Freedom is an attribute of mind. The mind needs to have its control over all what is happening around us and that is what the freedom each of us aspires.
Freedom, when not controlled, is the most dangerous enemy we will have, and that is why Freedom needs discipline. When thoughts are built with discipline, that is when you experience the complete freedom.
The mind and brain even though are interlinked, many times the brain does not follow the instructions of the mind. The mind does not allow you to think objectively, it only sends out emotional thoughts. The brain wants you to get up and run, but your mind refuses to get up (an emotional thought of sleeping for a little more while). It gets caught up in the vicious cycle. It is tempted to do what it is doing (resting, watching TV, reading or writing). How do you overcome this?
About a year ago, I started my journey as an Entrepreneur. Suddenly, I had the feeling of emptiness. There were no more late night calls, no scheduled meetings or travels, no escalations and last but not the least, no being artificial self. Suddenly, I felt I had all the time in my day and my brain was not being occupied. Now, I see the morning sunrise, do not rush to have breakfast and don’t look forward to my coffee break, no lunch meetings, no gossips, no rush hour traffic and finally, not going to bed with all the energy lost, just dreading to wake up in the morning to start the cycle again.
Days and weeks went by, I rested and let my body accept the new changes. Life was good. I now have all day to myself to do what I want to do and what I was wanting to do. For a long time (even now at times) I kept pushing out things in my checklist – I can do it later, I can do it tomorrow etc. As days passed by, I realized that I am being lesser productive than I was earlier. On 1 Jan 2016, I made a resolution that I am going to write a blog post a day for 100 days and voila, I did it. I used to plan my writings, write during the weekends and set the timer to publish automatically each day at a set time. I was using each minute I got productively by focusing on what energizes me to push myself during the office hours. Off late, I realized that now, because my day is not packed, my mind and body were getting off guard. The commitment to get things done has slowed down (I have all the time, right?).
It took a while for me to get back to schedule. Now, I get up in the morning, make a list of things which need to be done for the day and the day goes on by checking off the list. Initially, I used to make a list of things which I need to get done – like respond to the email, complete the presentation, meeting with someone etc. This helped, but the lethargy still exists. Now, I have a list of things which I need to do and I started using an app called Strides on iOS. This is a fantastic app which allows you to make a checklist of your activities which you need to get done each day repetitively. Now, my checklist goes like this – Wake up at 5 AM, Read/Writing time, Meditation time, the list of things which need to be done during the day, Read/Write or Google time. Notice the Google time. I realized that unknowingly I keep spending time on Google searching for something or the other. Now, I avoid going on unnecessary searches, rather I write down what I want to search in a paper and do it during the specific time in the day.
When we have all the time in our hand, we forget how valuable and brutal it is to not be productive, especially when you need to earn your living as an Entrepreneur.
This is the reason I renamed my blog to The Discipline of Freedom because freedom without discipline is like living without breathing.