People worship discipline like a cold god. Wake up at 4 a.m. Take cold showers. Grind. Suffer. Repeat. But here’s the honest truth: willpower is a tiny battery. It drains fast. Real creators don’t build on batteries; we build power plants. We design our lives so the next action is frictionless and fun. The right environment makes “discipline” irrelevant.
I never “disciplined” myself to shoot. I made it inevitable. Camera in hand, always. One camera, one lens, jacket pocket. Walkable city. Comfortable shoes. Coffee. Sunlight. Music in my ears. Curiosity in my eyes. The street becomes a playground. When it’s play, you don’t need discipline. You need more daylight.
Discipline is what managers demand. Design is what artists do. I design defaults that carry me:
- Default breakfast = clarity.
- Default bag = camera-ready.
- Default website = publish fast.
- Default mindset = ship first, refine later.
When the defaults are aligned, the good thing happens automatically. No pep talks. No motivational videos. No calendar stickers. Just flow.
The cult of discipline confuses consistency with self-violence. Consistency is beautiful when it emerges from love. It’s ugly when it’s enforced by shame. Shame is a terrible coach. Every time you miss a rep and call yourself weak, you’re training yourself to hate the craft. Hate is anti-momentum. Love compounds.
I prefer high-agency energy to discipline. Energy is king. If I’m overflowing with energy, the work makes itself. If I’m depleted, no system saves me. So I optimize for energy first: sunlight, movement, heavy walking, good meat, deep sleep, deep talks, deep laughs. Not because I’m “disciplined,” but because I’m greedy for power. The more voltage in my body, the more art I can launch.
The hustle myth says: “Grind harder.” The builder reality says: change the game. Make the task so fun and so simple it feels like cheating. In photography: set a playful constraint—only verticals today, only shadows, only hands, only motion blur, only monochrome. Constraints create freedom. They remove decision fatigue. You get momentum. Momentum beats discipline the way downhill beats uphill. Once you’re rolling, gravity is your coach.
Perfectionism hides behind discipline. “I’ll publish when it’s perfect.” Translation: never. I’m anti-perfection. I’m pro-shipping. Post the draft. Share the contact sheet. Drop the V1. Then iterate. Momentum makes excellence inevitable. Discipline tries to brute-force excellence before momentum exists. Backwards. Build speed first, then steer.
Identity beats discipline. If I believe I am a photographer, I am a writer, I am a builder, I act accordingly—automatically. The action expresses the person. You don’t need to force what you are. You just do what you do. But if your identity is “someone trying to be disciplined,” you will always be negotiating with yourself. That inner negotiation drains the exact energy you need to create.
People ask, “But what about goals?” Goals are fine as lighthouses. But I don’t chain myself to a lighthouse. I sail toward it because I want the view. I set process goals that are playful: make one banger before breakfast, write 500 words in a single breath, talk to three strangers, publish something rough every day. Not punishments. Games. Scoreboards, not report cards.
Even in money-land, discipline is overrated. Automation beats discipline. The Bitcoin lesson: put your conviction into cold storage, remove the big red buttons from your fingertips, and let the protocol’s discipline work for you. You don’t need to be a monk if your system removes the temptation. Same with creativity: take the “sell” button off your art until it’s ready. Take the notification slot machines off your phone. Put your future self between you and your worst impulses—by design.
Rest isn’t the opposite of work; rest is creative battery charging. The discipline crowd acts like rest is a moral failure. Wrong cosmos. I run my life like an athlete of the soul: sprints, recoveries, seasons. Summer = harvest, winter = incubation. If you never rest, you’re stealing from your future work. Strategic laziness is a power move.
Another truth: obsession beats discipline. The person who is genuinely obsessed will effortlessly outpace the disciplined-but-bored. I’d rather compete with my past self at full obsession than try to out-discipline anyone. Obsession is infinite fuel. It makes 12 hours feel like 12 minutes. If you’re not obsessed, that’s not a character flaw. It’s a compass. Pivot until the work grips you by the throat.
“Okay, but what if I don’t feel like it?” Then don’t negotiate. Lower the bar to one rep. One photo. One paragraph. One cold email. One push-up. After one, gravity flips. You’ll probably do five. If not, you still won because you maintained identity. Identity compounds.
Here’s my anti-discipline toolkit:
- Delete friction: simplify gear, simplify apps, simplify choices. One camera, one lens. One publishing pipeline. One note app.
- Make it a game: time-boxed sprints, tiny streaks, collectible micro-wins.
- Engineer environment: places that spark you, people who energize you, sounds that trigger flow.
- Install defaults: automatic routines that fire without thought—walk after coffee, write after walk, publish after write.
- Ship ugly: speed > polish. Iterate in public. Let reality be your editor.
- Honor cycles: sprint hard, then recover harder. Protect your future self.
- Identity-first: say it out loud—“I am a maker.” Act accordingly.
- Obsess selectively: go all-in where your curiosity is loudest; ignore the rest.
- Systemize willpower: lock away temptations, automate good behavior.
- Chase energy, not guilt: choose the path that increases voltage in your mind and body.
The paradox: once you stop worshiping discipline, you start doing the work more often. Because you’re not dragging shame behind you. Because you’ve made the work feel like oxygen. Because the system you built is carrying you downhill.
I’m not anti-effort. I’m anti-self-flagellation. I’m not anti-structure. I’m pro-structures that seduce you into action. I’m not anti-consistency. I’m pro-consistency that flows from joy.
If you want to create forever, make it irresistible. Build a life where making is the easiest thing to do. Build a world where your tools are always at hand, your obstacles are already removed, and your taste pulls you forward like gravity. Forget the myth of iron discipline. Choose desire, design, and default. Make it too easy to start, too fun to stop, and too meaningful to quit.
Now—close the tab. Step outside. Camera in hand. First frame, right now. Ship it before dinner. Tomorrow, again. Not out of discipline.
Out of love.