5 Easy Ways to Become More Self-Disciplined

in this video we're going to be talking about five actionable strategies that you can apply to your life now to have more self-discipline now before we get started on this I have to say upfront that I do think the lionization of discipline is a little bit of a scam I think we have been told by the hustle Bros that if you're if you're not disciplined that there's something wrong

Bros that if you're if you're not disciplined that there's something wrong with you and that the solution to all of your problems in life is just to be more disciplined discipline through selft discipline you develop a armor for your mind you just need to have discipline you need to lock in and you need to do it whether you feel you're or not now I think that does have

you're or not now I think that does have some Merit but it's it's not the whole story so the way I think of discipline it's discipline is when you are getting yourself to do something that you don't feel doing if you felt doing it you would be motivated but if you do it even when you don't feel it you would be disciplined so if

it you would be disciplined so if you imagine trying to do something let's say you want to work on an assignment or you're trying to make a presentation and you really don't feel it one way of applying discipline is by using employing discipline throughout the whole journey

discipline throughout the whole journey of working on this task and I to visualize this a hill and the task is a boulder that you've got and discipline is where you're trying to roll the boulder up the hill and you're I don't doing this but I'm just going to keep rolling the boulder up the hill I'm going to roll the boulder up the hill and I'm going to I'm going to eventually get the bould to the top of the hill now this is a very

I'm going to eventually get the bould to the top of the hill now this is a very stressful place to be because you spent all this energy and all this effort rolling this border all the way up the hill and then hopefully you get it to the other end and the project goes over the line or often more likely the boulder just comes rolling back down sisifus in the Greek myth I think

sisifus in the Greek myth I think it is and you have to roll the boulder up the hill again this is not a good way to live instead the way that I think of things is that really the goal should be to make the work feel so good that it doesn't feel you're rolling the boulder up the hill but instead it genuinely feels the Boulder's rolling down the hill when something

genuinely feels the Boulder's rolling down the hill when something feels good and when you enjoy whatever you're doing you don't need to rely on discipline so much however unfortunately this is a pipe dream because we can't do that with everything and at some point we have to do we have to do things that are hard and some things are just boring and all that stuff so the thing

and all that stuff so the thing I add to this mental model is that there is a little hump there's a hump before you start to go downhill and so you always have to do a little bit of a push it takes a small dose of discipline to get the boulder beyond the hump and then once it's beyond the hump if you

then once it's beyond the hump if you start enjoying the process that's when the thing starts to go downhill and I think really that is the area where we should be employing all of these strategies around discipline it's in getting that border a little bit over the hump now over the last couple of years I have been interviewing a bunch of people on my podcast and meeting a bunch of people in real life and one of

of people on my podcast and meeting a bunch of people in real life and one of the people I had the privilege of meeting a few months ago when I was in Austin is a chap called Ryan holiday who is the Mega bestselling author of this book discipline is Destiny but Ryan is also ridiculously prolific as a writer and has written I don't know

writer and has written I don't know a dozen or something books most of mostly about sosis over the last 10 years or so and one of the things I really admire about Ryan is that he's very disciplined and seems to be very consistent at doing stuff and also seems to enjoy the stuff and is also a dad with kids and seems to have just

dad with kids and seems to have just really happy life and he's in good shape and so he seems to be winning across all fronts he owns a Bookshop I visited his Bookshop he's got a studio attached to the Bookshop it's super cool he's got a team and a big part of the interview was me trying to ask Ryan hey man' how have you been doing this writing thing consistently for such

this writing thing consistently for such a long time I'm curious for you're presumably planning to write more books but why I don't want to learn from someone who's consistently doing stuff and is miserable but I want to learn from someone who is consistently doing stuff and seems to enjoy their life so that's what Ryan at least on the surface seems to be

enjoy their life so that's what Ryan at least on the surface seems to be and so in this video I want to share these five actionable tips for self-discipline that I found really helpful that I learned from Ryan during our interview and I think it's important you have to know what your main thing is we live in a world where there's

we live in a world where there's all these other supporting things they're necessary yeah not absolutely necessary but I think they're important but still you have to know what the main driver of everything is and here the advice is you have to know what your main thing is as the

what your main thing is as the philosopher senica famously said if a man knows not to which Port he sails no wind is favorable the thing that I took away from this and that I continue to take away from this is just the value of focusing on a very tiny number of things when I tend to speak to people when I'm

when I tend to speak to people when I'm giving talks and stuff who struggle with discipline if I have enough time to ask them questions I generally find that they're just trying to do too much stuff it is so hard to have self-discipline to do a dozen different things Cal Newport has a great new book called slow productivity the first principle of slow

productivity the first principle of slow productivity is do fewer things Gra GRE mccuan has an amazing book called essentialism where the whole thesis of the book is figure out what is essential to your life and eliminate everything else as much as you possibly can and just focus on the vital Feud now a lot of being more disciplined is wrapped up in our emotional well-being

a lot of being more disciplined is wrapped up in our emotional well-being and our mental health and one way to improve that is with therapy provided by betterhelp who are the paid partner of this video betterhelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100% online with betterhelp you can tap into a network of over 30,000 credentialed and experienced therapists who can help

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whenever I'm in a period of time where I'm where I feel inconsistent with stuff or I feel I'm not I'm not as self-disciplined as I would to be I'm not getting enough things over that initial hurdle and then obviously enjoying the journey beyond that point whenever I'm at that point I remind myself to zoom out and I always it always comes down to the

I always it always comes down to the fact that I'm just trying to do too much stuff I look at my calendar I look at my projects list I look at my to-do list and I realize I'm just trying to do too many things this is something Oliver burkman talks about in The Amazing book 4,000 weeks which is a philosophical take on time management the idea is that we are all

the idea is that we are all simply trying to do too much stuff and this whole thing that we see on social media about you can juggle all the things and you can have it all and all that sometimes it is just impossible to juggle all of the important things that we want to do and so we have to be strategically mediocre

at certain things and eliminate a lot of things off of our plate to whatever extent we can in order to really focus on what is that one main thing there's a few prompts that I to think about to help with this number one is that when it comes to goal setting I limit myself to just three or four goals for the whole year if you don't yet have

the whole year if you don't yet have goals for the year you should check out my three-part video series on what to do if you feel lost in life that helps you figure out you your life vision and work vision and turn that into a series of goals bunch of people have watched that series of videos it's completely free obviously it's here on YouTube and they found it super helpful but limiting

they found it super helpful but limiting yourself to three to four goals any more than that for me I find it becomes overwhelming and then I start to think I'm not disciplined I'm not consistent I'm not doing this and that but it's way easier to make consistent progress on a tiny number of things than to make in inconsistent progress on a large number of things the other way I

than to make in inconsistent progress on a large number of things the other way I to think about this is for example in work I ask myself the question quite often that when it comes to my business when it comes to my work if I only had two hours a week in which to work what would I spend that time

to work what would I spend that time doing okay cool what if I only had 4 hours a week okay cool what if I only had 8 hours a week in order to work what would I genuinely spend that time doing and what would most move the needle and then I think okay well if that's what I would do in 8 hours why don't I just do

would do in 8 hours why don't I just do that 5 days a week and that generally gives me so much Clarity to realize I really should only be doing two things number one making videos and number two working on a new courses those are the only two things but those things make up 20% of my calendar rather than 80%

20% of my calendar rather than 80% of my calendar I'm why it's because even as someone who is a productive expert according to my Publishers and who makes videos about productivity and I've been reading about this stuff for 15 years and making videos about it for 7 years even then I

videos about it for 7 years even then I still fall into this trap of taking on just simply taking on too much stuff and I know that when I speak to people at events and talks that I do we all struggle with this we all just take on too much stuff and so the real thing here the advice that I was reminded of through this

reminded of through this conversation with Ryan is just focus on fewer things just do less if you do less then you way more likely to be self-disciplined by the way if you're watching this before the 20th of April 2024 I'm hosting a completely free online Workshop it's an alignment Workshop where the idea is that