Are self-discipline and spontaneity, mutually exclusive?
We all tend to fall somewhere on the spectrum of preferring regularity and routine and going with the flow. Between structure and spontaneity. We all do have individual ways of moving through life and there is no one perfect way. And they are not mutually exclusive. But ‘going with the flow’ and being spontaneous may become chaotic. It can make us feel our life is out of control because we are reacting all over the place, following addictions or unhealthy coping patterns. Not calm and at peace. Then, bringing in more structure can be very helpful.
Healthy self-discipline has become somewhat out of fashion as a concept. But it is difficult to live an intentional, conscious life without some self-discipline. It is difficult to have good health without good habits. But there are many ways of framing this. I just like this concept of gentle self-discipline. For others, it might feel better to frame it as unlearning bad habits and learning some better ones.
For example, some people do ok with eating when they are hungry rather than having regular mealtimes. But they may still benefit from making sure they have good snack foods and healthy fast meal options in the fridge. Which might involve regular shopping trips and planning, so that they can be spontaneous in their mealtimes- make sense? Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into poor food choices.
Many of us do better with regular meal and snack times. Kids especially do better generally with regular meals. When we skip meals or eat at random times, we can suffer from blood sugar crashes. Then we are more likely to make poor food choices. We might express freedom and spontaneity by eating what we feel like from what is available. This is my preferred way of functioning. I like variety in my food choices, I like to intuitively choose what I feel like, but I like regular mealtimes, or I get Hangry!
Other people are happy eating the same thing each mealtime. Porridge for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta or meat and veg for dinner. That’s fine as long as they are covering all their nutritional needs over the weeks. If not, their tendency to the daily structure may have become a bit too set in concrete, and need a bit of shaking up, some more flexibility.
Another aspect to consider is if we want to make a significant change in our way of eating, exercising or other lifestyle habits. We may be eating too much sugar, or not enough protein, or we are staying up late too often, or drinking too much coffee, or we would like to start a daily walk habit. If we have been going with the flow, our flow may have got stuck in habits that no longer serve us. We may have been reaching for habits that help us cope short term, but don’t help us thrive in the long term. It can take a significant circuit breaker to establish healthier habits. That may mean committing to one simple change for a while so that over time new daily habits are established.
Another area this plays out is in the weight management world. Many people want to lose weight but resist taking on a structure such as food tracking or calorie counting. Or they make one significant change such as going vegan or paleo or keto, without also tracking. These can work, at least in the short term, for weight loss. But often we just compensate by eating more of different foods. Or we can’t sustain extreme diet changes for long.
Then there is the concept of intuitive eating, which I am a big fan of, which is much more at the freedom end of the spectrum. I think we need both healthy self-discipline AND intuitive freedom for sustainable changes in long term eating and lifestyle patterns. Taking on some structure for a while, to break the old habits. And at the same time, start listening more to our own bodies, which do have effective guidance systems, if we can listen.
Our bodies are not the enemy, we can learn to trust them. Strict dieting and external authorities teach us not to trust our own body’s signals. For example, we may have learned to ignore our natural hunger signals and swing between undereating and overeating.
It is a dance. It is an art, to balance these things. Getting stuck at one end of any spectrum can be unhelpful. The more flexibility we have to move along the spectrum between effective daily structure ability to go with the flow, the better. We need both for a wholesome life.
