Where Discipline Meets Flexibility - Finding Balance
If you have ever had a training plan (or any plan) fail, there’s a good chance you didn’t have enough flexibility built into it. There’s a point where discipline and flexibility meet in every training plan, whether it be for college athletes, youth athletes, young individuals just learning how to train, or older individuals preparing for grand adventures. There are times when you push the discipline, especially if you’re training for an event and have to be on a certain schedule. There are also times that require flexibility. There are many life circumstances that factor in: your energy, phases of your cycle, having visitors stay at your house, traveling, dropping your kids off at school or daycare, injuries, etc. When we forget to build in a certain amount of flexibility, we get too rigid with the expectation of discipline and lose the option to adapt as we go.
Discipline gets a lot of attention and a lot of people think they are lacking in discipline when they can’t achieve their movement goals, or any healthy habit goal. I would argue that most people’s discipline will significantly improve when they are allowed the appropriate amount of flexibility. For example, I am training for a sprint triathlon and a couple weekends ago I had plans to do a brick workout on Saturday. (A brick workout is when you do two events back to back, so a bike ride and then go straight into a run.) That particular Saturday was during Fiesta, Santa Barbara’s week-long summer party, and the road I like to bike was closed for a parade. Could I have biked somewhere else? Absolutely. But instead, I sat down to meditate, thinking I would have a better plan afterwards and fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up, I realized what I needed most was clearly sleep and rest and I leaned into that for most of the day. Past-Jessie would have felt anxious and guilty about missing that workout, but present-Jessie understands that was the flexibility I needed in my plan that day. This past weekend, I did go do a brick workout and it went great. Knowing that I had taken ample rest in the couple weeks before helped me stay disciplined enough to go do the workout. This is just one tiny example. I could probably fill a whole book on examples of individual circumstances that need a particular balance of discipline and flexibility.
As a Health Coach, a lot of my job is helping people find this particular balance for themselves. Since discipline gets a lot of attention, when I help people insert the flexibility that suits their lifestyle, schedule and preferences, they usually find that they have plenty of discipline to stick to their plans. I know a lot of people just want to be told what to do. They want the black and white “quick fix” to their problems, and while the internet may tell you that quick fix exists, it doesn’t. Because when some life circumstance arises and knocks you off that rigid plan, you’re likely to quit altogether. The “quick fix” is too generic to work. It is totally ok to start with a generic training plan, or food plan or any healthy habit plan, especially if you’re entering new territory and need some guidance. But take that plan and build in however much flexibility you specifically need. Don’t expect to be able to print a list of “ do THIS on THIS day” and expect it to happen, because for most people that is just impossible.
Stay flexible, my friends!
