Discipline is the key to achieving goals and accomplishment in life, and every individual aspires to lead a disciplined life. How to create work-life balance is an age-old debate rooted in our primary years, where a child’s life is engineered by parents from morning to evening, school to home. Parents take pride in raising a child in a strict and disciplined way, where time is fixed for every activity of his/her life, and there is a belief that this habit in the primary years will lead to a disciplined and successful adult. Yet, the reality on the ground is that many successful adults are experiencing mental health challenges, especially depression and anxiety, and find themselves burnt out and ineffective in life.

The challenge with leading a disciplined life in a regimented way is that a person will burn out faster and at some given point of life, will give up out of sheer exhaustion. Imagine running nonstop while you are full of energy and zeal, and no matter what, you will run out of fuel and stop and fall on the ground because your body cannot be pushed anymore. Pushing our limits even under the garb of discipline and drive towards success will lead to mental exhaustion and in turn physical because the body keeps a score even though the conscious mind is not. A highly disciplined person who believes in not letting any ball drop has a hyper-activated nervous system, which will release excessive cortisol that lowers the immune system and makes one prone to physical issues. Making anything in life a ‘fixed figure’ be it a life goal and striving towards a hyper energetic state is mostly rooted in fear of failure and leads to many other areas being neglected like interpersonal relationships, psychological growth, and the ability to be regulated and containment.