How To Do Boring, Tedious, Difficult, but Necessary Things

Good things do not have to be infinite to be good or to have value

Applying Hara Hachi Bu to relationships means being present, kind, and giving, while also respecting your own limits so that you aren’t totally depleted. Boundaries can be thought of as fences placed around valuable resources to protect and preserve them. Farmers keep back a little seed from every harvest to secure next year’s crop; in the same way, commit yourself, but always keep a little back so that you can replenish again.

Pushing past the point of focus only leads to diminishing returns, anyway. It’s as though you are pouring and pouring, but all that extra water is just going to waste, and in fact giving you something you now have to clean up.

Sometimes, it feels like discipline means treating yourself like a drill segreant and not taking no for an answer.

But sometimes, discipline means having the courage to say, “This is what my best looks like right now, and that is enough.” Another opportunity to work will come. We all have limits, and there is no prize at the end of life for forcing your way through yours. Pace yourself. Take time to digest.

Just as Hara Hachi Bu teaches you to stop eating before you’re uncomfortably full, stopping work before the point of exhaustion leads to a more harmonious, balanced, and sustainable work ethic over time.

When it comes to consumption and training yourself to recognize enough, self-discipline is simply having the wisdom to realize that excess is not an improvement on sufficiency. Epictetus said, “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.”

One of the biggest mindset shifts that accompanies a genuine transformation into more discipline and self-determination is to realize that being a more disciplined person is not something you have to do – it’s something you get to do.

however, to minimize a slip-up, instead of playing it up in this way. When you see mistakes and slip-ups as normal, predictable, and very much part of the plan, then you don’t have to throw the entire plan away. You can continue on with it as soon as you’re aware of the mistake and willing to let it go.

commit yourself, but always keep a little back so that you can replenish again.

Sometimes, it feels like discipline means treating yourself like a drill segreant and not taking no for an answer.

Hara Hachi Bu to relationships means being present, kind, and giving, while also respecting your own limits so that you aren’t totally depleted.