Why I’m breaking up with my obsession with discipline.

I thought it would make me great. Mostly, it just made me angry.

I sat at my kitchen island with my phone face up on the counter and my mom on speaker. We had been talking for hours, and the deadline loomed closer with every minute. I still wasn’t finished, not even close. The more I read, the more I found to fix, until my logic unraveled and every sentence seemed to come out wrong. Pressure built behind my eyes. Tension gathered in my jaw and stomach. I had reached my limit but kept pushing, convincing myself this is what it takes.

This is what it takes to — what exactly?

That’s the question I ask myself now.

There’s something romantic about pushing through pain, even as it breaks you down.

We admire the people who do it: the athlete who trains through injury, the musician who sacrifices sleep and health to master their craft, the everyday person who keeps grinding no matter how much it hurts. We praise their resilience. Their grit. Their ability to endure.

But does enduring pain really make our efforts noble? Is it true that the harder something is, the more worthy it becomes?

I’ve been wrestling with the word discipline and what it means to me.

When I think of discipline, I think of eating by a meal plan instead of by hunger. Forcing myself to finish the run even when my knees ache. Staying at my desk long after my mind has gone numb. Performing, even when I’m depleted, because that’s what “driven” people are supposed to do.

And while those choices have sometimes brought me closer to my goals, I’ve also had to face a harder truth: discipline, at least in this form, has made me really angry inside.

Angry at the work. Angry at the pressure. But mostly, angry at myself for not trusting what my body needed in order to appear disciplined, both to others and to me.

Making choices in the name of being disciplined has often felt performative, as if I were acting before an invisible audience.

What would people think if they saw me skip a workout? Have a cookie and ice cream after dinner? Shut my laptop at two in the afternoon? There’s always someone watching, even if that someone is just me, split across my competing selves.

I fear that if I trust myself, if I truly listen to what I need and honor that knowing, I’ll be less successful, less ambitious, or less actualized.

I think of people who’ve achieved extraordinary things — Michael Phelps, Serena Williams — and the immense sacrifices they made to reach their goals. I also think about people living lives more like mine, the ones who keep their budgets tight, stay consistent with their workouts, maintain a steady order in their days. We celebrate discipline in both forms, and rightly so. I know I do. I long for what I believe waits on the other side of discipline: excellence, mastery, peace, groundedness.

But if discipline is what makes people great, or even just steady, why does it feel so terrible in me? Why does it so often take the shape of self-punishment and anger instead of purpose and strength?

Many years ago, I was sitting on a friend’s couch, worn out from how hard I was working in my business. I wasn’t making enough money and was scrambling to fix it, trying everything I could think of.

“Everything feels hard,” I admitted. “It’s hard all the time.”

He moved around the kitchen, the quiet clink of a spoon against ceramic. When he handed me a mug of tea, the heat pressed into my palms.

“When everything feels hard, it’s a sign you’re pushing too hard.” He said, taking a slow sip. “Do less.”

I stared into the cup, willing his words to solve me, letting them settle where no other part of me had.

I think back to that moment, especially in times when I’ve pushed myself past the point of balance.

Notably, when I was writing my book Lonely Girl. The desire to write it was real; it carried me through years of work and revision. But over time, that desire became tangled with less pure intentions — an imagined audience, the pressure to make it perfect, the fear of failing.

Writing the book shifted from an act of devotion to a bid for validation. It became my supposed key to greatness, the thing that would prove I was a good writer. That I was smart. Worthy of your time and attention. And that’s when I began to force it. I over-edited. I got angry. I wore myself out. Eventually, I collapsed.

And when that happens, I swing to the opposite extreme. Instead of forcing myself to keep going, I freeze. Withdraw. Lose interest in the world entirely.

Of course, I can only disappear for so long before restlessness creeps back in, urging at me to move again.

I find myself caught between two worlds: one where I push myself into oblivion, or another where I abandon the very act of trying at all.

I know the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I can’t completely write off discipline because I still believe that, when practiced with care, it can lead to a good life — a healthy life.

But maybe it’s a different kind of discipline than I have come to know. Not the kind predicated on force, but the kind rooted in listening — a discipline of awareness. Awareness of myself and my body. Not pushing through pain, but building the strength to meet it, little by little. And knowing when it’s time to stop.

If I’m honest, I still sometimes believe I’m only one more run, one more writing session, one more deep clean away from being “great.”

Maybe my hunger for greatness has really been a hunger to be loved, a shield against my fear of being ordinary and therefore invisible. Maybe what I’ve called ambition has really been a search for acceptance, and beneath that, a longing for peace. And even knowing this, I still can’t let go of the part of me that wants it.