The running shoes were sitting right by the door. You laid out your workout clothes the night before, even set your alarm 30 minutes early. And yet when your phone buzzed at 6 a.m., you hit snooze, rolled over and told yourself you’d try again tomorrow.
Tomorrow came and went.
That’s the cycle so many of us know too well. We set the goals, we make the plan, we want to change—but somewhere between intention and action, life gets in the way. We end up frustrated and right back where we started.
Jonathan Pokluda understands that frustration.
“Discipline is hard because we treat it like a punishment instead of what it actually is — a pathway to freedom,” the pastor and author told RELEVANT.
In his book Why I Do What I Don’t Want To Do, Pokluda explores why self-control feels so slippery and how to stay disciplined in a world constantly pulling at your attention.
Pokluda points to James 5:16 as a foundational piece of wisdom: “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” To him, this isn’t just a verse about guilt — it’s a blueprint for what he calls “playing offense” when it comes to staying disciplined.
“We always talk about repentance as turning away from sin,” he said. “But the key part so many of us miss is turning to Christ. That’s where people stumble.”
Take pride, for example.
“If I’m walking into a room thinking about how many followers I have or worrying about how I’m being perceived, I need to ask, ‘What does it look like for me to live a humble life?’” Pokluda said. “In Mark 10, Jesus says, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last.’ That’s not just spiritual poetry; it’s a practical playbook for discipline. When I’m following Christ’s example of humility, pride doesn’t have room to grow.”
Pokluda frames this as a shift from purely defensive habits — trying hard not to fail — to an offensive approach that builds the qualities we actually want.
“Instead of just fighting pride, I need to cultivate humility,” he said. “Instead of just avoiding lust, I need to actively pursue purity. Instead of trying not to be greedy, I can practice generosity.”
This perspective, he insists, applies to every area of life.
Of course, conversations about discipline often drift into conversations about grace. No one wants to become the kind of rigid, joyless person who can’t break a rule without spiraling. But Pokluda warns that today’s culture of “self-care first, ask questions later” might be making the problem worse.
“I’m not here to bash generations,” he said. “I love the next generation, and I’ve devoted my life to caring for them. But we are at a cultural moment where self-care has become a mantra. People are facing unprecedented anxiety, depression and suicidality, so the instinct is, ‘I just need to take care of me.’ That sounds right — but it’s not working.”
Pokluda points out that while things like rest, exercise and mental health care matter, they can’t be the entire foundation for how we pursue wholeness.
“If we only look inward, we just keep circling the same problems,” he said. “We’re softer. If something feels hard, we assume it’s wrong. But Scripture tells us to ‘discipline ourselves for godliness.’ Discipline is supposed to be hard sometimes. It’s part of building strength.”
The danger, he added, is confusing self-care with self-focus.
“Breaks and boundaries are important, but if they become an excuse to stop doing what God’s called us to do, then we’re not practicing grace — we’re practicing avoidance,” he said.
Pokluda’s approach is surprisingly practical. He’s not here to shame anyone into perfect habits, but he’s clear that discipline requires more than vague intentions. Confession, community, prayer and service aren’t just nice “extras” for people of faith — they’re the structures that keep us anchored when motivation inevitably fades.
“It’s easy to think discipline is just about trying harder,” he said. “But white-knuckling willpower only works for so long. We need rhythms that point us back to God and back to others.”
That can look like asking a trusted friend to hold you accountable for the changes you want to make or being honest when you’ve failed instead of hiding it. It can also look like intentionally putting yourself in situations where you’re serving others, not just thinking about your own needs.
Pokluda’s advice isn’t flashy. In fact, it sounds a lot like the unsexy wisdom most of us would rather avoid. But he believes that’s the point.
“Discipline is less about getting what you want and more about becoming who you’re called to be,” he said. “That process is hard, but it’s also freeing. You don’t have to live trapped by the same cycles.”
Ultimately, Pokluda said, the question isn’t just “How can I stay disciplined?” but “What kind of person am I becoming?”
“There’s this idea that freedom means doing whatever you want,” he said. “But if you really think about it, that’s not freedom — it’s chaos. True freedom is being able to do what’s good, even when it’s hard.”
In his own life, that looks like embracing humility over pride, gratitude over entitlement and generosity over greed.
“Following Christ gives me that framework,” he said. “When I’m walking with Him, I’m not just fighting off bad habits. I’m actually becoming someone new.”
That, Pokluda argues, is why discipline matters in the first place. It’s not about crushing your to-do list or hitting a goal weight. It’s about living in alignment with what you were made for.
“People ask me all the time, ‘How do I stop messing up?’” he said. “And I get it. But the better question is, ‘How do I live close to Jesus?’ Because when you’re close to Him, you’ll find the strength to do the things you thought you couldn’t.”
In other words: The key to staying disciplined isn’t more grit. It’s more grace — the kind that transforms you from the inside out.
As Pokluda put it: “Discipline can feel like a cage, but it’s actually the thing that sets you free.”
