed to do so. and I’d bet you do something similar. We tend to focus on the areas we fall short on, and I think that’s just kind of in our nature when we’re thinking about that subject, but the truth is that you are disciplined. Just let that sink in. You are disciplined. I am disciplined.
In his book Pastor Craig says, “Think of discipline as choosing to do what’s important to you.” So think of this one as choosing to do what’s important to you.
You repeatedly do some things that are important to you. You eat, you sleep. Those are disciplines but that was in the quote there’s a good chance you also do certain disciplines that aren’t good for you these are discipline these disciplines are not helping you and could be hurting you so we’re going through this material and we’re kind of reframing what discipline is and helping us re-see that we all have areas where we are disciplined if you look at areas of your life where you find success you will find discipline in his examples he was talking about you know eating and sleeping now you know we may not be very good initially at getting good quality sleep but we have still have disciplines that we go to bed relatively at the same time every night we eat at you know close to the same times for meals every day so those are disciplines so we have to kind of rethink how we how we’re looking at discipline and see the areas where we have discipline in our life because it helps us to see that we are disciplined people and we can you know become disciplined in other areas there’s a good chance that you also have certain disciplines that aren’t good for you and these disciplines are not helping you and could be hurting you some examples of these are maybe overeating when you’re stressed maybe you’re you’re binging hours of TV like you’re watching hours on end of TV when you really desire relationships with other people you know maybe you’re you’re ruminating on all the worst case scenarios when you’re stressed out you’re thinking of all the bad things that could happen the behavior is just filling you with anxiety uh maybe you’re you’re checking your doors your locks multiple times before you go to bed just to make sure you’re safe these are also disciplines all of these things they’re they’re not really positive disciplines but they are disciplines.
Another quote from Craig Groeschel “Your desires don’t determine who you become your disciplines do.” So I put a note in here about my examples I certainly have been guilty of those last two examples, right? We’re talking about mental health and we’re looking at how this material and the power to change applies to mental health and I have been guilty of those last two examples you know that that is a part of my anxiety and that that is not not a positive discipline that I’ve had but I you know I want to acknowledge that I know how difficult it is to stop those particular disciplines um I’m not trying to shame anyone or make anyone feel bad for those I listed those because those were something that I related to that was a discipline that was not helping me and I know there’s a lot of things that go behind all of those examples and I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad for them I’m just trying to point out that those are disciplines that it’s possible to change those disciplines so I just want to qualify those I want to help people see that those behaviors those are disciplines just that aren’t helping us you know the more that I rethink the way I view discipline the less it’s a negative thing for me and I hope it will be for other people too and I hope these examples will help you see discipline in a better light.
Toward the end of this chapter, Pastor Craig has an exercise right, and we’re just going to go over the high points of this. In your own time. In your week, you know, if you choose, you can go through this exercise on your own. I’m happy to field any kind of email. If you have questions or want to share the results of going through this exercise. yeah we’re talking about discipline and recognizing the disciplines we already have in our lives whether they’re positive or negative maybe places we’re already finding success because we have disciplines already set up and so this exercise says Identify the top three areas in your life where you feel you lack discipline okay so this first one is looking at places or the top three places that you lack discipline and then the second part is next identify the top three areas in your life where you exhibit the most discipline two different questions basically one where you’re lacking three areas where you feel like you lack discipline on the other hand the second one is areas where you feel like you are showing discipline where you’re being successful in the parts of your life where you’re choosing what you want now over what you want most write down your reasons for why you may be putting off the pain of discipline and risking the pain of regret here are some example tools they provided in the book it says I’m just too tired to be consistent in discipline my kids uh second one was I’m healthy right now so I have time to start working out down the road so those were examples of areas where maybe they’re lacking discipline and then their reasoning behind it right why they think they’re they’re choosing what they want now over what they want most in the areas where you believe you lack discipline what is the biggest positive change that could come if you choose some pain today over putting it off until tomorrow so that’s the exercise I hope you guys will take time this week and go through that hopefully that’ll provide some insight for you into establishing um some new positive disciplines in areas where you feel like you’re just lacking you’re coming up short the principle for this section of the book is this one is choosing what you want most over what you want now the path the public success is always paved with private discipline again this is from Pastor Craig’s book it says the path to public success is always paved with private discipline the Hebrews 12:11 in the New Living Translation says “No discipline is enjoyable while it’s happening it’s painful but afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.”
Closing
That’s all for this episode. Thank you for watching. If you like the video, give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes
