Discipline as Devotion

Ed Zaydelman | Issue 005: The Sacred Architecture of Discipline | August 31st, 2025

I used to think of discipline as restriction. 

Something external. Imposed. Rigid.

Something that made life smaller. 

But I am learning through experience how discipline can be a gateway to freedom. 

Over the years, my relationship with discipline has evolved, from love to hate to something closer to reverence. 

One day at a meeting with my coaching team at Sacred Business Flow, Carol said something I’d heard a hundred times before: “Discipline equals freedom.”

But this time, I didn’t just hear it, I felt it.

I realized I’d been operating like a child in certain areas of life. Avoiding discomfort. Chasing shortcuts and immediate gratification. Doing just enough. Not just out of laziness, but out of fear - fear of pain, pressure, and the unknown.

But here’s what I’ve learned: When we avoid pain, we also avoid growth. 

We stay stuck in the version of ourselves we already know! 

So I started leaning into pain and discomfort, everywhere I had avoided it before. 

That pain? It wasn’t punishment. It was a signal. A call back to self. 

In my Leap Forward community, we talk about how numbing discomfort also numbs intuition. When I buffer the hard stuff—scrolling, snacking, over-scheduling, I don’t just avoid pain. I mute my internal compass. I lose touch with the signal that says, “This is me. This matters.”

As I stopped avoiding pain, I started feeling everything more fully. The good. The messy. The real. And this clarity brought me back to center. Whether it was a cold shower, re-writing something for the 10^th time, or the willingness to have a difficult conversation – I stayed with it. 

Discipline stopped being punishment and started feeling like devotion. Devotion to myself, to something I believe in, to the life I keep saying I want.

It wasn’t about perfection or white-knuckling. It was about building trust between me and me:

• Writing daily for the stability of my business before checking my inbox

• Moving my body even when I didn’t feel like it in the morning, to feel more energized

• Making my bed, because how you do anything is how you do everything. 

Each choice becomes a vote. A vote for the life I want to live.

But I am also learning that willpower alone is a short fuse.When I rely on grit without meaning, I burn out or drop out. 

What lasts is an honest why – an authentic drive from within. 

Health as self-love, not a chore or task to get knocked out. Writing as self-expression and creativity, not self-display.Order as care and impeccability, not control.

The habits that stick? 

They’re connected to something deeper, they carry you farther.They’re not fueled by punishment or pressure. 

They’re fueled by alignment.

The biggest surprise in walking this path? 

The flavor of freedom that followed.

Not just more time, but more presence.Less inner negotiation. Fewer detours.The freedom of knowing, I’ll keep my word to myself.

That’s a different kind of wealth!

I won’t pretend I get it right every day. I still miss things that I planned on doing. 

I still reach for shortcuts and feel so lazy at times. 

But now, I return faster. 

And I don’t let the wobble define me.I don’t see it as failure—I see it as practice.

So if you’re in a season of avoiding the uncomfortable: 

Pick one place to lean in today. Not to prove anything.But to start building trust between you and you.To hear the quiet on the other side of effort.To feel your body again. Your presence. Your truth.

Today, I no longer see discipline as restriction. 

I see it as the truest form of self-love. 

As a structure for Freedom.

As a pathway to my truth. 

Because the deeper I walk into discomfort and my edge, 

the more I discover who I truly am.

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This essay was featured in Issue 005: The Sacred Architecture of Discipline. Read the Full Publication

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Ed Zaydelman is a contributing writer for The Sacred Business Writer’s Collective focused on helping creative professionals overcome barriers to authentic self-expression. You can follow him on Substack here.

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