Ep183: How To Tell If Discipline Is Quietly Limiting Your Business Growth
Episode Summary
How can you tell if your business is being held together by discipline… instead of driven by something more potent?
If you’re highly disciplined, consistent, and capable—but your business has been feeling heavy, fragile, or dependent on constant self-management—this episode unpacks why what’s been keeping you productive may no longer be what’s moving your business forward.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The telltale sign your business is running on discipline instead of power
Why finishing things can feel relieving—but may be signaling something deeper
How your ability to manage yourself and stay consistent might actually be holding you back
Press play to learn how to recognize what’s quietly slowing your growth—and how to lead your business in a way that expands your capacity instead of depleting it.
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Full Episode Transcript:
In this episode, you'll discover how to tell if your business is running on discipline instead of power.
Welcome to The Uncommon Way, where high-achieving women entrepreneurs and leaders pitch the rule book and design success on their own terms. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, a top-ranked business coach sharing business growth strategies, mindset mastery, and power boost to help you attract ideal clients, leverage your unique genius, and scale with freedom. Let's dive in.
Welcome, welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're talking about discipline, which is something that has gotten all of us very, very far. You remember when other kids were blowing off their homework, but we were actually getting it done? Yeah, me too. And I'm grateful for having learned how to function even when I don't want to do something. Most high achievers don't lack discipline, but they're often over relying on it. Discipline will get you far, but it's one of the most expensive ways to run a business long-term. So in this episode, you'll learn the telltale sign your business is running on discipline instead of power, why finishing things can feel relieving, but maybe signaling something deeper, and how your ability to manage yourself and stay consistent might actually be holding you back. So yes, discipline is amazing, but if you think of discipline as the engine, pressure is the fuel, and that fuel runs out. I'm meeting so many women lately who tell me, I'm just not ever going back to that. Maybe they've already had a business before and it just drained them, and now they're moving into a new chapter and they're looking for something different. I have a question on my intake form when people sign up to have a discovery call with me, and it's asking about the level of commitment, and I actually say on a scale of one to ten, what is your willingness to push through discomfort? And many years ago, I used to get a lot of tens, but now most of the time, I'm getting eights. And I ask for the follow-up, why is that? And most people are saying, because I've burned out before, or because I pushed it too hard before, or because I have other priorities now and I don't want to go back to that. Whether they know it or not, it's not the pace that's so frightening to think about going back to, it's the pressure. Because when you're in the midst of creative expression, the hours fly by and you don't feel drained. So it's not about the time, it's about who you are when you're taking action. Here's a really simple way to think about it. Discipline says, I'll make myself do this, but power says, this moves because I'm behind it. With discipline, it's about rules and forcing and making sure you're consistent. With power, it's about creation and internal authority and a coherence between who you are and what you're doing. Now, I am not saying that every part of your business should feel amazing all the time. If you haven't listened to last week's episode with Katie Pulsifer, do that because you'll hear her naming boredom as such an important business emotion. But there's a difference between being bored doing your accounting because it's that time of the month again. And what I'm talking about here, which is a chronic use of discipline in your business. Here are five clear signs that your business is running on discipline. Sign number one, you can execute, but it takes constant self-management to stay consistent. Honestly, that's how I was feeling about this podcast at the beginning of 2025. I've talked about that before, but it was like I was going into a race. I mean, I had to psych myself into it, you know, start doing it earlier in the week. I had to get ready, had to warm up. I had to knuckle through talking about the same subject again in many different ways. And this right now doesn't feel like that at all. It feels like an exciting time when the moment finally comes that I get to sit down and brainstorm these and really think about what I'm going to say here. I know you can relate to that contrast for yourself. Here's sign number two, things work, but they feel heavy or they feel fragile. If you stop pushing the momentum collapses. When you're operating from power, it infuses everything around you and everything you do. Sometimes the question is, can I keep up with this? That's different than that feeling we feel where we know that if we just take some time off, it's going to be so hard to get back into the groove. Sign number three, you rely on rules and systems to override resistance instead of listening to it. That resistance might be there for a reason. It's worth getting curious. Sign number four, you're productive, but not really potent. It's like you're being so busy. You're spinning all the wheels, pushing all the levers. I'm getting my analogies mixed up. You know what I'm talking about. You're doing all these things, but it's not influential. There's no demonstrable cause and effect in your surroundings. And sign number five, this one's really important. You feel relief when something is done, not expansion, right? There's no increase in capacity afterwards. And if you're asking yourself, okay, what exactly does she mean by expansion? Relief says, thank God that's over. And expansion says, oh, something just unlocked. So the thing didn't just get done. It made you bigger. So relief is about ending effort, but expansion is about multiplying your capacity. When you finish a project and you notice better questions emerging, and you notice your thinking's even clearer now, and it's even easier to see your next move, that means you're operating from power. Through the activity that you've just engaged in, you had the opportunity to sharpen your signal, right? For your influence to increase, for your authority to really consolidate. Again, it didn't just get done. It made you bigger. That's completely different than your brain just needing a break after that and feeling like you never want to make another decision. When you're moving from power, it leaves you with more range, more emotional range, an increased ability to think and think about what you're doing, and an increased perspective on strategy moves that are available. So stop asking, how do I make myself do this? And start asking, what would restore a sense of potency here? Or another word that you resonate with, maybe like authority or authorship. Maybe you realize it's narrowing your focus, choosing fewer but higher impact moves. There are so many possibilities here, but you won't find the answer if you don't ask the question. So through the power lens discipline, it's not wrong. It's just a signal. Just like when your lips are dry and you say, oh, I need to drink more water. You're not saying, my lips are dry and therefore I'm turning into this dried out old woman. You just say, dry lips, drink more water. So the same thing here. If you notice an excess of discipline in your business, then that's a signal to reflect on where is discipline covering up for a power leakage? Where is my willpower standing in for authority? And where is me doing things overcompensating for not commanding? One way to think of discipline is that it's the thing you use when power isn't available. So when you feel things getting away from you in business or life, maybe the real work isn't becoming more discipline. It's just re-accessing your power. That is why I'm having so much fun with this topic and I'm going to be bringing you more episodes about how power is built, lost, and reclaimed because those are the essential pieces for really being able to sustain influence and freedom and all the good things that you got into this for in the first place. All right, my friend, have a great week. Let's talk again on Tuesday.
