I dislike the word "discipline"

I was browsing Reddit the other day, and I saw the following post pop up in my feed.

As an active language learner over the past year, I can definitely relate to this post.

There are many days where I simply have no motivation to study Japanese, and all I want to do is roll around in bed watching English Youtube videos, listen to English podcasts, and talk to friends in English.

They’re my やる気がない days.

However, this was the top comment responding to that post.

When I read the word “discipline”, I immediately recoiled.

There’s something about the word “discipline” that feels incredibly condescending to me. It carries an air of “My mindset is stronger than yours because I can do hard things that you can’t.”

Whether or not the Redditor intended to come off that way, I would propose replacing the word “discipline” with “habits”.

For me, rather than making everything about mental toughness, language learning works better when I think about it in terms of setting up systems that work regardless of my mental state.

I have 3 kinds of days when it comes to language learning:

• Bare minimum: Days I have little to no motivation — やる気がない
• Average: Days I have an average amount of motivation — 普通
• Exceptional: Days I have a ton of motivation — やる気が溢れている

And there are a couple buckets of activities that I do to progress at language learning.

• Reading: Anki card creation and reviews, novels, news, blog posts, essays, JLPT practice tests
• Listening: Podcasts, Youtube videos, JLPT practice tests
• Speaking: Speaking with natives, shadowing, monologuing
• Writing: Chatting with AI, writing journal entries, writing essays

On an average day, my routine looks something like this:

• Start my day by doing Anki reviews on the toilet
• Listen to a Japanese podcast while walking to school
• Go to class (where I’m immersed for the next 4 hours)
• Drop into a cafe where I might chill
• Do homework, or read a little bit of my novel, add new Anki cards
• Watch Youtube videos in Japanese to end the day

On an exceptional day, I might add in:

• Reading Nikkei news articles in Japanese (Japan’s version of the Wall Street Journal)
• Reading novels for 1 hour+
• Doing JLPT practice tests
• Writing a diary entry in Japanese
• Conversation practice with natives

And most importantly, on bare minimum days, I only do the following:

• Anki reviews
• Listen to podcasts
• Watch Youtube videos

Notice how on the bare minimum days, my activities require almost no motivation or “discipline”?

Anki reviews require some motivation to get started. But for me, it’s become so habitual that if I do 1 review, it triggers my “completion” instinct and I end up doing another 100 reviews or just finish the whole thing.

I don’t think most people fail because they lack discipline.

I think they fail because their system only works on high-motivation days.

Rather than planning out our ideal days, I think it’s more helpful to think about what we might do on our “bare minimum” days. What can we fall back on when we have almost no motivation, but still want to feel like we’re moving forward, however little it may be?

That’s my little rant for the week.

I know not everyone reading this is grinding away at language learning, but I think the same principles apply to other parts of our lives, be it exercise, a new hobby, or a new skill.

Have a great weekend!

Tim