Discipline equals freedom

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay 

I always write my blog posts on Saturday mornings, but today I am writing this post at a café in my hometown Umeå, around lunchtime. I haven’t gotten enough sleep the past week, and last night me and my wife had an important discussion which dragged on past midnight. I realized that four hours of sleep on top of the already empty sleep account would come back to bite me, when my alarm went off at 04:45. The icing on the cake was that my son had cuddled up next to me in the night, sleeping peacefully. Even my dogs were extraordinarily calm (they usually want to go walking around 05:00). It was that kind of a moment that you only get a handful of in a lifetime and I wasn’t going to miss it. I decided that my blog can wait a couple of hours and switched off the alarm.  

When you have a habit, it is crucial that you stick to it. Because the consistency will give you flexibility. I can highly recommend the works of Jocko Willinck, whose motto is “Discipline equals freedom”. Today’s blog post is a clear example of that. This is my 43rd post, and almost all of them have been written on Saturday mornings. That means that I have a solid foundation to relate to, when some flexibility is required, like today. The world is dynamic. It changes constantly and you must be prepared to change with it. Without habits and routine, this change becomes very difficult. It is like building a house without a foundation.

I have also learned the lesson about discipline equals freedom as a musician. If you are playing alone or in a band doesn’t matter. By practicing consistently every single day you will raise the bar of your lowest performance, until it is so high that even your worst days will be more than enough. If you and your band know the songs by heart, you can easily do some improvisation if the atmosphere is right. Or you can save the situation if the technology goes haywire. Because you always have your foundation to relate to. On the other hand, if you haven’t practiced consistently and disaster strikes, the world will eat you alive.

Another reason that I chose to postpone the blog writing today, was that I wanted to try and do it differently and see what happens. Change the setting and new ideas will follow. I can tell you that the experience of writing is quite different here at the café. People are talking around me, and I find their conversations somewhat disturbing. It is much more difficult to concentrate here. My mind is now constantly exposed to new expressions while trying to do the writing. This means that different areas of my brain fires together with the writing part of my brain. There’s a saying regarding neurons: “Fire together, wire together. That’s the reason why a change in environment is crucial for progress. If I never change anything, I will perhaps stagnate.

Anyway, now I have tried to change my routine, and I didn’t like this. When writing, I prefer a calm place without external stimuli – i.e. the opposite of this café. I don’t regret trying this out, because next Saturday, I will enjoy my writing in solitude more than ever before. Have a nice weekend!