How to achieve massive self-discipline based on science.
It isn’t the most motivated who win in this life, it’s the most self-disciplined.
Unfortunately, most of us learn to ignore that part of us that seeks to find the reason why anyone should bother getting up in the morning. We fall into the routine of adulthood instead, focusing on just making it through another day. This works for a while, but there comes a time — usually in your thirties or forties — when that old question of meaning catches up with you again.
I discovered that there are two key ways in which you can give your life an endless sense of purpose, and they work together to set up a positive cycle.
The first path to finding purpose is by identifying and overcoming your internal weaknesses.
Like all humans, you have a unique set of positive and negative traits. You have strengths, and you also have weaknesses. There are no exceptions to the rule. Even those at the very top of their fields are imperfect. Your uniqueness means that there is no point in comparing yourself to others.
The second sure-fire way to give your life meaning is by setting out to defeat external limitations.
A commitment to taking back control of your life will soon create a “can-do” attitude. Once you have this down, you can do anything!
Oprah has faced numerous limitations. She spent her early childhood years in poverty and was sexually abused on numerous occasions as a child and young adult. She gave birth to a baby at the age of fourteen. Tragically, her son died. Yet Oprah went on to become an outstanding high school student, gained a full scholarship to college, and then rapidly ascended the media ladder. Oprah’s attitude to adversity has been key in propelling her to stardom. She firmly believes that any goal is attainable as long as you are willing to put in the work required and that taking responsibility for your own success is vital.
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Suffering is seen as the opposite of happiness instead of simply the price we pay for being alive.
The Buddha famously noted that life itself is suffering. Everyone is born, everyone suffers, everyone becomes ill, and everyone dies. Buddhism teaches us that we need to accept that pain and discomfort are unavoidable. Almost paradoxically, the greater our acceptance the greater our happiness! Why? To fully appreciate this teaching, you need to remember that there are in fact two types of suffering. The first type of suffering is necessary suffering. There is no way of avoiding the most unpleasant parts of human existence such as loss, natural disasters, sickness, and so forth. The second type is unnecessary suffering. This stems from rumination, procrastination, and avoidance of confrontation with problems. It is self-generated.
Firstly, you will accept that since suffering is inevitable, you should be prepared to work for whatever it is you want.
Remember, it isn’t just what happens to you that determines your mental state but also how you react.
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Failure isn’t the opposite of success — it’s part of it. Every time you fail and carry on regardless, you become stronger. You prove to yourself and others around you that pain and discomfort don’t bring you down. The very best part? The more you fail, the better you become at dealing with it. The better you feel about failure, the more you’ll feel inclined to try. This is just as well because the bigger the success, the more failures are required!
Remember, it isn’t what happens to you in life that determines the ultimate outcome but how you react.
When you focus on taking things one step at a time, you’ll be thinking about the next small mini-goal rather than a distant end result. This stops you feeling overwhelmed by your “bigger vision.”
This gratitude gives them a positive baseline to work with — when you take time to appreciate the small things, you build psychological momentum.
Give yourself some momentum by setting yourself targets that you are almost certain to achieve. For example, setting yourself the goal of exercising for five minutes every morning is highly achievable and will allow you to prove that you have the beginnings of self-discipline. Remember that self-talk is key. Once you have decided on your first achievable goal, remind yourself several times a day that you are going to DO it.
When you achieve your goals, what type of person will you have become? Thinking of yourself as a person undergoing a transformation can restore your faith in the day-to-day grind and help you see it as an exciting time of change rather than a long hard slog. For example, if you are training for a marathon then think of yourself not as someone who is working towards a certain event but as someone who is in the process of becoming the type of person who cares about their health, who is full of energy, and doesn’t feel daunted at the prospect of a physical challenge. Remember that whatever you visualize and imagine you can achieve, as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort required. How would you like to feel about yourself? It’s empowering to realize that the only thing standing between where you currently are and how you’d like to be is consistent action.
We may also think that no-one else struggles as much as we do. This is usually because we compare our private behind-the-scenes battles with others’ public triumphs.
What we don’t see is the endless hours of practice, sweat, grind, and hustle that go into the final outcome. Rest assured that anyone who has ever achieved widespread acclaim or success has had to put in a lot of hard work. This realization can be enough to strengthen your resolve, because once you accept that the path to victory is long and challenging you can stop wasting your energy putting up resistance and work on learning how to love the process instead. Along with an ability to enjoy the work required to achieve your goals, you also need to train yourself to avoid giving into distractions and temptations that could throw you off course.
Learning how to delay gratification and overcome the desire to see instant results is one of the key skills you will need to grow your self-discipline. Once you’ve mastered the art of focusing on what you want most rather than what you want in the present, the chances that you will achieve your goals shoot up.
Although the most important step is to practice putting off pleasurable activities on a regular basis, affirmations and visualization will make your efforts even more effective. Repeat “I have great self-control,” “I can delay gratification,” or another suitable affirmation several times each day. Whenever you decide to delay getting or doing something, visualize how good it will feel to master temptation and strengthen your self-control even further.
Although the choices you make on any given day might seem inconsequential, over time your ability to resist temptation will make all the difference to how your life turns out. Take each day seriously as an opportunity to practice the art of restraint and you will become more successful in every area of your life.
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80% rule
Once you accept that only a relatively small proportion of your work will make a difference, you have an incentive to work as hard and as smart as possible. You also have an excellent reason to try as many different approaches as you can if the first, second or third doesn’t work.
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Theory of human nature.
Everyone is driven by two distinct desires. The first desire is to reach our full potential as human beings, a process known as “self-actualization.” This drive is what pushes us to go after our goals and try to be a better person. This underpins self-discipline, especially when we can tap into this desire on a regular basis. Fulfilling our potential, or the idea of chasing achievement is extremely rewarding. However, we also have another drive that pushes us to remain in one place — a longing for stability and comfort. This is why we often feel reluctant to chase any dream that could result in failure, even if intellectually we know that achieving it will bring us closer to the person we want to be.
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Self Talk
For example, I recently felt completely unmotivated to write a report up for a client. I sat at my desk and channeled my inner therapist. “Look,” I said to myself, “You don’t feel like working right now. You feel a bit low. That’s fine. You can’t control that. But what you can control is whether you keep going, so do that. Keep on writing.” Talking to yourself may sound a bit strange, but it can make a huge difference.
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Status quo Bias
Loss aversion theory.
Humans are very sensitive to any possibility that they may lose something, even if that “something” (such as a mediocre job or lousy relationship) really wasn’t that great in the first place. It often takes a lot of evidence that an alternative is actually going to improve our lives before we make a leap of faith. Despite the fact that making a change often leads to a more positive outcome, people tend to assume on a subconscious level that any form of change is “bad” and threatening. Change — even when it’s positive, such as the change that comes with getting married or moving to a nicer home — requires effort and thought.
Another factor behind the status quo bias is a fear of regret. No-one likes to feel as though they have made a poor choice because typically they believe it reflects badly on them as an individual. They may also worry that other people will judge them for being stupid or ignorant. Therefore, they default to simply sticking with what they already know. They may worry that if they take a risk and actually make changes, it’ll backfire in some way and they won’t be any better off. The reality is that failure is never final. You can always try a new angle or set yourself a new, more attainable goal. Sometimes we believe that if we make a mistake, we can’t be trusted to try new things ever again.
Perhaps you found yourself saying things like “Well, that’s the way I’ve always done it,” or “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” The status quo bias might keep you safe, but it will also keep you trapped in the same situation. It can also breed regret in the long term. One of the worst feelings in the world arises when you look back over your life and regret the chances you never took. Fortunately, a little self-awareness will help you make better choices in the future.
Remaining open to new ways of living leaves you free to focus on what you want rather than fixating on safeguarding what you already have. It makes you less afraid of failure and instead fills you with a sense of excitement at what lies ahead. It’s then up to you to take action and go after what you really want!
When you start learning how to control yourself around temptation and build on your capacity for self-discipline, you’ll begin to feel better about yourself. This is only natural because being able to focus your attention and smash your goals is incredibly rewarding.
You may have noticed that the more you interact with a particular person, the more you grow to like them. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but in general, the more time we spend in a situation the more we tend to assume that even if it isn’t exactly what we want, it’s at least “OK” or “good enough.”
When self-control becomes your new normal, you’ll be less likely to revert back to your old ways.
Copy-paste notes from “Self-Discipline: Mental Toughness Mindset: Increase Your Grit and Focus to Become a Highly Productive” by Tuhovsky, Ian.
