Discipline or Dedication?
Understanding the difference between the two can lead to more joy.
My friend Jim once told me that his college coach, Charles Torpey, loved coaching because, in Torpey’s words, “I only work with highly disciplined people.”
I said that didn’t sound right. Jim and I were, of course, running while having this conversation. Both of us would likely peg the outing as a, if not the highlight of the day. What discipline was involved in making this or most runs happen? I didn’t develop my counterargument much beyond that, and the run ended with neither of us having changed the other’s mind.
Thirty-plus years later, I’ll make another attempt to refute Torpey.
“This is What We Do”
This conversation occurred when Jim was about a decade into a 2-mile-minimum daily streak that wound up lasting 41 years. So, yeah, it’s worth hearing his take on discipline. Or is it? When pressed on why he had a streak, Jim varied his answers, depending on the audience. To me, it was usually some version of, “This is what we do.” He never said that in a martyrly way, but simply as a statement of fact, a reflection of self-knowledge about what was important to him.
Being dedicated to something has a positive, sustainable, long-term feel to it.
My Single-A baseball version of Jim’s streak is that I’ve never missed a day of running to travel. That includes when Jim and I were in India together, and we ran in New Delhi at midnight upon arrival and at 3:30 a.m. before flying home. Those are lifetime-memory runs, as are many of the ones I’ve done—10 miles near the Mendenhall Glacier at 4 a.m., a spooky hour in utter blackness near Mt. Rainier, 20 minutes up and down a Heathrow corridor when en route to Kenya—to keep this dubious streak alive. These runs have always made me feel like I’m living more fully than denying myself something. (“Oh no, I missed an hour of sleep before sitting in a plane for the next several hours!,” etc.)
The same is true of the more quotidian runs that, if we’re lucky, fill the decades in our logs. Yes, it can be more difficult to get out the door when it’s 37 and pouring rather than 72 and sunny. But something interesting or enjoyable will almost always happen on the run, and it’s not as if the jaunt is keeping me from lots of other things I want to be doing. Similarly, I don’t necessarily relish every minute of every hard workout or long run. Still, the challenge is engaging in a way that few other things are. The occasional need to override apathy is proof of the power of inertia, not some demonstration of my iron will.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I consider myself a dedicated runner, not a disciplined runner. Dedication entails regularly devoting time and energy to something that you want to be doing. We’re rewarded for our dedication by that thing being even more of a source of pleasure and satisfaction because of nurturing it. Being dedicated to something has a positive, sustainable, long-term feel to it.
Contrast that with discipline. The feeling here is more getting yourself to do something you don’t want to but that you know you “should.”
A personal example: I had foot surgery in April 2024 to reattach my left extensor hallicus longus tendon, which had spontaneously ruptured the previous month. (Pro tip: Try not to have injuries most medicos haven’t encountered.) Two weeks after surgery I was cleared to do one-legged stationary cycling, as seen in the video below.
For the next month, I did so twice a day in the garage, building to about 10 hours a week. I was then cleared to ride with both legs, including, eventually, outdoors, although I seldom did the latter because I was terrified of crashing and reinjuring the tendon. I wound up having 50 consecutive days of two-a-day rides.
This wasn’t the happiest time of my life. But I knew it was necessary and that I could get through it, which points to another difference between dedication and discipline—because of the amount of will needed to sustain discipline, it’s often most successful in shorter-term undertakings. My initial phase of trying to live alcohol-free required a lot of discipline. I didn’t always have the requisite amount. Eventually, though, it took, and now, more than 15 years later, I don’t really even think about it, much less have to exert any will to live this way. If I had to be on high-alert full-discipline as I did those first few months, I wouldn’t succeed. Nor would I be a daily runner if leaving the house required a huge effort. It’s simply not sustainable to live that way.
Choices, Not Sacrifices
Another key difference between discipline and dedication: As with me and drinking, discipline can also mean not doing something that you know you “shouldn’t.” Certainly you might not do things because of being dedicated to running or pottery or music or what have you. But, as Olympic marathon medalist Deena Kastor so aptly put it, these tradeoffs are best viewed as choices, not sacrifices, freely made to better focus on what we really care about.
Why does this matter? Isn’t the difference between discipline and dedication just semantics?
I don’t think so.
My former Running Times colleague Jonathan Beverly captured this when describing his childhood evangelical efforts. If you’re trying to convince someone to join the flock, Jonathan said, you can either say, “Here are all the ways you’re living wrong and here’s how you should live instead,” or you can say, “Here’s how I live and why it’s great.”
The first implies a life of drab discipline. The second implies pleasurable dedication. Presenting your actions—to yourself and to others—as stemming from dedication, not discipline, emphasizes the joy that comes from your chosen path. It’s an approach that leads to thinking, “I now get to go run” instead of, “I now have to go run.” This makes remaining dedicated so much easier.
Also, nobody likes a martyr. Instagram is full of poor-me-I-can’t-go-out-on-Friday-night-because-I’m-running-long-tomorrow posts. Group dinners are often punctuated by life-with-the-crone tales. Even when presented with a wink and a nod, these gestures grate. Nobody is forcing you to live like this; why carry around a satchel of self-pity? I never heard streaker Jim talk about his pursuit in woe-is-me terms.
Following Jonathan’s and Jim’s examples can take discipline. Eventually, though, you’ll find you’re dedicated to being a good ambassador for your passions. Why not choose joy?