As part of the Franklin Makeover we’ve been looking for virtues. In my Marco Polo group there has been discussion around the virtues of self-control and discipline.

What do they mean to each person? What connotation do they hold for different people? I have held a more negative view of self-control than of discipline it seems.

Discipline to me is practice. What I do every day is my practice. The way I back in my driveway every time I get home becomes a sort of practice. Squeege-ing the shower before I get out is a practice, a discipline.

Reading my life’s purpose out loud to myself has become a practice, a discipline that I am aspiring to do repeatedly. What I practice I plant deeply into my brain and my body.

It is similar to musical practice, or sports practice in which we repeat an action over and over until we can do it automatically, as if without thinking.

Really our brains are sending off the same message so many times that the synapses fire automatically and these neural pathways become well insulated.

No matter what, I am practicing something daily. It’s just a matter of what choices I make to practice. It’s clear – what we repeat, and how we repeat it equals the results we get!

The challenge is in the choice! What am I choosing to practice in my life? What is my choice? I have lots of things that I aspire to practice, that I don’t. I have some practices that I want to extinguish.

Making the choices I want to make requires self-control.

Self-control seems like a limiting virtue – holding myself back. I think that is why I associate it as a more negative word. But when I think about it, this kind of intentional choice around what I practice in life is actually the pathway to freedom.

It is a beautiful paradox that has been written of in many religious texts. Self-control in the choice of my discipline is a pathway to bliss.