Discipline is easy to define when everything goes to plan. You planned four training sessions and completed four. You planned to go to bed earlier, and you did. You said you’d cook more meals at home and followed through.
But no plan works perfectly every week. If you planned four training sessions and only managed three, what happens next? Do you train three times and continue as normal, or decide you’ve fallen off and need to start again next week?
This is an all-or-nothing mindset that leaves very little room between doing exactly what you planned and feeling like you’ve failed. Four workouts is success; three isn’t. You follow your nutrition plan, or you’re off it. You’re progressing in the gym, or you’re going backwards.
That rigidity can easily be mistaken for discipline. But discipline doesn’t require perfect execution. It needs enough flexibility to keep going when the original plan isn’t possible.
It’s something Fitness World Champion Hattie Boydle has had to learn throughout her own career. In our latest episode of Raise the Bar, Hattie talks about how an approach that once looked like extreme discipline was often driven by control, and why flexibility is now part of how she thinks about discipline.
What is an all-or-nothing mindset?
An all-or-nothing approach sets one acceptable version of success. If you don’t meet it, anything you did achieve can quickly feel irrelevant.
In training, that could mean deciding a 30-minute workout isn’t worth doing because you planned to train for an hour. It could mean missing one session and deciding you’ll start again next week. With nutrition, it might mean eating something you hadn’t planned and treating the rest of the day as a write-off.
The individual decision is rarely the issue. Missing one workout means you missed one workout. Eating one unplanned meal means you ate one unplanned meal. It doesn’t require a reset.
Why does discipline need flexibility?
Your capacity won't be the same every week. The amount of time you have to train can change, your performance can fluctuate, and other priorities can temporarily require more of your time.
A rigid plan only gives you two options when that happens: complete it as written or fall short. A flexible plan gives you another option: adjust what you're doing and continue, because something is always better than nothing.
If you planned four training sessions but only have time for three, training three times keeps you moving towards your goal. If you only have 30 minutes instead of an hour, a shorter session can still be useful. Flexibility allows you to respond to the week you're actually having rather than continually trying to recreate the ideal one.
Discipline will still sometimes mean training when you'd rather skip it. The difference is being able to recognise when you need to push through and when the plan needs to change.
When should you change the plan, and when should you change the goal?
If your circumstances change or you’re continuously failing to meet your plan week after week, but the goal is still important and realistic, start by changing the plan.
If your goal is to get stronger but you temporarily have less time to train, four one-hour sessions might become three. You could shorten your workouts, prioritise the exercises most relevant to your goal or reduce how much you're doing for a period.
This is also where it helps to have more than one version of a successful week. If four sessions is ideal, decide what you'll prioritise when you can only manage three. If you normally train for an hour, know what you can get done in 30 minutes. You don't need to wait until you can follow the ideal plan again.
But sometimes the goal itself needs to change. Your priorities, circumstances or what you're willing to commit can be different from when you first set it. If the time and effort required to reach the goal no longer fit what you want or can realistically do, changing the goal isn't the same as failing it.
The important part is knowing which one you're changing. A difficult week might require a different plan. A genuine change in your priorities might require a different goal. Neither requires you to throw away the progress you've already made.
Listen to the full episode
Fitness World Champion Hattie Boydle joins Raise the Bar to explore what 15 years in bodybuilding has taught her about discipline, mindset and high performance.
Hattie shares how her definition of discipline has changed throughout her career, the difference between discipline and control, and why becoming a champion required more than simply working harder. The conversation also covers growth vs fixed mindsets, learning to be a beginner again, and how Hattie trains today.
Find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
TL;DR
(Too long, didn’t read)
- An all-or-nothing mindset treats anything short of the original plan as failure.
- Discipline doesn’t require perfect execution. It needs enough flexibility to adapt when your circumstances change.
- Training three times when you planned four is still three training sessions.
- If you repeatedly can't follow your plan but the goal is still realistic, change the plan first.
- If your priorities or what you're willing to commit have changed, it may be time to reconsider the goal itself.
- Flexibility isn't an excuse to avoid doing difficult things. It allows you to keep working towards a goal when the ideal plan isn't possible.
Now, it’s your turn.
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