The 1st Meta-Habit: Discipline & How To Build It.
Welcome to the first of a 3-part series I call, The Meta-habits.
Habits that limit your ability to achieve everything else in life.
Today will be discussing the first, and perhaps one of the most important meta-habits: discipline.
You might be thinking right now, is discipline a habit or a character trait?
It’s a trait, you’re correct.
But what is a trait, but a collect of habits?
When I refer to discipline though, I’m referring to this:
The habit of following the instructions your conscience gives you, when it give you them.
The habit of sticking to principles whether you feel like it or not.
For years I tried to build discipline on my own until I gave up last year and asked God to throw me a bone.
“Ask & You Shall Receive, Seek & You Shall Find.” — Matthew 7:7–11
This is the story of how He gave it to me.
“Like a dog returns to it’s vomit, a fool soon returns to his foolishness.”- Proverbs 26: 11–12
For the last 10 years I’ve found myself flip flopping between being disciplined & undisciplined.
I’d work out to get a girlfriend, then quit as soon as I got one, only for her to leave then I’d start working out again.
I’d practice mediation to get focused, achieve a goal, then quit meditating since I no longer needed to.
I’d save money until I got out of debt, become debt free, then go buy something I didn’t need to start the cycle all over again.
I was consistently inconsistent.
This is the hallmark of an undisciplined life.
One day while I was on break at work I realized I was tired of going in circles so I asked God to give me the willpower to become disciplined.
Not just for a few weeks or months, but permanently.
Unfortunately a blast of lightning didn’t come down and bestow upon the powers of David Goggins.
But he did introduce me to a book that did the next best thing.
The Book That Changed It All
This is the solitary best book on discipline, self-control, and willpower I’ve ever found.
The Willpower instinct.
It is criminal how much value this book brings into people’s lives especially while only costing like what $14?
I’ve spent more money on bad dates that have brought me less value than this thing.
The willpower instinct was written by A Stanford Psychologist named Kelly Mcgonigal, who seems like she’s spent her entire life intimately breaking down what makes someone disciplined.
Here’s a quick summary of her work from my recollection:
The brain has a decision maker seated directly behind your forehead called, “The prefrontal Cortex.”
This guy is basically the president of our brain with essentially two jobs.
A. Stop us from doing things we know we shouldn’t do
(I.e. cheat on your wife)
B. Make us do things we know we should do.
(I.e. going to do your homework when you’re feeling lazy)
When this guy is weak, you constantly find yourself making poor decisions.
Watching porn even though you promised yourself you’d stop.
Spending money on things you know you don’t need.
Eating junk food even though you know you’re on a diet.
The result of a weak prefrontal cortex?
A life of indulgence & addiction.
But the opposite is also true.
When you prefrontal cortex is strong, each day that passes gets progressively better.
Because you successfully stopped watching porn, you went out and found a girlfriend.
Because you stopped spending money on things you didn’t need, your bank account started growing.
Because you didn’t eat that junk food you wanted, you started losing weight and becoming more attractive.
Essentially, everything you could possibly want in life boils down to having a strong prefrontal cortex.
With it you can rest assured your goals will be achieved.
Without it you can say with near complete confidence that they won’t.
“The lazy person wants but doesn’t have; but the diligent get their desires fulfilled.”
Here are some techniques I used from the book to buff up my prefrontal cortex.
Willpower requires Why-power
The strength of your self-control is equal to the size of your suffering.
A while back I was dating a gorgeous Ph.D student attending Stanford University right?
I was madly in love with this woman and hoped I would marry her.
Then the day before my birthday, at a party at her house…
She takes me to her bedroom and tells me that she’s fallen in love with one of her classmates in her Ph.D program and she want’s to be his mistress.
This is not a joke, this actually happened to me, THE DAY BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY OF ALL TIMES.
After getting kicked out of her house the next morning I called my dad and told him I wanted to walk out into the ocean.
He said,
“Son, no woman is worth dying over — Go to the gym.”
You see for years I’d been trying to get consistent in the gym for years but I’d always quit after a month or so.
But not this time.
Why?
Because now I had a suffering SO DEEP it exceeded all of my excuses.
Every time I wanted to quit I vividly pictured my ex sleeping with her colleague.
Guess what happened?
I got yoked… then she called me back, but that’s another story in itself.
The point being is this.
The first rule of discipline is your self control can only be as strong as your suffering.
Why do you want to become disciplined?
I did it to get over my ex.
Now I do it so I don’t have to worry about getting fired one day because AI took my job.
Action step:
Pause right now and ask yourself this:
What’s the biggest pain that you have right now?
What’s something that hurt you so bad you contemplated walking into the ocean over?
How can you harness this suffering to propel you towards a goal?
Once you answer these move to the next section.
Emotions Are to be Acknowledged, Not Followed.
A few years ago I used to work at Red Robin right?
During my shift I’d often get hungry being surrounded by delicious smelling food all day.
Even though I was hungry, no adult in their right mind would follow the emotion of hunger and start eating off someone elses plate.
Why?
Because we understand that just because we feel like doing something,
In this case eating.
Doesn’t mean we have to do it.
The reason most people get into trouble with self control is because they forget this crucial fact.
Just because your emotions tell you to do something, doesn’t mean you have to listen to them.
Even going back to my previous story, my emotions told me my life was over and I should walk into the ocean right?
I can see now that that would’ve been an uhhh rather ineffective coping strategy.
So here’s what I learned to do instead.
It’s something called the White Bear Effect.
Do this for me right now.
Do NOT think about white-bears, big white polar bears.
Do NOT think about them.
You can’t, it’s physically impossible.
Why?
Because by trying to resist temptations, in this case thinking about a white bear, does the exact opposite.
It makes you obsess over the temptation until you’re exhausted then immediately give in.
If you struggle to resist temptations in every day life…
Try this instead:
N-A-U-R:
Notice your have an emotion or desire. (I want to eat that donut.)
Accept that that’s okay to feel desire, don’t fight it. (Okay I want the donut.)
Understand that just because you feel it, doesn’t mean you need to act.
Remember why you want to resist in the first place. (Think of how you’ll look in 1 year)
Action Step:
We’re all tempted every day, we’re human right?
The next time you feel tempted I want you to practice NAUR.
Notice it, accept that you feel it, understand you don’t need to act, remember why you started.
How To Recharge Your Willpower: Relax Don’t Resist
When you want to recharge after a long day what do you do?
You relax.
Self-Control is the same way.
Let me explain.
So in the book Dr.Mcgonigal explains that when the body is stressed it starts diverting blood from our prefrontal cortex into our more primitive parts of the brain.
This leads to snap decisions, usually poor ones.
Translation: The more stressed you get, the stupider you become.
Why?
Because when we were evolving if it took our ancestors too long to run away from a T-Rex, they died and couldn’t live long enough to have children.
So the brain had to get used to making snap decision when faced with a stressful situation.
This is why you say dumb things around girls you find attractive, because the stress is shunting blood away from your intelligent part of your brain.
So Stress = Reduced Self-Control
Relaxation = Increased Self-Control
Even though we no longer have to face T-Rex’s or Sabertooth Tigers our brain can’t distinguish between that cheesecake we’re trying to resist and a deadly threat.
So what should you do?
The next time you encounter a stressful situation requiring you to use willpower either:
A. Go for a leisurely walk as these help decrease cortisol.
B. Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing, or Box Breathing.
Here’s an article on it:
Application step:
The next time you feel like you’re about to run out of willpower.
Recharge your stores of willpower by doing some deep breathing or going for a walk.
The Secret To Monk Like Discipline
What group of people is associated with discipline more than anyone else?
Monks.
What’s the one thing you associate monks with?
Meditating.
The secret to monk like discipline was in front of us this whole time, in order to learn to control yourself meditating is absolutely NON-Negotiable.
I’m going to cover this topic BRIEFLY here, but if you want to know how all the secrets to meditation from how long it’ll take to feel results to how to get started as a beginner, read this:
But here’s the gist of things.
Remember how I said the prefrontal cortex has two jobs?
Make you do things you hate?
Stop you from doing things you want?
So meditations power comes from forcing you to do this, over and over and over the entire time you’re meditating.
If discipline is a muscle, meditation is how you get jacked.
Here’s how you meditate correctly:
- Sit down and close your eyes.
- Focus on your breath as long as possible.
- When you catch yourself trailing off, come back.
- Focus on your breath again.
That’s it.
The goal of meditation is NOT to have an empty mind.
The goal is to lose focus, then build the skill of returning to your focus.
Each time you get lost, then return is +1 rep.
Getting lost isn’t bad, IT’S THE POINT.
Guess what happens when you practice returning to a singular focus over and over?
You get really focused… ALL THE TIME.
After doing this for months I started feeling like I was back on adderall again and I hadn’t taken adderal in over a decade.
Action Step:
Start meditating 2 minutes a day for the rest of your life.
As you begin to get used to it gradually start lengthening the time your spend meditating.
I cap mine at 30 minutes because I feel like it balances the benefits with the time investment at that point.
Stop Identifying As Your Old Behaviors
You ever tried to change yourself, do really good for a few days…
Then start doing that thing all over again?
That’s because you identify as the old behavior, NOT the new behavior.
This is a result of something called, Moral Licensing.
Moral licensing = I’ve been good lately, so I deserve a treat.
With that treat usually being the thing you’ve been avoiding.
Smokers get another cig.
Dieters get a cheat meal.
Addicts go watch some porn.
But let me ask you a question.
When was the last time you rewarded yourself with some candy for brushing your teeth?
Never?
Why?
Because you identify as a person who brushes their teeth, not someone who deserves to be rewarded for doing it.
When you want to change a behavior do not see yourself as a smoker trying to quit.
You’re just not a smoker anymore.
Don’t see yourself as a dieter, you’re just a healthy eater now.
Don’t see yourself as someone avoiding porn, you just don’t watch porn anymore.
You ARE the new thing, not the old thing.
Application Step:
List the thing you’re trying to change this year.
Now repeat to yourself every morning and night:
I am Blank, or I don’t blank.
Then keep saying it until you associate yourself with the new identity and ditch the old one.
Chef’s cook.
Pilots fly.
Disciplined people operate based on principles, not emotions.
The second you start operating on principles, you’re disciplined.
Start identifying as it.
The willpower instinct is EXCEPTIONAL and if you’re ready to change your life I encourage you download it as an audiobook and spend the next 2 weeks chewing on it as you drive to work.
I don’t regret it, and neither will you.
Thank you for reading all the way through, I hope you found this edifying.
Here’s a list of my best work if you’re interested:
