More Structure, Less Discipline: The Lunch Problem I Couldn’t Solve
One structure I put in place for myself a long time ago was meal planning. With a husband, five sons, and my own business to run, I needed to have meals planned for each week. During dinner on Thursday nights, we all decide what we want to eat the next week, and I grocery shop on Fridays. Looking back, I realize meal planning wasn’t really about discipline. It was about creating a structure so I didn’t have to make the same decisions over and over again.
Don’t be jealous, but I never spend any mental energy wondering what's for dinner because decisions are in place. People ask me how I do it, and I’m happy to share my structure. Honestly, I don’t understand how families get through the week without a meal planning system.
What About Lunch?
For months, I've been working on having healthier lunches during the week. Previously it was grab-and-go so I could get back to my desk, but lately I’m focusing on having more protein and foods that are gluten-free, dairy-free, and anti-inflammatory to support my health.
Every day I was going into the kitchen at lunch time and staring blindly at whatever was on the shelves of the refrigerator. I searched for those healthy foods. Some were there, some had been eaten by the men in my house, and some just hadn’t been purchased. I asked myself the same questions each day:
What has enough protein?
What is gluten-free, dairy-free and anti-inflammatory?
And what hasn't already been eaten by the four grown men in my house?
By the time I figured it out each day, I lost time and was exhausted. I was experiencing decision fatigue from making lunch.
At first, I pursued more nutrition information, better recipes, and more ideas. I was Googling “healthy lunches”, looking for recipes. I gathered lots of information and did plenty of research, but I was still spiraling each day trying to make decisions about what I ate for lunch.
What’s the Real Problem Here?
Then I realized, the problem wasn’t about being disciplined with nutrition. It was about having a plan for healthy, easy lunches. I was asking myself to start from scratch every day and make the same decision over and over again.
The funny thing is, I teach this concept all the time in business.
Business owners want to be:
More disciplined about following up.
More consistent with content creation.
More focused on business development.
What they are really expecting is to be able to make too many repetitive decisions in the moment and still have the focus and energy to get their work done.
Without systems in place, they process the same decisions again and again. When you have structure and a plan, you make each decision once, then maintain that structure each day.
For me, I needed to plan lunches the same way I've planned dinners for years. I love the concept of meal planning. But I really love not getting exhausted from facing the same decisions every day.
That's where structure helps.
If I plan lunches, I don't have to decide every day what to eat.
If a business owner commits to a weekly CEO Hour to plan the following week, they don't have to spend every day deciding what to work on.
If a business owner has an onboarding process, they don't have to reinvent the client experience every time they start a project with a new client.
If a business owner has a networking strategy, they don't have to scramble at the last minute to find new leads.
The more structure you build into your business, the less you have to rely on discipline, motivation, or willpower to keep things moving.
So here's the question: Where are you relying on discipline when structure would serve you better?
If you're ready to build a business that feels more intentional and less reactive, I'd love to help.
In my six-month CEO Blueprint Program, we'll create the systems, routines, and operating structure that help your business run more smoothly - so you can spend less time making the same decisions over and over again and more time focusing on what matters most.