We were talking in an earlier post about the choreographer Twyla Tharp and her book, The Creative Habit. Let’s dig a little deeper into the principles that underlie Ms. Tharp’s mindset and that book.

What we’re really talking about is the difference between discipline and self-discipline.

If you’re a private in the army or a linebacker for the Chicago Bears, each day you practice. You run drills. You train in the gym. You do rehab for injuries. 

That’s discipline, but it’s not self-discipline.

It’s not self-discipline because the structure of your day is imposed on you from without, by coaches, by superior officers, by teammates. A schedule is posted on the wall and you follow it. In the army, you literally have a sergeant yelling at you to get out of bed, run up that hill, get down and bang out fifty pushups.

Externally-imposed discipline is great, but it’s not what you and I need as artists and entrepreneurs. In our world, there are no sergeants. There is no boss, no coach, no mentor. We have to be our own coaches, our own editors, our own motivators.

Think back to Twlya Tharp, catching that cab for the gym at five in the morning. That’s self-discipline. That’s self-motivation. That’s self-reinforcement.