Self-Discipline

Is self-discipline something you can learn?

I used to think I had self-discipline but now I realize I probably never really had any. Back when I was in Junior Miss and I messed up the talent portion and apologized in front of the audience and on live TV - it was because of a lack of self-discipline that kept me from being as well-prepared as I should have been. When I went to basic training and couldn't keep up on the runs - it was because I lacked the self-discipline while in high school to prep enough for the rigors of BCT. When I start and fail diet after diet it's because I lack the self-discipline to follow any plan for more than a week or two (days in some cases).

People used to say I had dedication and perseverance because I never gave up on my dream of attending USAFA. What happened to all that? Where did it go? I fell as if I've lost what little I had and now can't find it...

I've read in several places that people say willpower is like any other muscle in that it has to be used &/or exercised or it will be lost. It seems to me as if that can/should apply to self-discipline as well. Looking at definitions of both they seem pretty darn similar:
Self-discipline: training and control of oneself and one's conduct, usually for personal improvement
Willpower: the ability to control oneself and determine one's actions, the strength of will to carry out one's decisions, wishes or plans

So, really it seems as if you either have it or you don't. If you don't, you can train yourself to have it. Kind of like kicking any habit - you do it one breath, one decision, one minute at a time until those minutes become days and the days become weeks...? It just seems a bit daunting when you feel as if you're starting with nothing to try and get willpower and/or self-discipline.

Bubba is already 18 months old and repeating almost everything we say and mimicking everything we do. I don't want him learning bad habits from me - whether it be words that I say, the way I react to things, or dealing with food/weight issues. I feel as if I need to get myself under control before I can be a good example for him...not an easy task but I think it is definitely a worthy one.

So, there you have it - one of my many secrets...admitting it to myself and now to you will hopefully help me get started. One breath, one decision, one minute at a time.

Who You Are vs What You Do

Quite a while ago one of my sisters introduced me to "Daily Om," a website dedicated to "nurturing mind, body and spirit." I get e-mails from them every day with thought provoking articles. Sometimes I read them right away, sometimes I put them in a folder to read/re-read later and sometimes I'm not interested so it gets deleted. that's the beauty of e-mail - I decide what I want to read and when...that's a discussion in itself for another time...

The article I read today was about realizing "You are who you are, not what you do." As usual, I didn't feel as if 100% of it applied to me, but that didn't matter since even the first couple sentences struck a cord: "Our perception of the traits and characteristics that make us who we are is often tightly intertwined with how we live our life. We define ourselves in terms of the roles we adopt, our actions and inactions, our triumphs, and what we think are failures. "

For the last couple years I have had a hard time adjusting to the fact I am no longer an officer in the United States Air Force. Ever since I was 16 years old, all I wanted was to be in the Air Force. Everything I did my last two years in High School was to get an ROTC scholarship or, preferably, to get into the Air Force Academy. Then I struggled, and I mean struggled, to graduate from USAFA, including two years of medical leave due to knee surgeries (and if I'm honest with myself, not as much training/physical therapy as should have been done). Graduating with the class of 1996 instead of 1994 was probably a good thing, for many reasons, but most of all because I felt as if I was starting over with a clean slate. No one in '96 knew how hard my freshman year had been...thus, I was given every opportunity to prove I could handle tough jobs. Whereas had I remained with '94, either I myself or others might have held me back from accomplishing as much as I was capable of - simply due to my less than stellar four degree year. (Another story for another time...)

As an aircraft maintenance officer, I felt as if I had to work harder than everyone else to prove that women could do the job just as well as men - despite the fact that I knew/know nothing about maintenance/mechanics other than what I continuously studied so as not to show my ignorance. I also kept myself apart from others so no one could accuse me of being "soft" or being too friendly with the guys. In other words, I wasn't able to be myself. For ten years, I put the AF and my career above my own needs and desires. I was so successful at putting everything else first, that I no longer knew or even recognized anything different. The way I saw it, what was good for the AF was, in fact, good for me.

Now, I don't have that anymore. I don't have the uniform to hide behind, I don't have the mission to focus on, I don't have the purpose in serving my country...So now, (and something I've been working on for the last two years) I have to figure out "who I am" separate from "what I do."

Sounds pretty easy but as I have found, it's not. At least not for me. I've gone from being a Major in the world's greatest AF to being a dependant spouse (have I mentioned how much I hate that word "dependant"...?) whose main contribution to the world is a blog and blankets (well, other crafts as well, but who besides me really cares about my scrapbooking, and family/friends can only stand so many crafts as gifts...). Doesn't do much for the whole sense of purpose and value thing...

What's my point? I'm not sure if I have one. It's just that the article made me realize, again, how much I have always defined myself by what I do/did. I was AF 24/7/365. And now, how do I define myself when I'm not really doing anything? Do I define myself as a woman who tries to do the right thing...? As someone who loves her friends and family and tries to be there for them, sometimes before they even realize they are in need...? As someone who loves creating "art" even if it's never seen outside my own home...? Yet, aren't all of those still defining myself by what I am doing..?

How do I define myself? As a work in progress...

Missing Friends

In the last few months, pretty much since I started going through old pictures to try my hand at scrapbooking, I have been thinking more and more of missing friends. Some that I have lost forever, some that just somehow drifted away over the years.

Facebook has been a great thing for getting back in touch with old friends. I can't believe the number of people I have "found" again through FB. Yet, FB also has some drawbacks. There must be some contest I don't know about to have the highest number of friends on FB, because sometimes I am totally confused as to why these people want to "friend" me. They are friends of friends or siblings of friends or people I have never even heard of who have no "mutual" friends so I don't know how they found me.

Then there is what I have come to think of as the "High School Hang-up." I wasn't the geekiest person at my school but I wasn't the most popular either. When I look back, I think I have had a pretty successful and surely happy life in the 18 or so years since I graduated high school. Yet, somehow, being on FB and seeing people I graduated with "friending" my siblings or other friends instead of me brings back all those old HS insecurities. Do they just not like me? Why don't they like me? WHY DO I CARE? Yet, I do. So I have been avoiding Facebook like an insecure high school freshman. Hopefully, I will get over it soon, because I really do like FB....

I have also used the internet (mostly Google) to find some old friends. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I have been pleasantly surprised at the response I have gotten from some long-lost, missing friends I have managed to track down. Now, I just have to keep in touch!

Then, there are those missing friends that are truly gone forever. Today marks one year since I lost my friend Carrie and her son Lucas. Today I talked with another friend who was also good friends with Carrie and we just spent some time reminiscing and missing Carrie. Sometimes it is hard to remember that Carrie wasn't perfect; there were so many good things about her. She was a great friend who truly cared about others - often doing little things just to show you how much she cared and that you were thought of; she was a great mother - she loved Ashley and Lucas so much, you could tell just being around her that they were her world; she was a good wife - (though Jim would be the better judge on that) when I stayed with them for two months, it was easy to see how important it was to her to make a good home for him, to support him and how much she loved him. The main thing I will always remember about Carrie was her love of life - she was ALWAYS moving, always doing something. Sometimes she thought of it as a flaw, that she couldn't slow down or sit still...but she was able to fit so much into her way too short life. She touched so many people who are changed forever for knowing her.

While I know I can never be exactly like Carrie, nor should I want to be for I am my own person, I do hope that I continue to grow in my love for others and learn to care more about showing love than worrying about what others may think.

I guess part of that will be continuing to search for those other missing friends and keeping in touch with those I have found. Being a good friend is probably the best legacy I can think of to remember Carrie.