The Secret Of Being Disciplined Without Being Disciplined

We all have our version of a bad habit — the thing we do when we’re trying not to feel.
Mine was drinking. Not during the day. Not alone. But always when I needed to escape the deeper truth: that I felt unloved, alone, and broken.

Ironically, I often became the most sociable version of myself when I was trying to avoid these feelings. I’d go out, laugh with friends, order another round, and feel for a fleeting moment like I belonged. Like I was someone. But it was never real. It was a patch over a soul fracture. Because deep down, I didn’t feel like I deserved love unless I fixed myself first. And I thought I could fix myself in isolation.

That loop — isolate, feel lonely, numb the loneliness through distraction — is what my favorite coach on YT, Joe Hudson (your should definitely check him out), would call a "discipline problem." Not the absence of discipline as we usually define it, but a lack of emotional presence. A refusal, conscious or not, to feel the actual pain.

Why we can’t change
Hudson’s first principle is deceptively simple: focus on the pain. Like a hot frying pan, if you actually felt how much your bad habit burns you, you’d let go instantly. But most of us are too good at bypassing that. We don’t feel the bloating after overeating — we scroll. We don’t feel the guilt after TV shows — we binge again. We don’t feel the loneliness — we drink.

What I learned the hard way is that distraction is not a break from pain. It is the prolonging of it.

So I tried something new. I stopped running from the feeling of not being loved. I let it hit me like a wave. I didn’t analyze it or try to fix it. I just let it sit in my body. I stopped drinking in social settings not through willpower, but by feeling how sick I felt afterward — physically, yes, but more importantly, spiritually. That emptiness wasn’t worth the price of fitting in. I didn’t need more dopamine. I needed meaning.

Why we fail again and again
The second reason we don’t change is decision fatigue. When your vice is in reach — your phone, the fridge, the bar — you're not deciding once. You're deciding a hundred times a day. Eventually, you’ll give in. And the shame loop restarts. You distract yourself from the shame of failing, by failing again.

For me, that meant looking hard at my environments. Who was I spending time with? What stories were those environments reinforcing? Could I change the context, not the behavior?

I started substituting. Not just habits — but feelings. What was alcohol giving me? Connection. Relaxation. Permission to be myself. So I found better ways to meet those needs: meaningful conversations, breathwork, long walks in nature. Things that don’t require me to abandon myself to feel like I belong.

The secret: you don’t need more discipline
You need to understand what your habits are doing for you — and then find a way to meet that need with love, not self-betrayal. You don’t need to be more disciplined. You need to be more honest.

The biggest lie I told myself was that I had to become whole before I could be loved. That I had to fix myself alone before showing up in the world. But isolation is not the cure for loneliness. It's the breeding ground of it.

If you're in a cycle like this — escaping into food, screens, substances, or even “good” habits like overworking or self-improvement — try this:

1. Feel the cost. Sit with the aftermath. Not with judgment. Just awareness.

2. Make it hard to choose the vice. Change the environment, not just your mind.

3. Find a substitute that feels like love. Not punishment. Not discipline. Something nourishing.

And above all, stop shaming yourself. Shame is the glue that keeps destructive loops intact. Self-compassion is the solvent.

I no longer see my anxiety, my loneliness, or my bad habits as enemies. They were messages. Clumsy, painful, insistent messages from my soul that I was betraying myself. And when I finally started listening, I didn’t become more disciplined. I became more free.

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