Steady Man Series — Episode 31 | KirkTaylor.com
You know exactly what you should be doing.
You've known it for a while. And you're still not doing it.
That gap — the space between knowing and doing — might be the most universal experience men have. And the one we talk about the least. Because admitting it out loud means admitting we are not as in control as we want people to think we are.
That's what this episode of Steady Man is about. And I want to be honest with you before we go any further. I am thirty one episodes into a fifty episode series on discipline and what it means to be a steady man. And right now — I need my own white chip.
What Is a White Chip?
If you've never been in a twelve step recovery meeting, here's what that means.
In programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, they give out chips — physical tokens — to mark where you are in your journey. The white chip is the one you pick up when you're starting over. When you've gotten off the plan, you're admitting it out loud, and you're committing to begin again.
It is not a shame token. It is a courage token.
Because it takes more guts to walk up and take that chip than it does to sit in your seat and pretend everything is fine.
I have watched a lot of men take that chip over the years. Every single time I see the same thing on their face. Relief. Not shame. Relief. The relief of a man who is finally being honest. Who is being humbled. Who is committing out loud to work his program and change his life.
Today I'm the one who needs it. And I'm telling you that not to earn your sympathy — but because it is the whole point of what we're about to talk about.
Paul Said It First
The Apostle Paul wrote something so honest it almost doesn't sound like it belongs in the Bible.
I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
He called himself a wretched man. He asked who would rescue him from himself. That's Romans chapter seven.
And if you have ever stood in your kitchen at midnight reaching for something you said you weren't going to reach for — or sat down to do the thing you've been putting off for three weeks and opened your phone instead — you know exactly what Paul was talking about.
This is not a new problem. This is the oldest problem. And the most honest men in the room are the ones willing to admit they live there.
But here's what I don't want you to miss. Paul didn't stay in the question. He answered it.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The rescue was never going to come from Paul himself. He knew that. And that's the whole point. The gap between knowing and doing is not a willpower problem. It never was.
It is a surrender problem.
The Boat on the Atlantic
Let me give you a personal example.
I know how to lose weight. I have done it. I lost thirty five to forty pounds and got into the best shape I had been in years. I kept that weight off for ten years. I know what it feels like to live in that body — the energy, the clarity, the confidence. I know that if I change what I eat and get on the treadmill consistently, I will feel a difference in just a few days.
I know all of this. I have lived it.
And I still struggle to do it.
That is my Paul moment. The good that I want to do — I know how to do it, I have done it — and I still find myself not following through.
But here's where it started the first time.
I was on a friend's boat out on the Atlantic Ocean. Someone took a picture of me standing at the wheel. And when I saw that picture, I finally saw myself as I actually was. Not as I imagined myself. Not as I hoped I looked. I saw the truth. And I was desperate to change it.
That moment of honest reckoning — seeing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time in a long time — that is the white chip moment. It doesn't have to happen on a boat in the Atlantic. It can happen anywhere. But it has to happen.
You have to see yourself as you actually are before you can start moving toward who you actually want to be.
That moment on the boat wasn't just about weight. It was about surrender. I stopped arguing with reality. I stopped managing how I looked to other people. I saw the truth and I decided to stop pretending otherwise.
That's Step One. We admitted we were powerless — that our lives had become unmanageable. Not just over alcohol or drugs. Over anything we've been trying to control on our own that isn't working.
Surrender always comes before the change. Always.
Why Willpower Always Fails
Here's what I know about willpower. It feels like the answer.
It feels like if you just want it badly enough, commit strongly enough, try hard enough — it will finally work this time. And for a while it does work. You get some momentum, you feel good, you start to believe this time is different.
And then something happens. Life gets hard. You get tired. The fog rolls in. And willpower — which felt so solid — turns out to have a ceiling. And you find yourself right back where you started, maybe feeling worse than before because now you've failed again.
I have tried to will my way into the life I want. I have worked hard and expected everything to fall into place. And been confused and discouraged when it didn't.
Because that's not how it works.
The twelve step program figured this out a long time ago. Steps one through three are entirely about surrender — admitting powerlessness, believing God can restore sanity, and turning your will and your life over to Him. The disciplines don't come until later. Because the program knows that discipline without surrender is just white knuckling with better habits.
The Three Part Chain — And Why the Order Matters
Here is the framework. Three parts. And the order matters more than any of the three parts individually.
1. Surrender makes discipline possible.
Without giving up the illusion of control — without the white chip moment, without seeing yourself on that boat and deciding to stop pretending — discipline has no foundation to stand on. You can build the plan, set the alarm, lace up the shoes. But if you haven't surrendered the outcome to God, you are still running on your own power. And your own power has a ceiling.
2. Discipline makes peace accessible.
Once you've surrendered, the work still has to be done. The treadmill still matters. The plan still matters. The consistency still matters. But now it means something different. Now it's not you trying to prove something to yourself or manage how you look to the world. Now it's an act of stewardship.
God gave you this body, this mind, this life. Discipline is how you honor that.
Hebrews twelve says it plainly — discipline produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Not willpower. Not self-improvement. A harvest. Something that grows over time when the right things are planted.
3. Peace is the confirmation, not the goal.
This is the part most men get backwards. They chase the peace. They want to feel settled and confident and in control before they start doing the hard thing. But it doesn't come first. It comes after.
When you are in the plan — when you are surrendered and doing the work — a quiet peace shows up. Not excitement. Not a rush. Something steadier than both of those things. The feeling of a man walking in the right direction.
That peace is God confirming you are aligned with what He built you for. It is not a reward you earned. It is a confirmation you are on the right path.
Surrender. Discipline. Peace. In that order. Every time.
The Onion — What This Actually Looks Like Over Time
A lot of men hear surrender and discipline and peace and picture a straight line. You surrender, you get disciplined, you find peace, and that's it. Done.
That is not how it works.
Recovery taught me a better image. An onion.
You do the work, you peel back a layer, and you think you've dealt with the thing. And then life keeps going and another layer peels back and there's something else underneath it. Another area where you've been trying to control something on your own power. Another season of doing the wrong thing. Another white chip moment.
And here's what I want you to hear in that. It is not failure. It is the process.
What changes over time is not that the onion disappears. What changes is how you respond to each layer. Early on, when you find yourself off the plan, you beat yourself up. You spiral. You spend more time in shame than you do in recovery. But the longer you stay in the work — the longer you keep surrendering, keep doing the disciplines, keep coming back when you fall off — something shifts.
You start recognizing the errors of your ways faster. The wrong thing starts losing its pull. What used to feel satisfying starts feeling hollow. And then hollow becomes empty. And then one day you realize you got nothing from it at all. And you stop going down that path.
That is not willpower. That is transformation. That is what the Spirit does in a man who keeps showing up and keeps surrendering.
It is slow. It is not linear. It involves picking up a lot of white chips. But it is real and it holds in a way that willpower never could.
I carry grief right now over this. Real grief. I know what it feels like to be in that body, to be in that plan, to be walking in that peace. I have lived there. And I am not living there right now.
But that grief is actually a gift. Because it means I haven't made peace with being off the plan. It means something in me still knows the difference. That grief is what drove me to the boat moment the first time. And it's what's driving me back now.
The onion is not the enemy. The onion is the work. And the work is never finished this side of eternity. But every layer you surrender, every time you pick up the white chip and begin again, you become more of the man God built you to be.
Not perfect. Not arrived. But moving.
And a man who keeps moving in the right direction — even slowly, even imperfectly — is a steady man.
Pick Up the White Chip Today
Recovery doesn't teach you to wait. It teaches you that now is the moment. Just for today. Not a grand commitment to the rest of your life. Just today. Just this moment. Just the next right thing.
I need my white chip. And I am picking it up today. Not because I have it figured out. Not because I won't need to pick it up again. But because I carry grief over knowing what it feels like to live in freedom and not living there right now. And that grief is telling me the way back is not as far as it feels.
If you are the man who knows exactly what I am talking about — the man who has the thing he keeps reaching for that keeps letting him down, the man who has tried to will his way out of it and keeps ending up back at the beginning, the man who is tired of pretending everything is fine when it isn't —
You are not alone in this.
Every honest man is fighting something. The ones who look like they have it together are just better at hiding it. And hiding it is costing them more than they know.
The path back is not complicated. It is not easy — but it is not complicated. You surrender what you have been trying to control on your own. You do the next right thing. And you trust that the God who met you in every previous white chip moment will meet you in this one too.
Because He will. He always has. That is not a motivational phrase. That is the testimony of every man who has ever done this work honestly.
Surrender. Discipline. Peace. In that order. Today.
Pick up the white chip. Not because you have it all together. Not because you won't need to pick it up again. But because honesty always brings relief. Every time.
And the man on the other side of that honest moment — the man walking in surrender, in discipline, in peace — that man is worth becoming.
Watch Episode 31
Ep 031: The War Inside Every Man (And Why Discipline Wins)
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Kirk Taylor is the creator of the Steady Man Series — a 50 episode journey through discipline, character, and faith for men who are done performing and ready to do the real work. New episodes every week at KirkTaylor.com and on YouTube.