S2: E6 - How To Push Yourself Without Breaking Yourself

There's a fine line between self-discipline and self-compassion when it comes to balancing your health and fitness long-term. 

In this episode I'll discuss how each can be healthy, how they can be balanced, and what to look out for in case either of those traits are damaging your wellbeing. 

If you struggle with feelings of shame, guilt, worry or stress when it comes to your exercise and nutrition habits, do not miss this short episode. 

Transcript

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Hi everyone, welcome back to the Lifestyle Legacy podcast. It's definitely been a while, but I don't really like making these just for the sake of sticking to a rigid tempo. But I'm glad that you're listening today because I'm going to dive into a topic that I think every single human being wrestles with at some point in their life. This being the delicate balance between self-compassion and self-discipline. And we tend to think of these two forces as opposites on a spectrum. On the left hand side, you've got self-discipline, which is the push, and it's the structure. And then on the right hand side of the spectrum, you've got compassion, which is the pause, the kindness, and the softness. But the truth is, neither of them can stand alone, not in a healthy and sustainable way, which is what we're going to delve into. So today I'm going to look deeper into how these two traits work, where they might go wrong, and how they can intertwine so that we can create a healthier lifestyle that's both productive and driven, but it's also kind and resilient. So having a look at the basics first. What is self-discipline really? When we talk about self-discipline, it's often praised as the golden bullet, the the silver bullet, the secret ingredient of success. And yes, it can be powerful. And a definition that's often found of self-discipline is that it's the ability to stay committed to a goal, to focus on what's in front of you, and to show up consistently, even when you don't feel like it. Discipline, self-discipline can definitely help you build healthy habits. It can definitely help you inch forward when motivation is nowhere to be found. And realistically, motivation isn't always going to be at its peak. And when you're disciplined, you can tap into small action, you can tap into commitment, and you can tap into perseverance. And it can offer a sense of do you know what it is? I've accomplished something today. And those are definitely rewards and they're definitely real feelings. But if we go back to spectrums, I said we've got a spectrum where self-discipline is on the left and self-compassion is on the right. But self-discipline itself has got its own spectrum. When it's taken too far, self-discipline can have a dark side. This is when discipline becomes our only language. It's the only thing that we dip into, and it can drift into rigidity. And anybody who's listened to my podcasts before will know that I've spoken about problems when thinking about rigid plans and rigid routines and rigid habits. What can happen? This can lead to punishing, inflexible mindset where your internal narrative is less about I can do all these hard things, and it becomes more about I'm never good enough. I'm never going to be good enough. And that's where burnout, anxiety, and harsh self self-judgment will be found. And this is also where a perfectionism mindset lies. Again, something that I speak about all the time with our coach and clients. And when we have these beliefs all driven by this far side of the I must be disciplined all the time on the spectrum. When burnout, debilitating illness or sickness, overwhelm, intense anxiety, harsh self-judgment, hit, this can lead to an all-or-nothing mindset. Leading to thoughts about what's the point? I can't be perfect, so fuck this. And then this can ripple through all of our other health behaviours when it comes to what we eat, what we drink, how we sleep, our sleep boundaries, what movement we're going to do, what workouts we're going to do. So that's giving you a little bit of an overview of what self-discipline is, how it can be helpful, but also how it can be a little bit detrimental to our health as well. Now let's swing to the other side and look at self-compassion. What does that actually mean? When you look at self-compassion, some of the things that will be brought up are things like it's treating yourself the way that you'd treat a good friend, especially during moments of struggle, challenge, or failure. And it's accepting your imperfections. Self-compassion is about forgiving yourself when things are not going as planned. And it's allowing yourself to have extra rest, to be able to heal, or to grow without tearing yourself apart in the process, which we've all been guilty of, I'm sure. Self-compassion is about controlling the controllables when extra challenges are presented to you temporarily. It's about being realistic from a holistic health point of view. It's about accepting some rather than all weekly health habits when needed. And there's going to be times when that is needed. So self-compassion can give you emotional resilience, it's going to bring you feelings of gentleness, it can create health boundaries, and it can give you this feeling of do you know what it is? I'm at peace with myself. But as with self-discipline, it as well has risks if it's taken without balance. And it itself has its own spectrum. So self-compassion has its own spectrum. If your compassion becomes your only strategy, again, this can slip into avoidance, into stagnation, and into letting yourself off the hook so often that nothing actually ever gets done. And then when you're on that side of the spectrum, the fear here then becomes I'm never gonna accomplish anything, I'm not motivated, I've got zero drive. When I speak about habit formation, habit formation, healthy habits can be built through both ends of the self-disciplined or self-compassionate spectrum, and both can be unhealthy long term. You can have disciplined habit formation that's unhealthy. I'll say that again. You can have disciplined health habit formation that is unhealthy, and you can also have compassionate health habit formation that is unhealthy. Both are at extremes without balancing each other and working with each other. So what we're really struggling with on the surface, we're talking about self-discipline and we're talking about self-compassion, but really on a deeper level, we're talking about feelings of fear and shame, which are two very toxic mindsets that influence our behaviours and our habit formation far more than we realise. When you look at self-discipline as a rationale, you end up having or you end up believing that failing to act rationally means you are the problem, and then that creates shame. And then you might start chasing harsher and harsher motivation, believing that unless you push harder and you keep going, and you don't give up, you're gonna fall behind. And that fear keeps you trapped in the rigidity until you hit a breaking point, whether it's burnout, illness, mental unwell-being. On the flip side of that, when compassion feels like something you should naturally have, you might start to feel shame when you struggle to love yourself or be kind to yourself. You might fear that compassion is gonna make you soft or lazy or unproductive, and then you might just run back to the harsh discipline to escape that fear from the other side. So we'll get stuck in this tossing and turning between two extremes. One extreme, discipline, I'm not good enough. And then the other side, compassionate extreme, I'll never get anything done. This is better known as having an all-and-off in mindset, having a stop-start relationship with exercise, with nutrition, and with other healthy lifestyle habits. But what we need to understand, and what the truth is, is that self-discipline and self-compassion are both internal and external practices, and they depend on each other to work well. They depend on each other to work well. Here's some examples for you to think about. Extending kindness to yourself when your energy's low. You might think that's compassion, but actually it requires discipline to do that. Choosing healthy coping mechanisms, like going to the gym for a workout when you're really stressed. You might think that that's discipline, but actually that requires compassion to yourself. Knowing that your body needs something, your mind needs something to help regulate. They're not opposites, they're actually partners. Here's some more examples to help you understand the need for both self-discipline and self-compassion to be able to have balance and a partnership so that you can have long-term health and happiness. Think about boundaries with your time. Here's an example: you've had a long week. Somebody asks you to take on an additional task or an extra social commitment. Part of you wants to say yes out of guilt or it's a habit. From your self-compassion, you acknowledge that you're exhausted, you're respecting your limits, and you recognize that you genuinely need to rest. This honesty within yourself is compassionate, it's an act of kindness to you. But also, discipline, you follow through by actually setting the boundary by saying no, stepping back, blocking off time that you need to rest, and you stick to the choice even if it feels uncomfortable in the moment. That's discipline and compassion working together. Compassion helps you understand what your needs are, and it builds this resilience and awareness, and then discipline helps you honor the actions. Another example, a very common one. Say you are thinking about getting back on track after breaking a habit or routine. Let's say you've slipped out of your workout routine, you missed a week of healthy eating habits, whatever it is. Your first instinct might be shame, frustration, and the urge just to start over perfectly again from Monday or the start of the next month. Compassionately, you can remind yourself that setbacks are absolutely normal. You don't beat yourself up and you don't catastrophize the temporary short-term lapse. Instead of waiting for the perfect moment or spiralling at the complete avoidance, you make one small immediate choice to re-engage, little bit of action. Maybe it's a short workout, maybe it's just one nutrient-dense meal that day, or a short 10-minute walk instead of a 45-minute walk. That's discipline. Compassion keeps you from giving up, helps you create a bit of space, and then discipline helps you move forward again. We've got to try and get away from rigidity. There's lots of consequences. If we solely focus on just being driven by self-discipline without compassion, and this self-discipline goes unchecked, it can then become a cage for you instead of a useful tool. Four potential consequences of having unhealthy self-discipline without any balance or intertwining with self-compassion are things like number one, increased self-increased stress and anxiety, i.e., poor mental health, or even leading to mental illnesses. Life isn't always going to follow our plans, and when we cling too tightly to routines or rules, then we'll end up reacting to every disruption like it's a failure. When this happens, stress rises, anxiety rises, and a lot of the time burnout follows, or we'll feel really unwell mentally, physically. Number two, it can really impact your relationships. Rigidity doesn't stay inside our own heads. It's gonna seep into how we react with others and treat others. And when we can't adapt and we can't be flexible and we can't compromise and bend, then our connections will suffer alongside that as well. Number three, it can really stripe stifle your creativity. Your creativity thrives on movement, detours, experimentation, and rigid thinking shuts down all of that, and we end up just repeating the same patterns over and over, never really exploring other options and what could be. And then number four, fear of failure. When perfection becomes the expectation, mistakes become terrifying. And when we fear failure, we'll avoid any risks, we'll avoid any challenge, and we avoid growth. And this all leads into that perfectionism mindset that can be so detrimental to our long-term health and happiness. Coming towards the end of this, we've got to start looking at how we can find that balance. How do we walk the fine line between self-discipline and self-compassion? How can we stay committed without being or becoming too rigid and stay kind without being too passive? We can try to establish flexible goals. So these are some of the practices that we support people with inside our coaching programs. We can establish flexible goals. Have a direction, but it's not rigid, it's not a chokehold. You're allowed to pivot, you're allowed to have plan B, C, and D. You're allowed to adjust. Progress matters more than perfection. You can have push moments, you can have pull moments and accept that that's okay, but still be making steps forwards. You can practice, you can practice mindfulness, and journaling techniques can help with this. That can keep you aware of when you're pushing too hard or whether you're letting yourself off too easily. And it can really bring a lot of clarity to your self-awareness, your internal dialogue, so that you can respond rather than react. You can try to emphasize self-compassion. Remember, compassion isn't an excuse, it's a tool to help resilience and it can help you bounce back without those negative feelings around shame or self-attack. You can introduce variety, small shifts into your routines. That's going to help you build this adaptability skill and it's going to keep you falling into this rigid thinking that hasn't really served your health, your mental and physical well-being long term. And having regular reflections, pausing every so often, really reflecting on are your goals still serving you? Is anything changed? Do your needs have your needs changed? Do your routines need to change with that? Have you been too harsh on yourself? Have you been too lenient on yourself? Are you using excuses where in reality you're not controlling the controllables? And self-awareness is going to be the main compass that's going to keep you aligned with all of these questions. And that comes from having these regular reflections. Something that we do on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis at different levels, of course. You're not going to do it really in depth all the time. So just as I wrap up today, I want to leave you with this. Are you practicing any self-control or are you clinging to rigidity? Are you practicing any self-compassion or are you avoiding responsibility? Because the sweet spot for long-term health and well-being is in between having that partnership with both. You can let discipline drive your action and you can let compassion fuel your resilience. And then both of them intertwined is going to shape your last and healthy lifestyle. Life's going to be unpredictable, it's going to be messy, there's going to be curveballs and shit happens. There's going to be surprises, there's going to be moments that require and ask for flexibility over just battling through with force and hoping for the best. It's going to require a bit of gentleness over judgment. And if we can bring both discipline and compassion to the table together, then we can create a life in genuine well-being. Thanks again for spending time with us today. I hope that this episode has resonated with you. If it has, as always, feel free to share it, leave a little review or send it to somebody who might need a little reminder that they don't have to choose between only being driven or only being kind to themselves. Hopefully, I won't leave it as long until the next episode, but we'll see what topics come up and are really meaningful. In the meantime, take care and I hope you start to try and find that balance.