Discipline is doing the things you know you should. However, discipline is not perfection it is continuity and consistency . At the start, any plan will work (for better or worse) as long as you follow it. Discipline is the process and continual craft of consistent action, a refinement of that plan you are already following. You won’t become disciplined overnight and there will always be obstacles. The goal of this chapter is to show steps that allow you to view yourself as the person who does what they say they are going to do. Prove it to yourself that you are disciplined, and you will be.
Why is discipline effective for dealing with the world?
Let’s return to that collection of you’s from The Preparation chapter. You are a mass of competing short-term interests. For example, the you that needs to go to work, the you that wants to stay in bed, the you that is craving coffee, and the you that is just drinking tea for awhile. The next obvious question then is which short-term interest should win out and the answer might seem obvious but it is actually none of them.
I think this answer is a little frustrating at first. Why isn’t it, in that subset of you’s, to make tea and head to work? That’s because you already have some measure of discipline in your life. You are not a 2 year old at the whim of your impulses and under near-constant care (and if you are a 2 year old reading this book, well then you are way ahead of the game). You are exercising some discipline avoiding the coffee and you go to work most days instead of staying in bed.
Unfortunately, your yous are good at denying cold hard truths and making excuses. “One drink won’t hurt.” “I’ll hit the gym tomorrow.” “It was a tough day, I deserve some rest.” When the brain is left to its own devices it will find a way to rationalize itself out of a situation. Discipline is like creating a regulatory structure or an ordering value system for your you’s, your competing interests, to exist within. Discipline becomes the evolution of the negotiation outlined in The Preparation.
Put another way: “For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” - Plato
I hear your yous talking. They’re saying I ate pretty well this week and I did yoga this morning and followed through on one of my business ideas. There’s a collection of yous that are talking softer or are conveniently shut up about the pizza and burritos, those two skipped gym sessions, and the long afternoon just scrolling social media. Some of that is ok, we are pursuing perfection through discipline, but it is a process of getting better in increments through practice.
When we see others operating at the highest levels whether it is star athletes, performers, or just that person you really admire in your life, what we see in the current end result. What we don’t see or fail to appreciate is the process, the toil, sweat, and failure they overcame to be where they are today. It’s the same idea at the common level that when we look at others we often see their highlight reel and compare it with our own inner doubts.
So discipline is part of the on ramp and entry point into this upward spiral we are creating. It is about taking ordinary people, giving them uncommon discipline, and using it to create extraordinary results. It is about creating a defense and protection against the insistent claims that divert your attention. It is about unleashing and ordering your ambition in ways that allows you to go out and operate in the world at higher levels and a shift that unlocks greater energy and opportunities.
You’re serious about becoming more disciplined, how do we travel through this process?
First and foremost, give respect to your efforts already. The basis of inner discipline is interested, motivated effort and self-mastery. You are already disciplined in certain ways so take some time to identify what those are, perhaps you’ve already identified a few from the process of putting yourself in context in The Preparation. These things or areas are small existing wins that give the self-respect that leads to self-discipline.
Put another way: Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power. - Clint Eastwood
At minimum though we are all aware we could be trying harder, so the fewer existing areas of discipline the more you should be seeking small tasks to act as a gateway drug. In much the same way as starting negotiation, discipline is the practice of consistent action that causes you do the right thing by habit. Habits build and aid lifestyle changes and over time long-term results. In this manner discipline is through the repetition and investment of time into showing up every day and showing up no matter what.
What tools do we have to aid this process?
Utilize the tools at your disposal: Finding your motivation, enjoying the process, visualization, creating systems, reframing, personal mantras, never complaining.
An incredibly valuable thing you can do is to determine which things motivate you. Motivation matters. Are you motivated by positive situations or negative ones? In school were you more motivated by getting an A or by not failing? In health are you more motivated by looking good or staying not sick? Think of a few more situations where with this might be the case. I feel like here I should also note that on your discipline journey failure is ok because it is telling you what not to do. Failure is good because you have eliminated one more thing that doesn’t work.
In the same vein, are you more motivated by short or long term results? A frustrating aspect of this can be that you’ll discover that both are true and it can be specific to each circumstance. The nuance you’ll develop on this journey is that developing discipline across the realms of life will not be a consistent process. You might lock down a healthy eating habit, meal prepping the best food every Sunday and fail stay on task for more than an hour at work. You might be motivated to workout by getting back to health and looking good this coming summer. You might be motivated to become a monster in the gym in the long term and because doing it will help you sleep tonight or keeps the mental demons at bay tomorrow. Use whichever direction affects you emotionally to visualize all relevant aspects clearly and allow it to catapult you down the process.
[Seems like the above section needs more work on richer examples of conflicting motivations and how to navigate them to be most useful but brain may be struggling here right now]
You can also dig into your context. Ask yourself why, again and again. Write Write about the two paths you can take – the one of instant gratification and the one of denying it – and their consequences. Review and update how these play out for anything you are pursuing in a disciplined manner.
The next tool is to create systems that all you to build long term success (morning routine, work schedule, meal prep (within each of these are subroutines aided by sub-tools)).
Make the path of the thing as linear as possible. The more obstacles in the way, the more opportunities for your mind to get distracted or to rationalize a way out. A mantra allows your brain a shortcut away from the rationalization back towards the desired outcome.
When obstacles arise here are tools you can use
- you need to visualize a high-stakes situation of good or bad circumstances. Visualization is a powerful tool: often what we think repeatedly and vividly is believed by the subconscious mind which can then catapult us into action.
- Stoic reframes. The philosophy of stoicism is based around this principle; turning obstacles into pathways of success by reframing them in our minds. Reframe the judgement of the task. Reframe the situation to make it fit in with your reality and goals.
- Put another way “If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.” - Aurelius
Because this is a process of upward spiraling you must enjoy the process. Even if you feel like you’ve got something on lock there are things you can do that will take you farther down the path. The smartest people you know aren’t satisfied with solving a problem, they go back and continue to think about it. They spend hours on that same problem trying to figure out different and hopefully better ways of solving it. You likely get your answer or solution and stop or plateau. The smartest people can come up with three or four equally great solutions and some explanation of how they are connected and their merits which gains a deeper understanding of the problem.
[I think Visa’s do 100 things plays in here because I’m wondering how much developing Mastery plays into this section. It was supposed to be one of the tri-corners here and I’d like to acknowledge the process to get those thoughts here somewhere. Perhaps Mastery is in the next chapter like a continuation of the merging of discipline and nurturing?]
Rules are there for a reason. You are only allowed to break them if you are a master. If you’re not a master, don’t confuse your ignorance with creativity or style. Writing that follows the rules is easier for readers, because they know roughly what to expect. So rules are conventions. Like all conventions, they are sometimes sub-optimal. But not very often. So, to begin with, use the conventions. For example, aim to make your paragraphs about 10 sentences or 100 words long.
The smartest person I’ve ever known had a habit that, as a teenager, I found striking. After he’d prove a theorem, or solve a problem, he’d go back and continue thinking about the problem and try to figure out different proofs of the same thing. Sometimes he’d spend hours on a problem he’d already solved. I had the opposite tendency: as soon as I’d reached the end of the proof, I’d stop since I’d “gotten the answer”. Afterwards, he’d come out with three or four proofs of the same thing, plus some explanation of why each proof is connected somehow. In this way, he got a much deeper understanding of things than I did. I concluded that what we call ‘intelligence’ is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about ‘raw intellect’. - Nabeel
from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, and from conscious competence to unconscious competence
“Its not over until I win” - the obstacle is the way