Introduction:
Self-discipline is a favorite subject among many, and a lot of emphases is made on its
importance.
There’s no doubt that self-discipline is necessary for the achievement of goals. However,
have you taken a moment to really ponder what self-discipline is about?
Of course, this is not a very simple question to address.
The concept is defined from different perspectives to make things easy and entirely give you
a grasp of the actual meaning of self-discipline.
A quick definition of self-discipline is having the determination to do something and sticking
to it long-term.
Motivation plays a huge role in this decision, as it sparks up an internal desire to see the
goal achieved in the long haul.
Obviously, self-discipline does not apply to just the process of working towards a goal; it also
pertains to your ability to stay focused on these goals by controlling your impulses and
desires in order to attain them productively.
Self-discipline has to do with making an absolute commitment to long-standing goals without
getting sucked in by distractions that spring up along the way.
No doubt, this is a nice description of self-discipline.
Still, it doesn’t give a realistic depiction of what it takes to discipline ourselves to realize a
goal or accomplish a task.
Therefore, it is pertinent to relate self-discipline with habits and their constructions.
Self-discipline can be further defined as the development of specific habits over a period that
can enhance the achievement of a preferred goal or objective.
Simply put, you would need to take small, purposeful, and regular actions that morph into
positive habits.
These habits will steer you on the path of self-discipline.
This is a much better definition, but it still is not a complete characterization of the entirety of
self-discipline. It can be even further broken down.
While self-discipline involves consistent actions and habits, it also includes the constant
correction and regulation of your behavior so that it can adapt to the fluctuations in your
external environment.
This means that you have to train yourself to abide by set standards and rules so that you
can focus your thoughts on achieving your pre-defined goals, irrespective of the
circumstances and challenges you face.
When you take a broader look at all the definitions above, it is not so hard to see that
cultivating self-discipline has a lot of benefits.
Firstly, because of better focus and a positive mindset, your level of productivity will be
greatly enhanced.
Also, self-discipline can increase your confidence levels through a promoted sense of control
which is evident while you’re working on projects.
You’ll find yourself less held down by distractions and more tolerant.
The best part is you will be able to do a lot more in a lot less time and with minimal effort.
The goal of this course is to make you start building self-organization finish what you start
and follow through it.
What exactly is finishing what you start and following through?
You may have heard these phrases before, but what do they mean?
It’s quite simple.
Discipline means making your intentions a reality.
Too often, we’ll say we’ll do something, and we might even start it one lucky weekend.
But at the first sign of hardship, fatigue, boredom, or busyness, we abandon it all too easily
and it sits in our garage (mental, figurative, or literal) for the rest of eternity.
Finishing what you start and following through is breaking through that common loop and
taking hold of your life.
Following through involves having focus.
It’s akin to the head because it is focus that keeps your head in the game and your eyes on
the prize.
Focus guides your thoughts in figuring out how to follow through and directs your actions
toward achieving your vision.
You see, following through is not just about exerting effort.
It’s about exerting effort that’s concentrated on a single goal.
With focus, no effort is wasted.
What’s followed is a single line of sight, so what’s pursued is the single most direct way
toward a goal.
Procrastination affects us all.
Even with all the planning, desire, and good intentions, often we can fall victim to
procrastination.
It has the power to delay our progress; rob us of our belief in ourselves and what we are
doing, and halt our achievements.
Procrastination is powerful, but with a bit more understanding of what it is, some
considerations of how procrastination impacts you subjectively, and some key steps in how
to overcome it, you don’t have to be at its mercy.
In this course, we will take a closer look at what procrastination is all about, where it comes
from, and how to stop it.
We will explore the meaning of procrastination, there will be tasks that help you explore what
procrastination means for you as an individual, and tips to help overcome it.
Let’s start this course with an understanding of procrastination, and how it
operates.
What is procrastination?
Procrastination is something that has been a part of human nature for thousands of years.
In ancient Greece, philosophers like Aristotle and Socrates suffered from it.
They said that procrastination was the act of doing something when you know you should be
doing something else.
For you, and for all of us, that might look like a number of things.
For example:
• Scrolling Instagram when you know you should be working on a university assignment
• Playing a game on your phone when you have work to be getting on with
• Watching your favorite TV show when you know you need to be cooking dinner .
Ultimately procrastination is the entity that stops you from getting on with the stuff you know
you need to be, and should be, doing.
To give you a little more insight, the word procrastination comes from the Latin word
“procrastinatus”, which is broken up into two parts.
“Pro” means “forward” and “crastinus” means simply “of tomorrow”.
Ultimately the word procrastination means forwarding something to the next day.
Procrastination is a universal phenomenon that is defined as a voluntary tendency to
postpone planned tasks despite the potentially negative consequences.
Postponing a task is not systematically procrastination: sometimes, when it is reasonable, it
facilitates the achievement of objectives.
This is the case, for example, of postponing an activity in order to increase the duration of
another, more important activity.
It is as if the procrastinator was responding to his or her most immediate needs instead of
responding to his or her most important needs.
Research has shown that the tasks procrastinators put off were tasks that they found
unpleasant or for which the reward was non-existent or difficult to see.
It is a real conflict between what the individual feels they should do and what they actually
do.
How many procrastinators are there?
Procrastination is a widespread phenomenon: it is estimated that 80-90% of students
engage in procrastination-like behavior. We're talking about an hour of procrastination each
day, on average.
Another study has shown that approximately 20% of the world's population is affected by
some form of chronic procrastination.
The consequences of procrastination:
It is now recognized that procrastination is a failure of self-regulation leading to poor
performance and a significant decrease in well-being.
It is also associated with high levels of stress, anxiety, depression, poor academic
performance and low life satisfaction.
Scientific research has found an association between procrastination and lower income,
shorter job tenure and greater risk of unemployment.
Extreme and persistent procrastination is consistently associated with poor physical and
mental health.
The mechanisms of procrastination
Many authors have highlighted a number of links between procrastination and character
traits, brain areas, and behaviors.
Lack of energy.
Procrastination is strongly associated in individuals with a lack of energy and physical
expenditure.
Sex and loneliness.
Men tend to procrastinate more than women, young people more than older people, and
single people more than couples. Procrastinators seem to be less integrated than others in
their social and professional lives.
Deadlines.
Procrastinators tend to procrastinate more when deadlines approach to minimize emotions
such as shame, guilt, or regret.
Perfectionism.
In education, it seems that procrastinators are surprisingly more perfectionists than
non-procrastinators. They also appear to be less interested in their studies, which they see
as having little value.
Several models have been proposed to explain the psychological mechanisms of
procrastination.
Researchers have proposed a hypothesis based on cognitive escape.
The cognitive control systems of procrastinators would fail, which explains why they tend to
privilege immediate emotions.
The researchers showed that the activity of the prefrontal cortex was inversely correlated
with procrastination, while the limbic system, involved in responses to emotional stimuli, is
positively correlated with such behavior.
Pessimism and future anticipation:
Procrastination behavior is also linked to the parahippocampal cortex, which has already
been shown to be involved in episodic memory and emotional stimuli.
This discovery has allowed us to consider the hypothesis that procrastinators tend to
negatively anticipate future events, which leads them to choose immediate rewards through
behaviors anchored in the present.
Decision-making.
Procrastinator behavior has been associated with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which
is a key region for considering possibilities prior to decision-making.
This may explain why procrastinators are often people who have difficulty making decisions.
Exercise 1: Why do you procrastinate?
That is part of the difficulty with procrastination, it’s really hard to understand why we
procrastinate. What’s more, the answer is subjective.
Everyone will have their underlying reasons, and so will you.
Write down three of your own reasons for procrastinating:
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Lesson 1: How to develop Self-Discipline.
Like a muscle that gets stronger with frequent use, self-discipline can also be developed and
improved over a period of time.
It’s not something you are born with but with the right factors, you can cultivate it and feel its
impact throughout your life.
While some of these factors emanate from the inside, a few of them are usually from the
external environment.
This includes:
1) Know your “Why”.
The first step to inculcating self-discipline is to have a clear aspiration to accomplish a
specific task or achieve a particular goal.
Without this, there’s no foundation for self-discipline.
Motivation and inspiration both serve as fuel for self-discipline and the absence of either can
keep you unfocused for a long time.
Your level of motivation depends on the reasons you have for embarking on the task or
project in sight.
You may need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What do I want to achieve?
- Why do I want to achieve it?
- What do I need to achieve it?
The more positive reasons you can detect, the more motivated you will be to continue on
the course of self-discipline.
2) Make an unshakeable commitment.
After identifying your reasons, you would need to move to the next step which is developing
an unwavering commitment to the attainment of your goals.
Obviously, this is not an easy path to read.
Committing to anything for a long time takes a lot of discipline, and this may just be the
hardest part.
As a result, accountability is key.
3) Understand that you are responsible for your actions
To be dedicated to a long-term goal, you need to be highly accountable for your actions.
Sometimes it may not be so easy, and you may need someone else to keep you
accountable.
Going both ways will help provide the best results.
4) Autorewards and Autopunishment.
Now, you are committed to achieving your preferred goals after outlining the reasons for
doing so.
This is a step in the right direction.
Still, you would need to know that the level of your motivation will always fluctuate
throughout the course of your journey.
Sometimes you will be supermotivated and mentally charged; at other times, getting through
some activities will be a serious struggle.
To remain strong, no matter the internal or external changes, you can create rewards and
penalties that would serve as a guide or control for your behavior and choices.
When you make great choices that serve to promote self-discipline, you can give yourself a
treat for your positive behavior.
On the contrary, where you find yourself making the wrong choices or partaking in
unconstructive behaviors, you can penalize yourself.
This additional blend will serve to keep self-discipline operating and thriving.
5) Look for a competitive environment.
It’s pretty important that you situate yourself in a competitive environment.
Yes, you can try to perform your tasks better than others, as a way to discipline yourself but
this doesn’t represent a sound explanation of a competitive environment.
The best way to be competitive is to compete against the best version of yourself.
This means that you would need to compare the current you with the old you.
You would find that the results will keep you motivated, disciplined, and focused as you
gradually realize your goals.
Lesson 2: How to Avoid Distractions.
Avoiding distractions and focusing on your goals Getting your work done can sometimes be
difficult. Worldly distractions like interpersonal issues, social media, and other tasks can
make it particularly difficult to focus on a project.
This is often the case even when you are enthusiastic about it and want to finish it.
Being able to work through your objectives efficiently and without being shadowed by
distractions is one of the most important skills for achieving your long-term goals.
By developing your ability to focus your mind on your task, you can drastically increase your
productivity. In effect, this is one of the best ways to ensure continuous progress towards
your long-term objectives.
Exercise 2: Decision paralysis.
We live in a world where we are constantly distracted.
In days gone by, things moved at a slower, more manageable pace, but these days we have
smart phones, our favourite TV shows on demand, a comfy three seater sofa in our front
room and the ability to access and buy anything we want online, all available to us at any
time of the day.
In other words, an unlimited opportunity to get distracted and ultimately procrastinate.
Decision paralysis basically means that with more and more stimuli for us to procrastinate
over, it makes it harder and harder to focus on the thing that is most important for us to be
doing in the moment.
What are your constant distractions? Write them down here.
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Done?
Now, let’s go over some of the steps for achieving the state of mind required for achieving
full focus on one’s goals:
1. Make SMART goals:
Making a list of your goals can be helpful, but a simple list often is not enough to determine
how to operationalize these goals, how to pursue them in a practical sense.
Doing so requires you to delve in the details when building your goals, and can be done by
taking advantage of SMART goals.
SMART is a method that allows you to craft goals that are clear and reachable.
Let’s go over it:
SMART is an acronym that stands for:
Specific: Getting the details right for your description is the first step in developing an
achievable goal.
Think about it in terms you can quantify and decide what steps you need to take to get
there.
For example, let’s say your goal is to become better at cooking.
This is a broad goal, which you can then divide into more specific criteria to be worked on
individually.
Examples of specific goals to improve your cooking are: Improving your knife skills, learning
what ingredients to stock on the long run, mastering a few sauces, learning to knead the
dough, and so on.
Measurable: Measuring a specific goal is important to track your progress.
This part of the SMART process also allows you to take into account the necessary steps to
take in order to progress through the goals.
One way to do this is to simply track the time it takes for you to complete a part of the overall
project.
Let’s say you want to decrease the time it takes you to write your book. In order to make that
goal measurable, you need to know your average writing speed.
For example, you found out that you write about 1,000 words a day, and now set the goal of
writing 1,500 words per day.
Achievable: After completing the two previous steps, you should now assess whether you
can realistically achieve your goal.
In this step, you need to take into account all the potential issues that might appear on the
way.
How much time is it going to take?
What will it take?
Are there any required procedures?
And so on.
If you have a reasonably feasible and realistic goal, more likely you are to continue making
progress.
To illustrate this, let’s say you have the “unrealistic” objective of typing 2,500 words per day
as a writer.
This goal may seem unrealistic, but it is achievable if you are realistic about how you will
achieve it.
Doing so, however, would require small, incremental increases in productivity over time.
As such, taking achievability into account, you may set the following goal: work to reach
1,500 words first, then 2,000 words, then 2,500 words.
Relevant: Relevance is important to keep in mind before setting your goals.
When doing so, you need to make sure that they are relevant to the overall strategy you are
following.
The goals that you set also have to improve the strategy.
Let’s look at an example.
This is your overall strategy: you want to improve your vocabulary so you can write better.
You can pursue this strategy by establishing goals and milestones that are directly relevant
to your vocabulary: you can set the goal of reading 3 books per week, researching words
you don’t understand, and using these new words in future writing assignments.
Time-bound: The final part of SMART goals relates to the temporal aspect of your
milestones and goals.
How much time do you set to progress through each milestone and each goal?
Here, you should take into consideration whether you have long-term or short-term goals,
and build these into a solid timeline.
You should establish your hard deadlines but also leave enough room for adjustments and
unforeseen modifications.
Here, you should base your time estimates on other aspects of SMART: the relevance,
specificity, and attainability of the goals dictate how much time it will take you to work
through your goals.
2. Make your list VISIBLE:
Goals are just like destinations.
If you don’t remind yourself where you’re going, you will probably get lost quite a few times
on the way.
A great strategy for keeping track of your goals and remembering them in your everyday life
is to write them down in a list and keep that list in a clearly visible spot.
Being reminded of your goals on a constant basis helps focus the mind, but can also allow
you to come up with new strategies to achieve them quicker.
3. Understand then leverage your motivations:
The will of a human being can be completely lethargic, sluggish, and useless, just as it can
be an unstoppable force of nature.
More often than not, the difference between these two states is how the human in question
uses his or her motivators.
Depending on your personality, you may be affected differently depending on the type of
motivator you apply to your life.
There are many types of motivators, but the three most important ones are incentives,
achievements, and fear.
Understand that you should use these motivators as a way to remain focused on and
advance towards your goals.
By setting up good incentives, you can progress faster on your goals.
Look for ways to incrementally reward yourself for each part of your work.
For example, if you finish a large part of your project in the morning, you get to have your
favorite meal later in the day.
You can be motivated by the achievements you get by simply pursuing your goals.
For example, if your goal is to rise to the top ranks in your field, you can get motivation
through every promotion that you achieve on the way.
Finally, one of the most powerful motivators you can use to focus on your goals is fear.
Ask yourself what would happen if you didn’t work to achieve your goals.
Being conscious of what will happen then can be a formidable motivator in making sure that
you don’t end up in that situation.
4. Consistently finish tasks:
As we’ve established in the SMART goals section, it can be helpful to set up clear
milestones for each goal you’re pursuing.
These milestones can help you quickly determine what you have achieved so far, and what
remains to be done.
Finishing individual milestones can be very effective in helping you avoid procrastination and
remain focused on your goals, as well as making it easier for you to manage your time.
Consistently finishing tasks that you’ve started can give you a sense of accomplishment,
which in turn, can further motivate you to continue on that path.
Exercise 3: Thinking about your own situation
With all the best intentions, planning, and passion in the world, it can still feel like a
metaphorical barrier is in your way to really get on with the things you want to do.
Perhaps you have dedicated years of your life to a task or craft, to be at a point where the
desire and intention are there, but the execution is lacking.
Or perhaps you have planned and thought about something you have wanted to do for years
but never felt able to take that first step?
Perhaps you have put things off or often found something more engaging and interesting to
absorb your attention.
Perhaps you have found the task you wanted to undertake too large, or maybe you’ve
witnessed others achieve more, leaving you a bit paralyzed.
Perhaps after years of putting “that thing” off, you have become frustrated with your lack of
progress or even your ability to start.
Take a piece of paper (not a digital device).
Take some time to think about your own story and write it down.
Lesson 3: The Mental Game.
Self-discipline is among the most important qualities for achieving a successful life.
It is the ability to do the things that need doing regardless of how one is feeling, by
identifying and overcoming one’s shortcomings and weaknesses.
At its core, self-discipline rejects immediate wellness and comfort in favor of future success.
For many people, however, self-discipline is often viewed as important for success, yet not
many are able to truly adopt it in their lives.
It can be hard to act with restraint when one is faced with a choice between the right way
and the easy way.
When one achieves self-discipline, however, they spend less time pondering whether to
engage in actions and behaviors that are inconsistent with their beliefs and objectives.
They make better decisions.
They resist letting emotions or instincts guide their decisions.
They have a hand in reshaping what they believe.
They choose carefully what steps they should take to bring about the desired result.
Through all this, they can become much more focused on their work and would often exhibit
higher levels of life satisfaction.
Becoming truly self-disciplined can seem difficult, but it does not have to be.
Here, we will go over certain steps that can help you drastically improve your self-discipline,
and ultimately live a more fulfilled life.
By following these steps, you will be able to take control of your choices and habits:
Remove what holds you back and embrace that which empowers you and pushes
you forward.
Be aware of what is holding you back:
One of the most important components when it comes to self-discipline is the knowledge of
one’s strengths and weaknesses.
Weaknesses are universal: for each person that you meet, chances are that they unhealthily
crave something in particular: cigarettes, alcohol, food, drugs, sex, or even video games can
be unhealthy cravings that keep that person from achieving their true potential.
While weaknesses can be unhealthy cravings, they can also relate to things one doesn’t
want to do.
For example, imagine someone who is averse to writing or to working out.
This person will also have difficulty achieving their potential, because of their mental
blockage when it comes to engaging in these activities.
Self-awareness, in that sense, is the virtue that will jumpstart your quest for self-discipline:
It is a powerful tool that can allow you to avoid temptations and do what needs to be done,
regardless of how you feel about it.
Self-awareness serves to expand the human zone of comfort, so long as the individual is
able to determine where their weaknesses actually reside.
This, in turn, requires that one constantly be focused on searching, identifying, and
addressing their shortcomings.
Cultivating self-awareness is a journey in its own right.
But while it is true that one can become much better at it as one practice, one also only
needs a few instants to manifest it at the moment.
Self-awareness simply means recognizing your own emotional state at a point in time, and
how that emotional state meshes with the situation you find yourself in.
Being self-aware is simply the ability to view yourself from an outside perspective, to see
yourself as others see you, and not let your gaze be clouded by your own strengths and
shortcomings.
Becoming better at self-awareness is a gradual process, and is done simply by applying
self-awareness on a regular basis.
There is a myriad of ways to gain insight into your immediate emotional state.
The three most important markers to do so are your self-talk, your feelings, and the things
you sense.
Let’s go over these markers and how you can use them to gain self-awareness at any time:
Self-talk:
Listening to the way you talk to yourself can bring to light your inner feelings.
To cultivate this skill, spend a few minutes every day sitting quietly and listening to what
your inner voice is saying.
If you find it difficult to hear anything, you can jumpstart your inner voice by standing instead
in front of a mirror, and observe your own appearance.
Doing so will almost force a reaction from your inner voice: it will say things about your
appearance, which in turn will make it easier for you to hear what it is saying, even when it is
only a whisper.
When you feel that you can hear your inner voice clearly enough, take note of what it saying,
the good and the bad.
When you are just practicing self-awareness, you may even take notes of your inner voice’s
ideas to better understand and analyze your internal dialogue.
Feelings:
Many people today are almost completely detached from their feelings:
They go about their daily lives without taking into account the way that they feel. It is true
that one should never let his or herself become a slave to their feelings, people should strive
to be the best version of themselves despite the way they feel.
However, this can only be done by acknowledging our feelings in the first place, becoming
aware of them, and taking them into account when making our choices.
Feelings and emotions are, in a nutshell, the spontaneous reactions we have to the things
we experience.
If you choose to pay attention to them, they can provide you with useful information
about your surrounding environment.
Learn to look for and identify certain physical cues that can enable you to "read" your
feelings:
If you find yourself clenching your teeth, you may be angry; if you can’t stop shaking your
leg, you are probably stressed about something.
By paying attention to how you're feeling, you can achieve a deeper understanding of the
things that make you happy, at ease, and content.
Those things tend to anger you and make you furious, uncomfortable, and fearful.
Senses:
You can learn a lot simply through the use of your senses, especially through seeing and
hearing.
You can uncover how other people feel, and get information about a particular situation or
circumstance.
However, you must keep this in mind: the information you glean through your senses is
filtered.
Processed through various conscious and unconscious mechanisms.
You may misinterpret a facial expression and build a false idea or opinion on that basis. If the
person in front of you starts to moan as you are telling a story, it does not necessarily mean
that you bore them.
If they frown, it does not necessarily mean that they are angry.
Be aware that your mind can warp the meaning of the things you perceive. You want to
clearly see how your mind interprets sensory information: this is a major part of
self-awareness.
Try to take a step back whenever you have the feeling that someone is acting strange
towards you, or led you to feel bad about yourself, and consider whether you may have
interpreted things the wrong way.
Negative emotions like stress and anxiety can heavily distort the way that you interpret
information.
Here, making use of what we have discussed about self-talk and the inner voice can be
especially helpful.
Listen closely to your inner monologue and what your self-talk is saying:
This is a very good way to sift through your emotions and put your sensory information into
proper context.
Sharpening the mind and the body:
Knowing yourself is a hard requirement in order to develop a powerful sense of
self-discipline.
But it is not sufficient on its own.
When one knows himself, he has to act upon that knowledge.
He has to shape the world around him in such a way that his success becomes inevitable.
Through self-awareness, you have gained a deep knowledge of yourself.
You know your greatest strengths and your worst weaknesses.
Now, you have to restructure the world around you so it elevates your strengths, and
distances you from your weaknesses.
That is the path of self-discipline.
Removing Temptation:
As such, the next step in the journey towards self-discipline is the removal of temptation in
all forms from one’s environment.
You know yourself, and you know the things that destabilize your focus and your discipline.
These things are temptations that you must re-order or confine if you want to achieve the
highest levels of self-discipline.
This is crucial, as some people, more than others, find the task of concentrating on things
they need to get done extremely daunting.
Many find great difficulty in focusing their mind on one task only, and fall victim to the whims
of their psyche, and are thus never able to achieve their true potential.
If you consider yourself among this group, then you must plan your daily life in advance and
in a way that rests the control over your temptations in your hands.
Instead of waiting for the temptation to slither its way into your garden, and to burden you
with the struggle of resistance, it is best to nip its seeds before they get a chance to
blossom.
Learn to avoid putting yourself in temptation’s path.
This means you must avoid situations where you know you will face unnecessary
temptations.
Let’s say you need to lose weight and have undergone a strict diet.
One of the best things you can do to help yourself in this endeavor is to not have any foods
that are bad for you in the house.
Removing temptations from your immediate environment can go a long way in freeing up
your mental energy, which you can then divert into more fruitful endeavors.
If you need to put yourself in a situation that involves high levels of temptations, you can still
act accordingly, in a way that reduces the pull of temptation towards you.
For example, if you have just stopped smoking, and plan to go to a party, try not to spend too
much time in smoking spots.
Spend that time instead with your non-smoker friends.
Reappraising what you would really gain by following the attraction can also greatly benefit
your ability to resist it.
Next time you find yourself hungry for something you should not have, remind yourself of
the consequences of your acquiring it.
Engage with these consequences head-on, and immerse yourself in a world where you fell
for every one of your temptations.
What would that world look like? What would you be like?
More often than not, pondering these questions can be enough to keep you from falling for
the shortcomings of a life of temptation.
If not, you still have the option of distraction.
Whenever you feel the pull, try to simply divert your attention to something else entirely.
Instead of letting the temptation take all of your mental energy, immediately divert that
energy into a more healthy and productive activity.
Loving adversity:
Adversity is a double-edged sword.
It may either strengthen the individual or render them paralyzed and weak.
Through adversity, a person can gain the ability to push him or herself beyond the bounds of
what they previously thought to be impossible.
No matter the source of the challenges facing you: be it your professional career or your
personal life, adversity will often act as a much-needed catalyst for growth and strength.
But one must not forget: adversity can also utterly break someone who was not prepared to
face it.
It is true that adversity breeds excellence, but history only remembers the few who succeed.
Behind every story of the successful individual who rose from nothing through facing
adversity, there are thousands more that were left completely beaten by the task before
them.
Taking these realities into consideration, your task then is to live your life in the best way of
viewing adversity and going through challenges.
Let’s go over what that exactly entails:
As a first step, it is important that you let go of your expectations.
You need to be able to recognize when the time comes, that the outcome you were
expecting is no longer going to come through.
You need to see clearly that the plans you had in mind no longer have their place
in the world you inhabit, and holding on to them will only hurt you and hold you back from
achieving your goals.
You need to recognize that not everything you do is going to work out the way you wanted.
If you choose to become attached to your expectations of success, you are bound to live a
life of unnecessary suffering.
Think about it:
The pursuit of a worthwhile goal is underpinned by an overwhelming number of failures, as
true success is built on those crushing failures.
By living in the shadow of your expectations, you rob yourself of the true key to
success:
The ability to love adversity.
There is a growing body of scientific research on the topic of stress that heavily suggests
that the way in which a person comes out of an adverse situation has much to do with how
they view stress on a personal level.
There are, within the field of stress mindset theory, a number of studies and experiments that
have shown the existence of a strong correlation between a person’s mindset and the
outcome of a stressful event.
More precisely, it was found that when an individual believes that stress has positive
consequences on their life, it generally ends up becoming true. The opposite,
however, is also true.
People who believe that stress is a net negative in life will often experience negative
outcomes when they engage in stressful situations.
An adjacent field of psychology, the transactional model of stress, also predicts similar
outcomes.
Perceiving a stressor as a challenge will lead to positive outcomes, but perceiving
that stressor as a threat will instead lead to negative outcomes.
All of this to say:
The most important element that separates the successful from the rest is their
attitude towards adversity.
People who put too high an emphasis on their expectations of success will generally not
have the endurance to remain in the game for long.
They will burn out their energy and before long find themselves unable to go on. In contrast,
the most successful people are those who go in without being married to strong
expectations; those who instead are able to realize that it is only through failure that great
victories are achieved.
If you want to see the greatest change in your life, simply do your best to face adversity with
a confident smile.
When you have to face a difficult challenge, always take a moment to collect yourself before
you engage with it.
Always approach adverse situations with the belief that you will win one way or the other.
A good place to start:
The building of a great sense of self-discipline can only take place by putting time and effort
in the right direction.
Pursuing goals that you hold in high regard can be a great way to develop that sense of
discipline.
But, an important element of self-discipline is habit formation.
Becoming disciplined requires the individual to form a set of habits to which he will then
adhere.
This, in turn, makes the quest for self-discipline far more natural.
Think of it this way: as you gain discipline, it gradually becomes easier for you to become
even more disciplined.
By concentrating on reducing bad habits, and establishing new, healthy ones instead, you
can make drastic improvements towards self-discipline.
Understand this:
Our habits shape who we are.
Take a close look at your own habits, and see how notice how pursuing them through the
years made you the person that you are now.
Habits have a tremendous impact on our levels of happiness, strength, and overall health.
With this in mind, try to concentrate on changing one habit at a time.
Find something you do regularly, but that you don’t like doing. You don’t like the person that
the habit has made you into.
It can be smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, or spending too much time on YouTube every
day.
But it has to be something you are convinced is bad for you.
Take that habit, and replace it with something that you are certain to be good for you. It can
be anything:
Finishing reading a book every two weeks or going to the gym every couple of days.
But, try to always seek tasks that will strengthen your mind and your body. Find ways to
make these new habits tied to existing habits.
Observe the patterns of your everyday life, and see how new healthy habits can mesh with
the old ones.
If you are the kind of person that can’t start the day without lighting a cigarette as soon as
you open your eyes, you can shift that drive with just a little bit of willpower, and choose to
have a good breakfast instead.
Make your new habits relevant to your own life, and the challenges that you face personally.
There may be days when you don’t feel particularly motivated to do anything.
When that happens, it can be very hard to get yourself to even start.
Here, one of the best strategies for dealing with an immediate lack of motivation is actually to
trick yourself into doing it.
If you find yourself very unmotivated to do anything, just tell yourself:
“Let’s just do one-tenth of what I am supposed to do”.
By reducing your responsibility to just a fraction of what it really is, you in effect trick your
brain into seeing the task as much easier than normal.
The idea here isn’t to do just a small part of the task, but the whole of it.
The goal of the trick is to make yourself commit to the first step of the task. And, when that
first step is done, doing the next is just so much easier.
If you don’t feel like doing the dishes, just wash one dish.
If you feel too tired to lift weights, just go to the gym and sit there for a bit.
If you don’t feel like eating breakfast, at the very least get yourself seated at the table.
Habits can take a while to form completely, but that time can be shortened drastically if you
commit to doing them regularly.
So, it might be wise to start small, with something that you will find reasonably easy to do
every day.
Try not to fixate too much on the rewards of a good habit.
Those, like a fit body and a strong sense of self-discipline, will come with time.
But they are far from immediate.
Fixating on them, and expecting them, can lead to a loss of motivation because you never
see these results immediately.
Instead, try to make your own, immediate rewards.
If you like listening to long podcasts, do so while you’re doing your workout.
If you like being around people, do your workouts with a like-minded friend.
It is true that habits shape us, but never forget that you too can shape a new habit to best fit
the way you like to spend your day.
Exercise 4:
Sit down at the end of a day when you have tried to get things done, but procrastinated.
Make a note of what you were trying to get done and when. What was the trigger that
stopped you from getting on with it?
Some examples of triggers include tiredness, lacking motivation, etc.
Fill the table below as you go:
Task
Time of the day
Trigger
Exercise 5:
Nobody intends to procrastinate.
You may plan to wake up early, sit at your desk and get your work done.
If only it was that easy.
One of the ways in which procrastination can happen is due to lack of proper planning.
What are you going to work on?
When are you going to do it?
How long will you spend on each thing?
What would your end goal be and how would you know that you had done a good productive
day of work?
Without a detailed plan containing all this information, you are much more likely to
procrastinate.
Jobs may pile up throughout the day and you may lose focus on what was most important.
Planning and organization are the keys.
Before each day (perhaps the night before):
• Write down what you need to get done?
• Think about and rank the tasks in order of importance.
• Plan when you will do these things?
• Plan how long you will spend on them?
• Ask yourself how you will know when you are done/what are your goals for these tasks?
Planning is more than just arranging your time; it’s about considering exactly what you are
going to do with that time.
Invest some time to plan and structure your day and you are much less likely to
procrastinate and more likely to get things done.
Order
Task
Key Goals
Time of the day /
How much time to
spend