Back when I took golf lessons, there were so many things to keep in mind: foot placement, shoulder placement, grip, club selection, head position. I would stand over the ball, unable to swing, going through this whole checklist in my mind.
Then one day, the golf coach said, “Kath, you’re overthinking it. Just pick one swing thought, like: “Down and through!” and just work on that. You just need a single mantra, not the whole Upanishads!”
(He didn’t actually say that bit about the mantra and the Upanishads, because he was just a golf idiot who drank too much and didn’t give a shit about teaching golf to housewives, but I digress.)
Still, I’ve thought about that “one swing thought” in many contexts over the years because it really helps when I find myself overthinking stuff, which is every day.
Lately, it seems like a lot of my mental energy goes into thinking about how I’m going to fit my streaks into my day. One day last week, I came precariously close to ruining them, and it freaked me out.
My usual mantra is: Discipline gets it done.
I thrive on discipline. My streak disciplines aren’t hard in themselves: yoga, meditation, and strength training are relatively easy. What’s hard is structuring the day to fit them in and making time when the calendar blows up.
Which it did last week, and I almost killed myself —cheating on food and sleep to make sure all my boxes got checked.
I spend a lot of mental energy every day figuring out where I’m going to slot everything in. I time-block in my head first thing every morning.
Today I thought: This isn’t fun. Maybe I need a new swing thought. All this discipline is feeling merciless, militaristic, hair-shirty, and Stoic. I get it about hormesis, that idea that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: Freezing in cold plunges, baking in saunas. I get it, I do.
But what if instead of Disciplines, I thought of my practices as things I am devoted to? Devotion comes with all the persistence of discipline, but without the pain. Devotion is genuflection, prayer hands, a lighted candle, a loving sigh, whereas discipline is a set jaw and clenched fists.
Devotion is as strong as discipline, maybe stronger because devotion adds love. Devotion takes discipline to the next level because when I’m devoted to my practices, I do them not to check a box, but because I love the person I am becoming as a result.
