Discipline is Not a Gift It’s a System

Hello, I'm Jamila Masaiwa, an international etiquette consultant, author of etiquette books and pre-recorded online etiquette courses. In today's video, I am going to tell you all the things you need to know that I personally learned about discipline growing up and also later on in life realizing how much discipline was important in order to attain the goals and the dreams that I've set for myself ever since I was young. Recently, I was doing a Q&A on my Instagram. If you haven't been following me on Instagram, make sure to do. There, I share mostly about my daily life, things I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. It's almost like my daily journal in photos and videos. And in there, when I was doing the Q&A, a lot of you asked me, how are you so disciplined? You're a mother of two and you have your own YouTube channel, you're a writer, you have work. How are you managing it all? And I thought of putting this video out there in hopes that it also inspires you and helps you to become more disciplined if you're someone who is either struggling with becoming disciplined or wants to become even more disciplined than you are right now. So this video is for those of you that also want to bring your dreams into life. Before I tell you how to become more disciplined or rather what are some elements that keeps me disciplined throughout my life, I want you to change your mindset if you're someone who has this mindset that someone who is disciplined is either born with that or that there is a magical way of becoming disciplined. Like there is a magical pill one can take or there's just one way you do something and all of a sudden you wake up feeling super disciplined. There is no magical ways, there are no shortcuts and no one is born with a trait of being disciplined. I haven't studied this, I'm not a scientist but from my personal example, I know that discipline is something that is born out of either the need to be so because you have no other option but to be disciplined or a very strong desire for something that makes the desire so big that it overrides everything else on your way. So from my personal observation of everyone who I consider to be super disciplined, it's not something they were born with. There are a lot of people in their family that don't have that trait. Discipline is something that you can acquire, you can learn to become disciplined and I think when you change your mindset from thinking, oh someone was born like that, it's a fixed thing, I cannot become disciplined too. It's something I can learn, it's something I can acquire, it changes your mindset and you too if you set your mind into it can become disciplined. Now the good news is that it's learnable though for some people that also might be bad news because they use that excuse that you know I wasn't born disciplined and they use that as an excuse to not do what they said they will be doing. But if you're someone who always wanted to attain that and you are looking for ways to become disciplined, the good news for you is that you can learn it too. And in order to learn it, you have to do one of the two things. You either have to create a need for that artificially if you are not conditioned, if you don't have your current state of life is so comfortable that there isn't actually a need for you to be disciplined, then you artificially create that need or you have to create a very very strong desire for whatever you're trying to attain that requires discipline to be attained. Let's get into each one of those points one by one. So the first thing is the need. So what is the need you might ask me? And I think a good way to explain need is when you have no other option but to do that. You have no other, you don't have any excuses, there is no other way of doing this but actually showing up, being disciplined. A good example I guess would be, you know, if someone was a single mom and has to feed, you know, their kids on their own, has to work three works, they have no option but to wake up, you know, at 6 a.m, take that bus to the first work and then the second and then third, then come back home, cook, prepare home, you know, take care of the homework of the kids. They didn't choose to be disciplined. It's the need to be there to show up, to show up for the kids that makes them be disciplined. So discipline becomes an outcome of the need to be present at every aspect of your life. Actually this is something that I've been observing as an adult that most successful people that you know now had a very difficult childhood and it's the curse, so to speak, of certain difficulties in life that's also a disguised blessing because those curses of not being able to have certain things in life, you know, having challenges early on have created the need to be disciplined, created the need to be resilient, created the needs to all these character traits that eventually make you a successful person when you grow up, that are needed for you to become a successful adult. So there's always a blessing in a curse and this actually, you can observe this also in politics as well, you know, there is this understanding of, as I was studying international relationship, we always studied this oil curse or oil blessing, depends on how you look at it. Most oil dependent countries have very poorly developed parts of economy otherwise because they're so heavily dependent on oil and they're so blessed with oil that they're so reliant on it that they weren't developing other aspects of their economy, mostly Middle Eastern countries, and then you juxtapose it with Japan which doesn't have any natural resources but is super progressed and super developed because they're cursed in a way of not having any natural resources but they're so progressed in the economy so that curse is turned into a blessing. The same happens in human life. So when you have the need to be disciplined, you have no other option but be disciplined, and sometimes when you don't have the need because you grew up in a comfortable family, in your comfort zone, even right now in your life everything seems like it's handled, so you really don't have to be super disciplined, you don't have to wake up at early in the morning and show up to three different works, but if you want to do that you have to create that need, so artificially put yourself in this a bit of a stressful situation where you actually have to show up despite the fact that you don't need to maybe but you create that need. So in my case I actually do have to wake up early because I have to prepare my kids for school and so I have to wake up, there's no other option. But even on the days when I don't have to wake up early, it's a weekend, I have a class scheduled in the morning, an online class, so that I wake up to show up to class. So I've created that need to wake up in the morning in order not to lag off, in order not to go astray from my discipline. Of course Sundays is a day when I take the day off but otherwise I try to stick to the disciplined schedule because I know how difficult it is to get back on track once you have let yourself go loose, so to speak. So I do have a need, but when I don't have the need I create that need artificially. You can do it too, you can schedule an appointment, you can create a need to, you know, you sign up for something where they expect you to show up, so now you need to be there even if you don't want to be there. So create a responsibility for yourself. Those are the ways that you can create something where you have to show up because you're accountable to other people or you have to show up because they will depend on your presence. So creating number one is a need and if you don't have the need, the next thing you can create, if you can't artificially create a need, you can create a burning desire. Now let's talk about desire. So the second driving force of discipline is desire. I wouldn't just say second, it's just the two are on the same level. You either are disciplined because you need to be disciplined or you're disciplined because you have a burning desire for something and desire is something that is from within, that comes from an inner voice from within that you have always wanted to attain certain thing, be able to become a certain person, be able to have a certain characteristics, a certain body, a certain house, a certain lifestyle, whatever it might be. The desire is so strong in you that everything else that stands in your way of becoming disciplined is dismissed. The desire is so strong that it makes you disciplined because you know that in order to get there, you need to show up and do your work. So for me personally, there are certain inner desires that have been in me way before social media was there, way before society told me that I have to be this person or that person. I have certain dreams in life. The dream has been so vivid in my mind that the desire to attain it is so strong in me that it doesn't let me sleep. It doesn't let me do nothing. It makes me show up every day. It makes me wake up early. It makes me work towards the goal that I have set in mind. The desire is so strong that nothing stops me. I think an important thing to realize here that that desire has to come from within and not imposed by you by someone else because when the desire is imposed by society or by your family or by someone else, that desire is not yours. So it's not from within and it's not igniting you. It's not giving that fire that's needed to show up even when things get hard. But when that desire is truly yours, it's coming from within of your own guts. That's how I call it a gut desire. When you have that, there's no need for an alarm clock to wake you up. There's no need for someone to tell you, you know, show up because you want to show up. Personally for me, I don't want to disclose a lot of the dreams until I actually attain them. But for example, the writing of my books, the journey of writing my books, I think the desire to create these books was so strong in me that I would devour everything along the way when it came to doing the research. I would not be sleeping a few days in a row, researching, reading, putting the things together, imagining how images will look together. So until I actually produced those books, the thought of those books would not give me a rest. So that basically made me look super disciplined to someone else who was watching me work. But for me, I had no other option but be disciplined. If you're someone who's struggling to find your inner desires, I think it's very healthy to, it's a good exercise we did in college. Go back to the time when you were much younger, maybe age six, seven, before you really understood what society was imposing on you and think of all the things you wanted to do. If all professionals in the world would have the same equal societal status and will bring the same amount of money and will be on the same, considered on the same level of importance in society, what would you be doing? Or what is the activities that you love to do as a child? Go back to those ages when you remember yourself, not teenagerhood because that's when we're influenced a lot by others, but six, seven, eight, and what is that that you really wanted to do? And second, what are the things that you were doing that came very easy to you? You're very natural at it and then when you were doing these things, you would not even observe the time. The time would just pass by very quickly. What is that that you truly enjoy doing? Write those things down and you will, those things will tell you what you want to be doing right now. So if you want to learn to become disciplined, if you want to bring that trait into your life, if you want to train yourself in that, you have to bring a desire that's innately yours and you have to work on that desire. And as you're working on it, discipline will become a part of this journey in becoming that person. And so by the time you're attaining that goal, you're actually building discipline. And the easiest way to build discipline is in the things that you actually enjoy doing. So if we're looking at discipline as a character trait and we need a fuel for that, so the first fuel is, or not the first, but just there are two fuels. It's either the need or it's the desire. So either we find a need to be disciplined or we find a desire to be disciplined. The next thing we need to know has to do with timing, the next two points. First one is that you have to limit your free time. The more free time you have, the less chances it is for you to be disciplined. What I mean by that is ever since I became a mother and I have two kids, I have become more disciplined in my life than ever before. As I can recall myself from back in, I was in college all by myself. The only person I was responsible for was myself. I was still disciplined. I would show up to classes because I had the need to excel in my class because I also had scholarship from university. And second, I had the desire to be a summa cum laude student. So I had to make sure that my GPA was at a certain level in order to graduate with that honorary degree. So there was a need to be a good student and there was a desire to be a good student. But I had a lot of free time. Because I had a lot of free time, I actually didn't work out in college. I was just studying and I also partied a lot. But I wasn't really taking care of my body. I wasn't really working out. I wasn't into all that has to do with sports. It was something I wasn't really mindful of. But ever since having my kids and understanding how important it is to take care of my body for my physical health, for my mental and emotional health, and now that I have two other human beings that I'm responsible for, I've actually become so much more disciplined in life now than I ever was before. And that's because I don't have enough free time or so I think. I almost wish there were a lot more hours in a day so I could accomplish more. I know that I don't have the full day to myself. I have a certain part of the day where I can dedicate to activities that I want to do for myself. And then the second part of the day is because I have to take care of their homework. I have to take care of their extracurricular activities. I have to talk to them. I have to take care of their day-to-day things that they want me to handle. So I have two other humans that I have to show up for. This has limited the time to myself, which is why now I'm a lot more mindful with the free time that I have to myself. When I have that one extra hour when I don't have, for example, work to do, I know that I cannot just be sparing that time. I need to do something with that time that will benefit me in the long run. Of course, it doesn't mean that I don't rest. I, of course, rest because resting is also part of health benefits. It brings health benefits. But what I'm trying to say is that I don't have the leisure of time to be just laying on the couch and not doing anything at all because every hour is to be considered mindfully and spent mindfully with the benefit for my health, mental, emotional, physical or to my kids. Continuing on this notion of time and discipline, I also want to tell you something that I read a long time ago that I couldn't agree more with and that an activity will stretch out to accommodate in the time frame that you've allocated for that. It reminded me of my college years where we could write a paper overnight, procrastinating last minute writing a paper in five hours before the deadline or we could just stretch that writing paper for a whole month because we knew we had time. The same goes even with my YouTube shoots. When I have things scheduled before my YouTube shoot and right after, I tell my videographer that we have two hours to do three videos and we somehow get to do three videos in those two hours because that's the time slot I've allocated for those three videos. But if on a certain day he comes over and I'm like, listen, we have all day to ourselves, I assure you we will take that whole day. The activity of shooting YouTube will stretch it out to the entirety of the day. So when you allocate a certain amount of time to a certain activity, it's going to take that much amount of time. That's why limiting your time or rather artificially in some sense, creating a tight schedule will help you become more mindful of time and hence more disciplined. Now this brings me to the next important element of being disciplined is get your schedule together. Limiting artificially your time by creating a certain schedule for yourself of the things you told yourself you will be doing. There's one thing you say, oh, I'm going to go to the gym, oh, I'm going to start learning a new language, oh, I'm going to read a page a day, but you're not going to get it done unless you put it into a schedule. I saw this one video, I can't remember who it was, but I think it was Anna Vento who said, if you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it or ask a person who has a fixed schedule to do it, because they'll put it into the schedule and they'll get it done. And you don't have to get very fancy with the way you schedule your things. It's not like you get a specific planner for that. It has to be in a certain way of scheduling. No, I keep my schedule day-to-day basis on my phone in my notes. I have a notebook for bigger dreams and bigger aspirations and plans or projects that I want to create. Those are kind of like the bigger plans. And then my day-to-day activities, I actually write them down on the phone because I'm always with the phone. Everyone is on their phone and it's easy to retrieve it. It's easy to look through the day. So I keep my weekly schedule in my notes. And actually, before COVID, I used to love to plan long-term, but after COVID, I realized long-term planning just doesn't work for me. I'd rather be much more flexible. So I keep my schedule for a week, kind of more or less fixed, a week and a half. And then the rest, I just scatter out some plans. But in my weekly schedule, I have all the classes that I want to do. So my dance class, workout, Arabic classes, shooting, singing, whatever it might be. I even write down time to read a book with my kids, homework time with the kids. I don't know, schedule a call. It's my Zoom calls, YouTube shoot, whatever. You might read a book, clean my closet, whatever it might be. I put everything out so I actually take off the load from my head onto the digital space, into my notes, so that I'm clear of my mind for the things that would otherwise be there and keep my mind occupied. And when I have that schedule in front of my eyes throughout the day, as the day goes by, I check off all the things that I've accomplished. And that also makes me feel a lot better about myself, that I've been able to do everything that I said I'm going to be doing that day. So getting a schedule and sticking to a schedule is a really great way of being disciplined. Even when you don't feel like doing it, your schedule says you have a dance class where a teacher is waiting for you, that you have paid for. So please be diligent, show up to that class and dance. This is the thing. Every time after a workout or dance class or any language class, any class that I've taken, after dragging myself, especially in certain weathers when it's really cold and I don't feel like leaving home, every time I leave the class, I tell myself, thank God I came. It has never been a case where I left class and thought, oh my God, why did I even come? It's always with a lot of gratitude, self-gratitude and actually a lot of feeling of kind of being proud of myself that I actually carried through and I showed up despite of not wanting to show up and thinking of all the excuses I could come up on the way there. But because I saw it on my schedule, I stuck to it. So get your schedule together. Now that you have been showing up to places, being disciplined, it's time to reward yourself because it's very difficult to be disciplined. It takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of willpower to be disciplined. It takes a lot of personal resources to be disciplined. So when you are giving away that much, you need some kind of a fuel to fuel your willpower. And that's why rewarding yourself every step of the way is important. Don't wait for the big result to show up in order to reward yourself. Say you are on a track of becoming physically very strong. You have said that you're going to show up in the gym three times a week, you know, that's your new year's resolution. And you want to weigh a certain amount of kilograms, you want your body to look a certain way, you're going to eat clean, you're going to stay away from all kind of junk food. So, you know, you have this new year's resolution and you have been consistently showing up the gym, eating clean. So you have given a lot of willpower to do that. Now it's time, every two weeks or so, celebrate yourself with small rewards. It doesn't have to be a big thing, it could be something that will make you feel good, that will bring joy to you, that will fuel your willpower. I like to compare it almost like taking those small breaks at gas stations when you're on a long road trip. So say you're on a 10-hour road trip, you've already driven two hours, you stop by a gas station for a little break, you get yourself coffee, get yourself a nice treat there, you stop, you drink, have a little treat, fuel yourself back, yourself, you rest a little bit and then you resume, you go back on the road. You still have eight hours still to go but you did a little stop, you fueled yourself, you know, with a little bit of caffeine and some sweets maybe and then you're ready off to go another eight hours. Don't wait for the big result to show up once you've, you know, attained what your dream body looks like, that you're able to celebrate. Celebrate the little steps as well. And in my personal example, I know that after the day is over, once I've accomplished everything that I said I would be doing that day, so I did my Arabic class, did my YouTube shoot, had my Zoom calls, you know, spent time with the kids, did their homework. Once I put them to bed, I make myself a cup of something, I, you know, maybe I wanted to eat something like a muffin or something. I get myself a muffin, I open a podcast on YouTube that I enjoy watching and then I just put on a candle light and I just wrap up my day by rewarding myself with a nice cup of tea, some sweets and an interesting podcast to watch. It could be anything that you like but it doesn't have to be something super big so don't wait for big victories to show up. Even celebrate the little steps, reward yourself because your willpower will need it to show up the next day doing the same thing even though you don't always feel like doing it. For the times when you don't feel like doing it, there is this important element of being accountable and that comes with a seventh step of building discipline is sharing whatever you said you will be doing with others. When you share with others what you have put your mind into doing, you announce so to speak your resolutions or you announce what you're going to be doing for the next couple of months to your family, to your friends, your inner circle, could be your online community, could be your followers, could be your viewers. Like in my case, it makes me accountable. The reason I'm sharing so much of what I'm doing day to day on my Instagram account it's not because I want to show off or I want to show others look what I'm doing but by doing so I hope to do two things. I hope to inspire others to start doing it too because whenever we see someone else do it we think okay they've been doing it in their started doing that in their late 30s maybe I could be able to do that too you know why not. You set an example to others that it's attainable, it's doable, so you inspire others to maybe do that or maybe do something that they've always wanted to do and never had a chance to do but also it makes me personally accountable to now my viewers who are beholding me to that activity that oh I remember you were taking singing classes how are those singing classes coming along because I wanted to join one of on my own in town. So because now I've shared this activity with others I'm now responsible of showing up and continuously sharing that. So actually sharing certain things in social media can be very helpful because other people so to speak are watching you do it and that keeps you on your toes that keeps you encouraged that keeps you accountable that I have to show up because I've already shown that I'm showing up. I know this is true in my case and I'm sure a lot of social media influencers a lot of people that share their journey of you know their fitness journey their reading challenges that they do online you know learning a language marathon any kind of challenging marathon that people are sharing online is for those particular purposes that they can have other people be that they could be accountable for. Hence if you don't have a social media or you're someone who is not very doesn't have a big audience share it with your family share it with your inner circle share it with a few friends around you that they can then keep you accountable for the progress that you're making that you're actually showing up in the way you said you will. And finally a very important element of being disciplined and keep going in that direction is announcing your victories. We talked about celebrating the small steps but equally don't be shy don't be ashamed to announce your victories. It's not something that you should be you know shy of not showing or thinking that what others will think or that they will think I'm bragging. It's not bragging if you have earned it with your hard work your sweat when you've showed up when it was difficult when you've showed up when no one else showed up. If this is something you earned don't be shy to announce it and to show that you have attained what you have set your mind to. Announcing your victories is great because it helps you realize what a journey you have come it also motivates other people to see through your victories that it's also possible to attain that so you inspire others but also by inspiring others you also fuel yourself because you get to prove to yourself and show to yourself and others that you have been able to attain what you have set your mind into and the only way to attain it was through discipline. I like to say this phrase that discipline will take you where motivation cannot. Motivation can only ignite you thus far but it's really the discipline that will keep you going on the days when motivation is just sub-zero where inspiration is sub-hundred so you cannot rely on those two very fleeting feelings like inspiration and motivation. Discipline is the only thing that will take you through and until the very end until you get to where you want to be and once you have been there and done that and reach that show others that you have done it and don't be ashamed of it. So that's the wrap about discipline. My final thought on this is that it's something that everyone can learn, it's something that everyone can teach themselves either through the need or through the desire. Limit your free time, get yourself a schedule, reward your little steps, share it with others so they can keep you accountable and finally announce your victories. I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you did, give it a thumbs up so I know what kind of content you like watching on my channel and if you would like to learn more about etiquette you can get my books on my website, they're available for international shipment, you can even get a personally signed book for your beloved one or maybe for yourself. If you want to learn even more in depth about etiquette you online etiquette courses, the art of entertaining at home where I teach you how to host dinner according to four different seasons, how to wrap gifts, how to do flower arrangements and the other course is called the western formal dining etiquette from A to Z that teaches you everything you need to know in order to be prepared for a formal dining experience and if you want to learn even more in depth about etiquette you can join my patron etiquette movie club where every month I do an analysis of different kind of etiquette movies from an etiquette standpoint of view. So far I've done over 40 different movie analysis and by joining etiquette movie club now you can have access to all those exclusive movie reviews. So if you have made until this part of the video you know that at the end I always love to share the outfit of today's video. So for today's video I decided to wear something that was super comfortable but at the same time a little bit more glammed up. I'm wearing these flared pants from a brand called Framed Me. I'm wearing this Giannito Rossi high heels that are super comfortable and super versatile. I wear them from work to to cocktail events even worn to some weddings as well and I have paired this with a very comfy sweater in a very cute pink color somehow I'm feeling pink this season. This is from a local shop in Minsk, Belarus and so that's my entire outfit for today's video. I hope that you enjoyed it and I hope to see you in my next video. Bye!