SYTB 25: Higher Love

Discipline and austerity escalate value.

We often think, the more we add to something, the more value we add. But that’s just not so. There are times wherein a fine artist reuses a canvas and the lost painting underneath held more value. The extra paint and the removal process often diminishes the value. Adding all the bells and whistles at a certain point can become gaudy.

It is the same with how we spend our energy, how we conduct our lives. If we try to do a million different things, the quality of each goes down and often we accomplish less than we could have when having singular focus.

So it is when we apply discipline to our lives and austerity, that the value of those things we do put our energy toward increases. The value we place on something which we choose to invest in singularly goes up.

Imagine being at a grand dessert buffet. They have fruit tarts, creme brulee, peach and apple cobbler, various cheesecakes, sponge cake, angel food cake, Bundt cakes with cream cheese icing, ice cream and chocolate mousse. You load up your plate with as many varieties of dessert as your plate can hold. At the end, you see some berries and yogurt and what looks like a grain free granola. But these simpler options don’t fit on your plate. You reason there’s already berries on the tart and a crumbly nut topping on the cobbler. You figure you could have yogurt at home. You skip the less sugar-coated options, and by the look of your first plate, you have no need to come back for a second plate. Now, it doesn’t matter how well these desserts were prepared. If you eat too many of them, your experience of each will begin to blend into the others. You will likely feel quite sick when you are done which could lead you to viewing all of them in hindsight in a less positive light. You certainly won’t have added any nutrients to your body in a way that makes you feel better afterward.

However, let’s say you had a fairly restrictive diet in which you hardly consumed certain types of foods. So when you saw the buffet, you felt encouraged there was an option of berries and plain yogurt. So on this day, when you approach the buffet, you get your plate and you eagerly spoon some plain yogurt on the plate. You add your berries and a sprig of mint. You see they have a honey sweetened, grain free granola with nuts and seeds. The granola has just a hint of cinnamon and vanilla. The value you would place on something far less decadent, noticing each ingredient as the food hits your tongue, would go up. All the same pleasure centers of the brain are activated. Yet, you would feel healthy and vibrant after you had finished your plate. Your reflection on this special delight is far higher for not having over indulged. You feel better as a person for having eaten something nutritious than you would have felt otherwise.

When you reflect on your choices at the end of the day, which scenario do you believe would have made you feel more proud of yourself?

Life is a buffet. It’s not a binary decision of this or that. There are infinite creative possibilities. However, there are many choices which we know will not increase our sense of self-worth or vitality. There are better ways to live. Moreover, there are better ways to move you closer to your personal vision for your life.

One of the mistakes people make with discipline is that they impose austerity upon themselves in a way that is unsustainable. They try to go cold-turkey. It could be on screen time or sweets or social media. Rather than apply sensible limits, gradually and incrementally that are sustainable, they live in a black and white, all or nothing paradigm. In the long run, this can lead to burn out, detox symptoms that push one back towards the old, undesired behavior or emotional isolation.

Boundaries are flexible. They are the frame around the film, the moving picture of what you want your life to look like. Life is a journey. The slower, more gradual method will usually be more enduring over time. What I’m saying here is that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. If you try to push yourself too hard, you will quickly find that you either burn out, experience set backs that put you on bed rest or sustain permanent injuries that keep you from ever finishing.

Boundaries can accommodate sensible limits and gradual improvements.

So, let’s go back to your personal goals for the life you want to live. Perhaps it’s not just a limit you are placing solely on yourself. Maybe, you just need to cut back on how much you interact with a specific person you feel is absorbing too much of your bandwidth. Start by coming up with a set time limit for your interactions. Make them S.M.A.R.T. goals. These are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. So, if you limit your interactions to lunch, you want to define how often you will meet for lunch. If it’s every 3 months, how long will you designate for that lunch? Let’s say you give it 90 minutes to start. Make sure you have a plan in place for where you will need to be immediately after your lunch, so that you can’t possibly stay too long. This will assure that you don’t go over your designated time or fail to achieve your end goal. This is an example of how one could place a healthy limit on one’s time spent with another to make the most of your relationships.

If you are having time together on the phone, measure how much time you want to spend on the phone each week or each month. Plan in advance how you intend to end the call on time.

Obviously, you don’t have to do this with all your relationships. This is for the relationships you don’t seem to manage well. These relationships leave you feeling depleted when you are done interacting. There are ways shy of cutting people out of your life to set limits on yourself to balance those relationships and how much they take from you.

Last, take an assessment as you start to set these limits. Write down in your journal how it feels to give yourself limits. Note how or whether you would like to assert more limits as you honor them or if you feel you could loosen them up.

Cold turkey can burn bridges. Cold turkey can create regrets, set backs and burn out. Cold turkey has the hard energy of “no.” Sometimes, we need cold turkey. But most of the time, figuring out what we prefer to focus on is a better remedy than focusing on what you wish to avoid. Placing goals and limits on our behavior keeps us looking out the front windshield on what is before us, on what we are saying “yes” to, on what is forward moving, present and immediate. And it helps to keep us from looking back and becoming a pillar of salt.

Sorry, if you are new here as I’m stealing metaphors from the past 25 lessons.

What are 3 S.M.A.R.T. goals which you can make and begin to implement today in austerity which will put you ever so slightly closer to your dreams?

Write them down and make sure each one ticks off the criteria for S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Is it specific?

Example: I will make a new habit of getting on the treadmill every day.

Is it measurable?

Example: I will get on the treadmill for 15 minutes every day gradually increasing each week or two to 30 minutes ultimately.

Is it achievable?

Example: I will get up 15 minutes early each day to be able to make sure this happens and doesn’t get pushed aside.

Is it realistic?

Example: I will start at the lowest speed setting for the first week, so I don’t burn out.

Is this timely?

Example: I will start tomorrow and in two weeks, I will see if I can increase it to 20 minutes per day. Working up to 30 minutes at tolerance so that it becomes a new habit.

The moral of all this is that the better you treat yourself, especially in treating oneself to the care of austerity and discipline, the higher value you will place on yourself. The higher esteem for which you hold yourself, the more respect you will demand from others. The more respect you expect from others, the less bullshit from yourself and others you will find yourself tolerating or with which you would be participating.

This is not something that happens overnight. Rarely do people do one thing, like eat carrots, and expect to lose 20 pounds the next day. There are ways in which you can increase your self-respect and you must implement them gradually and routinely. Eventually, they become your habits. They are like losing weight, gaining muscle or endurance and building a savings account in that they take time and discipline and effort. The growth is measurable. It’s all the “smart” things. But until you begin to implement them in a sensible way, you will not be able to see progress. Indulging in a sequence of big leaps is usually unsustainable.

I want to see more people on earth living meaningful lives, living lives they absolutely love living. I feel this will bring an end to most the conflict on earth if we all start elevating the level of love in our lives, if we place that lovely life inside our boundaries and if we are constantly working to create inside our boundaries a higher quotient of love for mankind. If even a few of us started to be more focused on love and meaningful things, feeling more love for ourselves and others, it is my strong held belief that this would cast an influence upon humanity as a whole. The people of earth would be less likely to be swayed toward meager distractions and trivialities that lead us to war with one another.

Today I have a special offer for anyone reading this lesson. I offer this gift as a passion project to help bring the world to a place we would all love to be living.

Shoot me a message in the comments below if you want help formulating your S.M.A.R.T. goals for 2022 pertaining to your boundary challenges. We will schedule a FREE 30 minute one-on-one consultation time slot as my gift to you where we will look over the goals you have created for this year. On the call, we will work together to see if we can get your goals so clear that you are 100% certain you will accomplish them by the end of 2022.

I am excited to hear from you!