Discipline and patience are really two peas in a pod. When I’m patient I have discipline. Or, when I’m disciplined, am I patient?
It feels like a real chicken & egg situation if I’m being honest. And it feels like fate that I started choosing words to define my year and landed on both of these back-to-back.
I’m currently thinking about discipline a lot. It’s showing up in all my social media (as expected) and it’s popping up in moments that I’m not expecting.
The recent lesson I’ve been embracing is that it’s not about the thing, it’s about my consistency in the thing.
A brief history with discipline
About a year into our relationship, my husband and I decided to set some goals. Mind you, we weren’t even engaged yet, just a year into dating, so this was a bit out of the norm. We decided what we wanted, made the goals and then we went after them.
All at the same time and pretty aggressively. We decided to…
Quit smoking
Change our finance habits completely
Start a meal plan / new diet of sorts
Begin preparing for a move from a 3 bedroom house to a 500 square foot apartment
Looking back, I’m honestly surprised that we were successful in all of them. It’s not normal to make multiple major changes in your life and see any of them last, but somehow we did it.
We survived quitting smoking together, even if some days it seemed like we wouldn’t. We lived in that tiny downtown apartment for two years without anyone getting too upset. I mean, there was that one time with Ikea bed frame assembly that things got pretty dicey, but we made it out of that unscathed and cast all the blame on Ikea.
The finance habits were honestly the major reason we had so much success. Money touched everything we were trying to accomplish, so we had to be really focused on how we spent it.
Our past lives had taught us what it was like to live paycheck-to-paycheck, defer payments or hope the check isn’t cashed until the next payday. We took a class that taught us a method to allocate every dollar in the bank account to something - a bill, debt or cost of living category. Eliminating any “extra” or the mindset of “extra” meant we were at a crossroads every time we had an opportunity to spend money.
With this new method of managing our finances, we had to get smart with where we allocated those dollars. Smoking, eating out or luxury groceries weren’t an option. We had to save large sums to pay first and last month rent in our new place and we wanted to drive ourselves towards our future - living up north.
Present Day - Part I
As I leaped off the freelance / solopreneur cliff, I knew we’d have to get a bit stricter with our spending habits. This also means we have to be strategic about planning our meals again.
Honestly, food is one of the toughest categories to manage financially because it’s so damn easy to say, “I just really want some boneless wings tonight.” and then go get them. Luckily (and not so luckily some days), we live far enough away from fast food restaurants - so we have that working in our meal planning favor.
We’ve built meal plans before and we can do it again. But, woof is building that habit back into our life a challenge.
I had opened Facebook one Friday morning and noticed a local restaurant, only ten minutes from our place was offering a burger special for the day. I casually mentioned it to Lee as I poured my coffee and went back to work.
By 5pm, I was pretty mentally drained and not feeling that much excitement about cooking. Don’t get me wrong, I actually LOVE to cook. It’s a creative outlet for me when I’m trying to find a use for multiple leftover items in the fridge, and when something comes together just right, it is a reward worth chasing. But it’s hard to muster that kind of energy when the menu idea isn’t something new, and I’m lacking creative energy after spending my day designing websites.
Lee looked at me and said, “Well ya know… there’s always that burger special.” And the sweet, sweet whisper of discipline said, “you made the plan, so work the plan.”
Despite everything in my body saying, “Burger! Burger! Burger!”, I responded with, “we already have thawed chicken but we could switch things up and make Chicken Parm Sandwiches tonight instead of chicken and veggies.”
Lee was onboard and as always, willing to help. We joke that he’s the sous chef in our house because he’s a great partner when it comes to preparing a meal.
And then… I burnt the chicken. We should have used our deep fryer, but I wasn’t interested in busting it out of the cabinet so I opted for a frying pan instead. It’s harder to control the heat and before I knew it, they were crispy on the outside and raw on the inside. (Gordon Ramsey would have a fit.)
“It’s fine, we’ll just pop ‘em into the oven instead to finish the cook.”
Which would have been no problem, except I underestimated how much time they still needed so I put the provolone cheese on too early and the way that cheese melted into some weird ass almost plastic like layer vs. gooey melty cheese was unappealing.
Since I cooked them separately, that meant Lee enjoyed a semi-burnt chicken parmesan sandwich. Disappointed with the outcome but grateful that I stayed the course and cooked a meal at home vs. going out I looked around the fridge to see what else I could eat for dinner since I refused to eat my burnt, plastic cheese covered meal.
Grilled cheese it was. Lee is the best at making grilled cheese. He gets the cheese goo level just right and the outside is a perfect crispy crust of golden brown goodness.
And then he accidentally burnt the grilled cheese. I’ll take responsibility here because I added an extra slice of cheese so it had to stay on the pan longer.
I ate it anyway and chuckled with each bite.
Present Day - Part II
Another part of meal planning is ensuring we’ve got the groceries we need and the items that will last the longest. When I first left my job in early November, I was feeling overwhelmed by the costs of groceries, especially protein. Just two short years ago, my package of four chicken breasts was $11.99 and today it’s $16.99. #ButWhy?
I’m sorry, I can get an ENTIRE chicken for less than that AND it’s already cooked. So, why is the raw chicken so much more expensive? I digress.
I’m committed to eating less meat and finding other ways to bring protein into my diet, and would even do a rice & bean diet for a while if it was what would keep us on track for our goals. Grateful for a friend with a Costco membership, I knew I was going to spend the entire monthly budget on protein that we could divide into smaller portions to vacuum seal and store.
I despise shopping in general, but especially if it’s a big store like Costco. People are terrible at paying attention to others and I feel rushed into making a decision when it’s busy. And the way little ole’ ladies just put their cart in the middle of the freaking aisle and block both sides from being able to move… It's a gateway to jail for me.
Tangent - I listened to a podcast about a woman that was triggered by stress and anxiety in a phone store and in the process of having a panic attack, she maced the store attendant and went to jail. This was a huge wake up call for me that I needed to get my anxiety under control. Because at the time, I knew that could be me any day.
So, we’re in Costco and I’m thanking the heavens it’s the Tuesday after Thanksgiving because it’s quieter than normal so I don’t have to worry about side-kicking someone across the store when they stand to close to me and I feel pressured me to choose my salad mix.
I bring home the goods and we begin dividing things out. I had gotten three different packages of chicken sausage and wanted to throw out the packaging and separate the different smaller packs for easier grabbing in the future. I labeled one of the packs “AG” and Lee looked at me and said, “Are you gonna remember what that means?”
“Absolutely!” I exclaimed feeling proud of my hunting and gathering skills.
Fast forward to a few nights ago, I had pulled out a package of chicken sausage and read “AG” and somehow thought it meant “Andouille”. (There’s no “G” in that word. Like, how did I get this wrong?)
So we cut up peppers and onions and sautéed them with the sausage and opted to put it over rice. I was expecting a little spice and heat, almost like a cajun style dish. And then it was just…midwestern.
That’s really the best way I can describe it. Flavorful, but zero spice.
So, I Googled the brand to find that AG was my acronym for “Apple & Gouda Chicken Sausage”.
Yet again, I found myself for the second time in one week chuckling while I ate my dinner.
Discipline isn’t about perfection.
It’s not about getting it right every time.
It’s about doing the thing. Period.
Showing up, being consistent and following through on the plan.
And it’s hard to leave a lot of convenience behind. I’d much rather have someone else cook when I’m feeling so low energy, but I keep telling myself that as long as I feed my body, that’s what counts. It doesn’t have to be picture perfect meals, it just has to provide me sustenance.
What will the next 30 days teach me about Discipline?
I can’t wait to find out.
Those apple gouda sausages are so good! I’m horrible at sticking to a meal plan. I usually only plan out 3-4 days for a week and then am lucky if I make 2-3 of the meals. The rest of the days I just wing it based on level of effort and what is in the pantry/fridge/freezer. We do order delivery probably once a week. This tired mama needs a break now and then!
Lol at the ancient labeled food in the freezer 😂