Discipline's Necessary Place in a Neurodivergent 'Soft Life'

If you’ve spent any time living out from under a rock, you’ll notice there’s a growing trend of doing less - working less, going out less, spending less, and, in general, putting less pressure on yourself. It’s a reclaiming of self-care in lieu of Hustle Culture. Folks are calling it living a “soft life.”

And as a whole, I think it’s great! It’s important to prioritize your mental health over what society has long deemed valuable: working excessive hours, self-sacrifice, and placing your worth in how much money you make and spend.

I am especially thrilled that people are turning away from the glorification of working way over eight hours a day. It’s not healthy, and it’s not even worth it - our quality of life is not keeping up with our increased productivity. Workers are realizing this, and they’re making changes accordingly.

However, there has also been a shift from using discipline in a healthy way. It feels like in embracing a “soft life”, we’ve turned away from pushing ourselves to do more - even when it comes to the things we want to do; the things that are important to us. 

Victoria Hutchins, a poet and yoga teacher, launched her podcast with an episode talking about how to approach discipline in a world that is increasingly dissatisfied with hustle culture. She explains why discipline is still a value worth holding and I highly recommend you go listen to it.

I’d love to talk about this within the realm of neurodivergence. 

First of all:

What is discipline?

Discipline is your ability to keep working at something that challenges you. It doesn’t mean doing things you don’t want to do for the sake of it. It means doing things that are hard because you know that they’re good for you. It means working against impulses that aren’t necessarily in your best interest for the sake of doing something that is in your best interest. Doing things that are challenging and also good for you is what leads to satisfaction.

Discipline is less about white-knuckling your way to success - we know that doesn’t work for ADHD folks anyway. It’s more about taking intentional steps toward a challenging goal.

I believe that balance, and not a complete divestment from difficulty, is the key to a happy, fulfilling life.

How can discipline serve you, a neurodivergent human, who’s trying to live a soft life?

If your goal is to be doing less, I’d wager that this shift is actually to make space for more: more cooking at home. Spending more time outside. Moving your body more often. Visiting more with friends. Getting more rest.

And all of these things can require discipline. Yes, even rest!

Growth and change, in any way, require existing outside of your comfort zone. If your entire purpose has been shifted to living solely within comfort, your life will remain exactly as it is. It may even deteriorate.

It’s easy to just order takeout instead of cooking the meal you’d planned with the ingredients you bought. It’s easy to stay in bed when you told yourself you’d go get breakfast with friends. It’s easy to scroll on your phone instead of giving yourself a break from screens. This is why it’s important to still hold onto some discipline.

When you don’t apply discipline, you’re at the mercy of your brain’s impulses - this is especially true if you’re neurodivergent. And your impulses are not always looking out for you. I say all the time that sometimes, your first impulse is not always what’s in your best interest. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to get better. I wish that all of the changes that we need to make were easy. We would all be living our best, most fulfilled lives if that were the case. 

Unfortunately, the reality and the hard truth is that we must do difficult things in order to be the person we most want to be and to have the life we want. Even a soft one.

I’m sorry.

I don’t like it either.

I don’t like waking up early to make time for the gym. And sometimes, my impulsivity wins and I don’t go. But most days, I muscle through my morning sleepies and I make it to the gym at least two days a week. I go because I know that in 50 years, my old lady bones will be much better for it. It’s hard for my ADHD brain to think that far in the future, so I have to use discipline to make it happen.

And I know that if you’re here for my ADHD content, you might also be saying: But my ADHD!

“I can’t control my impulses! It’s how my brain works.”

And you’re right, having ADHD makes it harder. Your brain’s control over its impulses is diminished compared to a neurotypical brain. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to do something about it. You do. It takes effort, it takes discipline, and it takes time, but you do. And you owe it to yourself - the version of yourself that you most want to be - to try. Remember that discipline is a skill that can be built.

ADHD brains thrive on novelty and change. Relying on your impulses to drive your behavior can ultimately leave you feeling dissatisfied.

So: How do you build discipline?

First: Admit that it’s hard. And believe that you can do it.

To bring out your discipline, acknowledge that the thing that you’re trying to do is hard. Pretending that it’s easy is wishful thinking, and will likely leave you unprepared and liable to fail. Then, remind yourself that you can do hard things. You can! There is no better way to prove to yourself that you can do hard things than by taking that first step and making it happen. Give it a go. Give it your best shot. Tell yourself: It’s hard. AND, I can do it. Repeat this statement regularly. When it comes to your brain, what you water is what will grow. If you water your doubt, your doubt will grow. If you water your belief in yourself, that will grow instead.

Second: Build Resilience through Self-Compassion.

Part of being disciplined is resilience, or the ability to recover from a setback. And part of resilience is self-compassion, or treating yourself with kindness when things don’t go as planned. It’s normal to hit bumps along the way. As a health coach, I’ve never once seen anyone achieve success without first experiencing some challenges. 

In order to get back to a habit and keep going, you have to forgive yourself for the moments that don’t go well. If you see setbacks as a failure, you’re a lot less likely to try again. So: forgive yourself first. Try again second. You will get there. I know you will!

Third: Make it easier on yourself by removing barriers.

Even if what you’re doing is hard, you can also make it as easy as possible for yourself to succeed. Remove any barriers you can. Remember that with ADHD, we’re very likely to give into our impulsivity. We’re liable to forget what we’ve set out to do. If you’re going to the gym in the morning, set your clothes out the night before. Set two alarms. Fill your water bottle ahead of time. Delete as many steps as possible for the morning so you can simply roll out of bed, get dressed, and go. If you want more help with removing barriers, that’s my whole job as a health coach. First sessions are always free, so grab a time on my calendar for us to figure it out together.

It’s a lot easier to climb a ladder than to do a pull-up. See how many “rungs” you can add to help yourself get up there.

As for me, the next thing on my list of Hard Things is running. My goal is to do it for the whole month of March.

Let me tell you, I hate running. I hate it so much. But that’s precisely why I’m going to do it. I’m not setting out to do it forever. I just want to be able to run a few miles without feeling like I’m going to die. It won’t be pretty. But I will be proud of myself. And hey, who knows - maybe I’ll end up loving it and I’ll be one of those weirdos who signs up for half marathons. That’s the beauty of behavior change - we never know until we try.

I’ll let you know how it goes. :)