• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 23:57
CEST 05:57
KST 12:57
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall5HomeStory Cup 27 - Info & Preview18Classic wins Code S Season 2 (2025)16Code S RO4 & Finals Preview: herO, Rogue, Classic, GuMiho0TL Team Map Contest #5: Presented by Monster Energy6
Community News
Flash Announces Hiatus From ASL40Weekly Cups (June 23-29): Reynor in world title form?12FEL Cracov 2025 (July 27) - $8000 live event16Esports World Cup 2025 - Final Player Roster14Weekly Cups (June 16-22): Clem strikes back1
StarCraft 2
General
Statistics for vetoed/disliked maps The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation Weekly Cups (June 23-29): Reynor in world title form? StarCraft Mass Recall: SC1 campaigns on SC2 thread How does the number of casters affect your enjoyment of esports?
Tourneys
RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series [GSL 2025] Code S: Season 2 - Semi Finals & Finals $5,100+ SEL Season 2 Championship (SC: Evo) FEL Cracov 2025 (July 27) - $8000 live event HomeStory Cup 27 (June 27-29)
Strategy
How did i lose this ZvP, whats the proper response Simple Questions Simple Answers
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 480 Moths to the Flame Mutation # 479 Worn Out Welcome Mutation # 478 Instant Karma Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady
Brood War
General
Flash Announces Hiatus From ASL Help: rep cant save BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ [ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall Where did Hovz go?
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL20] GosuLeague RO16 - Tue & Wed 20:00+CET The Casual Games of the Week Thread [BSL20] ProLeague LB Final - Saturday 20:00 CET
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers I am doing this better than progamers do.
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile What do you want from future RTS games? Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
Trading/Investing Thread US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Games Industry And ATVI Stop Killing Games - European Citizens Initiative
Fan Clubs
SKT1 Classic Fan Club! Maru Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece [\m/] Heavy Metal Thread Korean Music Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread NBA General Discussion Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 NHL Playoffs 2024
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
from making sc maps to makin…
Husyelt
Blog #2
tankgirl
Game Sound vs. Music: The Im…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 485 users

Discipline, degree and fit, little by little

Blogs > coffeesession
Post a Reply
coffeesession
Profile Blog Joined August 2019
62 Posts
November 21 2020 23:43 GMT
#1
This is just me sharing some personal findings. It's not a guide.

Few themes occurred to me recently:
1) sense of order or feeling one has about discipline,
2) degree of discipline that fits,
3) little by little, discipline in building discipline,
4) little by little in discipline, why?,
5) quality of discipline.

1) Sense of order or feeling one has about discipline.

The feeling part is about that sense of orderliness one has when stuff is nicely organized and easy to navigate. Basic thing. For example, when the room is cleaned up or some stuff in the shelf is nicely sorted or the schedule is clear and easy to adjust and make sense of. It's that nice kind of a feeling when one walks into a place and it's well-organized, has this kind of a clear, nice feeling about it.

That's basic but actually more important than it seems.

Why wouldn't one not want the emotional association one has with discipline, be itself disciplined? Thinking about discipline or making things orderly as this chore-like thing, this "making yourself do it" kind of stuff, is actually having a disorderly or undisciplined association about discipline, one of emotional turbulence. If the very starting point of making things more orderly, is itself disorderly, why would it be effective?

Instead, discipline can be thought of as just this nice feeling of being on track. Of just keeping one's activities and things relatively orderly and clear. Not as this kind of a 12 hour grind all day every day, near-perfect adherence to schedule, or having every tiniest thing in order, or absolutely 0.000% mess anywhere in anything. No, it's just doing things that make sense in a way that makes sense and keeping a general sense of order. It's literally just this nice feeling that comes with keeping things fairly orderly and clear. This is a pretty basic but surprisingly big difference maker, in terms of actually doing the discipline.

2) Degree of discipline that fits.

This is the recognition that it's about finding a degree of discipline that fits oneself. It's about the optimal degree. It's like a recipe, too much of even an excellent ingredient can worsen or screw everything up. It's not about maxing out on discipline. More discipline doesn't equal better. More disciplined doesn't equate better. It's important to recognize that it really varies from person to person and too much discipline is as destructive as too little of it. Not too little, not too much. Just about fine, as fits one's unique predispositions, preference and needs.

3) Little by little, discipline in building discipline.

Going from 0 to 100 in almost one go. 10 to 40. 20 to 70. That doesn't work, in general. Instead, set the goal or discipline on what's slightly outside of how disciplined one was the day before. Not too slightly - it should be a bit of a stretch. But not too far out, either. Something that is kinda challenging but not too hard. It's not cruising, but it's not this really huge deal or destroyer of worlds maximum insanity level either. It's this nice stretch.

Repeat that until it becomes comfortable. Then set a new goal that is the new stretch, slightly outside of what one can do now.

Keep stretching and repeating to comfort, again and again and again. Each time one stretches and then repeats it enough for it to become the new comfort, one's becoming genuinely more disciplined. It becomes default and automatic. And that's the entire point.

4) Little by little in building discipline, why?

Overextending, e.g. 0 to 100, 30 to 80 overnight and the like, this tends to offer a short-lived period of rather shaky, tense, and very forced discipline. It's often followed by an even greater and more magnified period which lacks it. Makes sense? Not necessarily, at least not unless someone has experienced it enough.

Being absurdly driven, I was repeatedly convincing myself that "this is bullshit for pussies" and, with a clear goal in mind, going all out at it. I'm not saying this can't work, on some occasions it probably can - but in general that kind of a discipline doesn't really become default and automatic, and the quality of that discipline suffers.

It's easy to understand why one doesn't go from some small weights to strongman level weights in the gym. It's harder to comprehend why would discipline - something that seems just mental, psychological, emotional - be similar in this regard.

The reason has to do with translation, distribution, and alignment between parts. It's not so much that one wants to be more disciplined, it's many parts of oneself that do. There are emotional parts, mental parts, physical parts. There are sub-parts in each of these parts. In a sense, there are trillions of parts because there are trillions of cells, though of course, they organize into larger parts. All of these parts are influenced by, and participate in, daily cycles or rhytm of activity. If one changes this rhytm - some parts can both understand and adapt very easily and quickly. And some parts cannot or don't, for whatever reason, they require time. If that time's not given, it creates a ton of problems.

That's the basic gist of it. If one gives themselves time, they're really giving time to all the internal parts to understand and adapt to what's going on and that's really the key. That's why being more patient and gradual about it, tends to produce much more solid and lasting results, instead of confusion and repeated lack of progress.

There is also the quality of discipline involved in it. It's very important that the quality fits oneself. Rushing it tends to dilute and distort the quality, while taking a more gradual and patient approach supports achieving a quality that fits oneself.

5) On the quality of discipline.

There are many kinds of discipline. The discipline I'm taking about is not one of beating oneself into a constricted automaton. Discipline shouldn't be associated with a lot of tension, feeling very forced, something very pushy and imposing, that's not what it is about. Discipline is something that's used to achieve a nice sense of order. It's returning and staying on track. Mostly, there shouldn't be a sense of overwhelm, or mounting tension, or overload, associated with discipline. It's not tension and stifling sense of restriction. It's a sense of order and stretch of one's abilities in a direction that makes sense.

This quality of discipline has many facets and it's not important to consider them consciously. I don't think it is, at least. There are far too many of them. What's important is that it feels aligned and that it's stable and resilient. A discipline that's easily shaken or broken, that's not the goal. It's discipline that really fits oneself, and then, becomes default and automatic. Intrinsic to one's most normal, day-to-day, unconscious attitude. Something that one finds naturally gravitating towards because it's just a fine place to be at.



***
Just_a_Moth
Profile Joined March 2012
Canada1948 Posts
November 24 2020 10:48 GMT
#2
I bookmarked this.
GameLocalizer
Profile Joined November 2020
9 Posts
December 03 2020 02:03 GMT
#3
Great post, about slowly ratcheting up discipline. For me one thing that's really helped is TRACKING. Heck, hitting 60% of my goal is still 60% better than before, right?~
art_of_turtle
Profile Blog Joined September 2012
United States1183 Posts
December 04 2020 10:03 GMT
#4
Good read especially this very particular piece of advice
Being absurdly driven, I was repeatedly convincing myself that "this is bullshit for pussies" and, with a clear goal in mind, going all out at it. I'm not saying this can't work, on some occasions it probably can - but in general that kind of a discipline doesn't really become default and automatic, and the quality of that discipline suffers.


There was a book out there called Atomic Habits that just resonates these same ideas!
Flash should fear Sacsri
Devid Chan
Profile Joined December 2020
United States13 Posts
December 20 2020 20:49 GMT
#5
I didn't really like it, but when is the sequel?
Veni, vidi, vici!
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
00:00
HSC 27: Groups A & B
Liquipedia
OSC
20:00
Mid Season Playoffs
Gerald vs MojaLIVE!
ArT vs Jumy
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft365
Nina 188
RuFF_SC2 173
StarCraft: Brood War
PianO 277
Aegong 128
Stork 83
Sharp 54
ajuk12(nOOB) 12
Icarus 9
Dota 2
NeuroSwarm151
League of Legends
JimRising 733
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox580
Mew2King97
amsayoshi67
ChuDatz34
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor119
Other Games
summit1g9722
tarik_tv1403
shahzam893
WinterStarcraft180
Maynarde133
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1451
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 18 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH270
• Hupsaiya 48
• practicex 42
• OhrlRock 3
• IndyKCrew
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• sooper7s
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• RayReign 26
• Azhi_Dahaki11
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
League of Legends
• Doublelift4098
• Stunt272
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
6h 3m
RSL Revival
6h 3m
ByuN vs Classic
Clem vs Cham
WardiTV European League
12h 3m
Replay Cast
20h 3m
RSL Revival
1d 6h
herO vs SHIN
Reynor vs Cure
WardiTV European League
1d 12h
FEL
1d 12h
Korean StarCraft League
1d 23h
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
RSL Revival
2 days
[ Show More ]
FEL
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
FEL
3 days
BSL: ProLeague
3 days
Dewalt vs Bonyth
Replay Cast
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
The PondCast
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2025-06-28
HSC XXVII
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
Acropolis #3
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
Copa Latinoamericana 4
Championship of Russia 2025
RSL Revival: Season 1
Murky Cup #2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025

Upcoming

CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
uThermal 2v2 Main Event
SEL Season 2 Championship
FEL Cracov 2025
Esports World Cup 2025
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.