How to have self-discipline like a motherfucker

Find what you hate and grind against it

No one is born with self-discipline.

Not you, not me.

Anyone who acts like they just magically have self-discipline is lying.

That’s bullshit.

We all have to learn to have it.

Self-discipline is a practice I learned as an adult.

Self-discipline is showing up to write, not abandoning my dreams, making a plan, and creating a container.

Especially the part about having a plan and structure.

But how exactly did I learn it? Well, since you asked…

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You know that feeling you get after really great sex, when you're luxuriating in your lover's sheets, exhausted and sweaty?

Peaceful even?

I am savoring the deliciousness of being human when A says it.

Six words that ruined that moment and annihilated my next two years, filling every spare moment with their weight and obligation:

"My ex didn't finish her dissertation."

It's seven words if you count the silent "either" at the end of the sentence, which hangs in the room like second-hand smoke.

I've just told A I'm struggling to write my doctoral work despite completing the research a year ago.

Let’s pretend that electronic data can gather dust.

In that case, my doctoral research is definitely in need of a swift wipe by a firm hand.

Too many obstacles are in my way:

• a big learning curve with the software I'm supposed to use to analyze the data.

• I do not know how to do quantitative analysis.

• I must find hundreds of articles to read, process, integrate, and weave for the Lit Review.

Writing a doctoral dissertation is the biggest project I've ever undertaken, and I am woefully underequipped to tackle the process.

I'm stuck in overwhelm.

The clock is ticking, and it needs to be finished in a year and a half, and I am doing precisely zero to move it forward.

It's been like this for months.

I try my damndest not to ever think about it. 

Until that day, in his bed. 

I hate A’s ex.

She's been mean, rude, and condescending to me whenever our paths cross.

A failed academic, she now teaches math at a community college and calls it activism.

Tells me how much she appreciates cancel culture since some people just really need to be canceled.

I take "some people" to mean me. 

As I lay there, I am miles away from the pleasure and connection we'd just been experiencing…

(Who brings up their ex in bed with their current? Eww.)

I realize something about myself.

I may not know how to get this book done, but I sure as shit am going to find out.

I will be better than her.

I will not drop out.

I feel the steel inhabit my spine.

Resolve, that’s what this is called.

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The next day, I post on social media: "Looking for recommendations for academic writing support."

A friend responds, "What about Elinor?" and so it begins.

Each week, for an entire year, I meet with a dissertation coach named Elinor.

She lives in Scotland and has a razor-sharp analysis of power, oppression, and super duper academic research skills.

At our first meeting, I cry.

She returns the next week with a plan: what I have to write each week for the next year to finish on time. 

We meet on Thursdays.

I send her what I've written that week, and we go over it together, tightening and strengthening.

If you've ever had a trainer at the gym who pushes your endurance relentlessly and sadistically, that's Ellie, minus the sadism. 

And so I do sit down to write the damn dissertation.

• I spend hours each week reviewing my work and writing new work.

• I spend hours finding articles and digesting them.

• I attend a weeklong online boot camp to learn to use my data software.

• I learn to code and analyze according to the criteria Elinor helps me set. 

There are moments I don't want to.

Moments I want to quit this stupid process. 

But then I remember A's ex and how she gave up on herself.

I am better than his ex.

I miss only one week of writing.

If you don't know, most dissertations consist of five chapters that are not written sequentially.

I'm writing Chapter 2, the dreaded Lit Review.

Everything I'm consuming and producing is about sexual trauma, sexual violence, rape, the impact of rape on individuals, families, and communities, the economic cost of sexual violation, stories of how rape is used as a tool of war, the rape of Nanking, how sexual abuse travels in families, etc. 

When we meet for our Thursday session, I can't stop crying.

Ellie hears what's happening and enforces a mandatory one-week freeze.

I must rest, she says.

The research is too impactful, and it's unhealthy for me to continue. 

After the break, I keep going, week after week. 

I am better than A’s ex.

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The night I complete the first draft of my dissertation, it's 2 AM, 92 degrees Fahrenheit.

I'm sitting at a wobbly kid's desk in my friend's childhood room in England.

When I write the final sentence, I sit back in the too-small metal chair and just feel.

The household is quiet.

The city is nearly silent. 

But power thrums through me.

The feeling of completion.

The 400+ page draft still needed so much work.

There would be time for editing and multiple revisions.

But for now, my computer holds a complete first draft.

It's a moment of quiet victory and personal celebration. 

Since my dissertation, I've written five books, working on numbers six and seven.

While each is a monumental effort, a labor of love to birth into the world, compared to my dissertation, they seem more manageable.

Self-discipline is the most profound way I have ever practiced trusting myself.

Once I have completed something, it can never be taken away.

I will always know I stood by myself and fought for myself through hardship and tears.

The capacity to commit to a big project and complete it is not something I was born with.

It is a muscle that I trained and continue to train.

I practice self-discipline because I want to know what receiving love from myself feels like. 

Knowing I have self-discipline allows me to dream big dreams. The ones that wake me up in the night.

• I want to write a smash hit.

• I want writing to bring me a lot of money.

Not that you are asking, but I do have some self-discipline advice:

If you want big things, drink water.

Hydrate and flush with flow.

Drink deep and from the well of your own creativity.

Right now.

Go to the river right now, the one that flows through your heart all the damn time.

What are you too scared to admit wanting?

Admit it right now.

Say it. Name it. Write it down. Tell your person. Tell your animal.

Who are you going to be if you never let yourself do that thing?

I’ll tell you who: A’s ex.

And nobody wants to be that woman.

Self-discipline is the skill of completion.

It requires support. A plan. A container.

You don’t have to have self-discipline by yourself, contrary to public thought.

You get to have all the support you need to build your self-discipline.

Get a trainer. A coach. An accountability buddy.

FInish the thing you’ve been struggling to finish.

You’re gonna feel so much better.

Like a motherfucker.

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My first offering for paid subscribers is “Get your Creative Project Unstuck” is happening later this month.

We’ll share, do some ritual work to get you support, and engage in a powerful somatic practice to get you back on track.