Assalamu Alaikum You all have heard about discipline. Many people lack discipline and it leads to them being a person of poor performance, a person of regret, someone who doesn't live up to their potential, and no matter how you try to cope with it, lack of discipline always leads to negativity. You're reading this then, chances are, you lack discipline yourself and would like to improve. God is good, you've found the right thing. Let me give you a Bird's eye view of what you can expect inside of this ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● What is discipline? The Ego How to destroy the Ego Upgrade discipline Level up in work and studies Destroy depression Discipline in health and fitness Your purpose Phase 0- What is discipline? Many of you think you know what discipline is, but you might be wrong and here's why… Let's make a fictional character, Kyle. Kyle is enthusiastic and he's always happy when he is going to the gym, he goes to the gym 7 days a week, he wants to go to the gym, it makes him happy. Any person would say, Kyle is disciplined. What if I told you, Kyle actually isn't disciplined? Here's why you're wrong. Kyle is motivated to go to the gym, he genuinely wants to go the gym, that's not discipline, that is motivation. Motivation is the desire to do something, and discipline is doing something even if you don't want it. You probably have heard the famous catchphrase of the renowned self improvement guy Hamza Ahmed which goes like "Do the hard work especially when you don't feel like it" That line sums up discipline pretty well, doing something which you don't want to do. Now if you look back at Kyle, He does want to go to the gym, it's not something he doesn't feel like doing, and that's the reason I said Kyle isn't disciplined, he's just motivated. Now that you actually understand what discipline means, it's better if we move onto the next phase. Phase 1- Ego and how to destroy it One of the most malicious things a human being possesses is the Ego. That feeling of "I'm better than this" or "I'm higher than this, I deserve more" and they are blinded by their own self perceived highness when in reality they are stooped lower than they ever acknowledge. The Ego is a very big reason as to why people lack discipline, you might think that a task is too small for you or it's negligible and that you shouldn't do it, but is it actually small for you? Possibly all of the times, the answer will be no. The way to destroy Ego is to first acknowledge that every task is necessary and that you are nothing at all, you deserve everything that is coming your way and you are the main reason. "O Mankind! Whatever good you experience is from God, yet the evil you experience is from yourself." -Surah An-Nisaa, The Noble Qur'an 4:79 Eliminate negative thoughts, affirm positive ones, Only positive thoughts are real, because God is real, and God is good. Now here, I have an actionable step for you, it is based on the compound effect. What is the compound effect? Let me explain… If you get 2 dollars today, 4 tomorrow, 8 the day after, 16, 32, 64, and in only 20 days you will have a million dollars. Now no one is giving you that much money but discipline is doing what you don't want to do. So to build discipline by using the compound effect, I want you to find 5-10 small tasks that you can do daily, they can be anything like, cleaning your room at the end of each day, making the bed, cleaning the house, helping your mom cook, anything that might sound insignificant. Now, most of these things you don't want to do, but they're small, so you'll end up doing them anyway and then slowly, due to the compound effect, you will build up discipline and destroy the ego. When starting this journey on building up discipline, start at level zero, put yourself below anything to push out your ego. Never think you're above a task, because long story short, you aren't. Why do you think that many great people say "Start by making your bed" It doesn't mean that once you do it money will automatically transfer to your bank account, but it means discipline, doing something that you didn't feel like doing. Pro tip: Your subconscious mind cannot be trusted, when you start trusting it, remember, it was the same mind that told you slack off, the same mind which told you to "Start from tomorrow" Actionable Recap: Stop coping, find some small tasks and do it without zero excuses, and no, you aren't above anything, you're a noob. Stop reading now, go and find some little tasks to do and then come back a few minutes later when you've found them and put them in your "to do list" Phase 2- Leveling up your discipline This phase too incorporates the way of compound effect. Find the micro tasks that are very important in the long run, Not the tasks as I said before, that was just the warm up. Do the small, important, micro tasks every single day and then slowly move on to the bigger ones, e.g 5 push ups today, 15 a week later, 30, and so on, and then your chest will start to look like Hercules. The priority is to find the micro tasks that are important in the long run but you don't feel like doing them, and then do that. The moment you start coping and your brain starts convincing you not to do these things, that's when you know that you're fighting that weak part of the brain. I'll say it once again, Do not trust your brain the way it is now, it's the same brain, that same inner voice that told you not to do something which caused you regret, Will you really let that get you again? Only a fool repeats the same mistake twice. This phase was comparatively short because it's only the fundamentals of discipline building, Now let's take you to the next valuable phase, keep reading. Phase 3- Deep Discipline People who lack discipline have three major pain points. 1- They don't live up to their potential. 2- They experience the reality of being a person with poor performance. 3- The people in their lives are let down and they are extra stressed and regretful. If you yourself experience these pain points, keep reading. There are only two paths, The Path of discipline, and the path of regret. Choose wisely. What's the thing that triggers you to feel these pain points? It's doing something unproductive. And for all the teenagers, I do not care about your age and you should stop playing video games. Wasting your time on video games is the absolute stupid things to do when you're a teenager. All excuses that might pop up in your mind right now, I don't care, nobody cares, the world doesn't care, and you shouldn't care too. You shouldn't live up to your parents expectations, you should surpass their expectations, give them back ten times of what they expected out of you. Does your father really work hard so much so that you can play video games and scroll on YouTube? Is that the best you can do for him? Break the expectations of your parents, Make them proud and pass the wordly test. Now, I won't go into the cool science stuff but I'm pretty sure you can find them easily with a single google search. But I'll tell you that happiness comes from hard work, working hard does bring you happiness, working hard is what God intended for you to do. How to work efficiently? That's what I'm here to tell you. Let's break this into small sub-phases inside the phase. Sub Phase 1- Conquer the morning After dinner, go for a small walk and then immediately head to bed with the aim of waking up at Fajr. Assuming that you've already prayed Isha. The concept of eat the frog. There's a platter of delicious food ahead of you, but there's a frog in it, and you must eat everything. What will you eat first? Any sane person will eat the frog first so he can peacefully enjoy the other delicious food. Now, no one is giving you a platter of food with a frog, that's just a metaphor, Here's how to incorporate this principle in your daily life. After you wake up, prayed Fajr, and then there's nothing to do and you have some time, Do the hardest thing. Yes, I mean it, Do the hardest task of your day as early as possible, if you get down the hardest thing early in the day, the rest of your day will go great. Find silent and lonely hours to do your hardest tasks, You probably have heard the concept of deep work. I won't go fully into detail on what deep work is, you can read the book if you want yourself. But it's just being deeply concentrated into your work with zero disturbances and the only priority in your mind is getting the task done. That's what deep work is. So, early in the day, find the time where there won't be many disturbances and do your deep work. For the teenagers, You can do this after coming home from school. Work on your true purpose. What is true purpose? It is the thing that you were born to do, Your purpose is passing Allah's test and getting the golden ticket to Jannah. But that doesn't mean you should lock yourself in a place and just pray 24/7. There are many different forms of Ibadah. If I help a single person with this book, It actually brings good deeds for me. There are good deeds in all sorts of things, even if the tasks are mostly focusing on Dunya and not Deen, It can be contributed to Deen. When you make a successful money-making business, that's a dunya thing, but in that business you have created jobs for people, because of that business someone's family is being fed, and that gives you good deeds. So remember, Finding your true purpose in this life is important too. Remember Allah and worship him only, He will provide you with good in this life and the hereafter. Your wealth and children will not benefit you unless you have a pure heart. Sub Phase 2- Excel in Deen and Dunya Strive for excellence in your Deen, by praying, reading Quran, doing Dhikr, giving charity, fasting and strive for excellence in the Dunya by helping those around you, being productive, making your parents proud, eating healthy. Two things most people take for granted are health and free time. Sub Phase 3- Perfectionism is dangerous I've seen many people not start taking action because they think that they still don't know much, or that they still aren't good enough. The biggest advice I can give you is.. Start. Yeah, that's all, Start right now. No matter what you think, start right now, because knowledge can only take you so far, practicing is what works. If you read a hundred books like this and don't take any action, someone who read just ten books but took action is thousand times ahead of you. You will never be good at fighting if you don't ever step in the ring, it's a very simple thing to understand. So stop trying to achieve perfection before starting out and just start already, trust Allah's plan. Phase 4- Health and Fitness Your body is an Amanah, a gift from Allah trusted to us. Nowadays, you see so many obese and absolutely skinny people, they don't take care of their body. "O you, who believe, do not betray (the Amanah or trust of) Allah and His Messenger, and do not knowingly violate your trusts." (Sura Anfal: 27). Taking care of our body is a way to please Allah SWT as well. Going to the gym and eating clean is a matter of discipline. I know what you're thinking now "But at the start of this book you said Kyle wasn't disciplined by going to the gym!" Yeah, He wasn't. But not everyone is like Kyle, You probably don't like going to the gym, but now you have an actual strong reason to, it pleases Allah. Also, get into martial arts if you can. Allah loves the strong believer more than the weak believer. "Source?" Abu Huraira reported that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: “The strong believer is more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, but there is goodness in both of them” (Sahih Muslim, Book 46, Number 52). So, Hit the gym, train self defence if possible, eat a clean diet. That's pretty much it. Now if you're "depressed" The next sub-phase might give you a reality check. Sub Phase 1- Destroying Depression The next time you're "depressed", You deserve it. Yeah, Hate me, I said it. You're depressed and you deserve it. Ask yourself why you're depressed and then you'll find out the reason roots back to YOU and YOUR actions. I'll quote the Noble Qur'an once again. "O Mankind! Whatever good you experience is from God, yet the evil you experience is from yourself." -Surah An-Nisaa, The Noble Qur'an 4:79 Whatever negative you experience is because of YOURSELF. Create an identity shift, cut out the excuses and start working, you aren't meant to be sad, Remember Allah and be grateful, He will give you more. Now you've found out that you're "depressed" for literally nothing. Because negativity isn't real and it's self perceived. Everything around you is good. As I said before, working hard makes you happy. And I also said before on how to work hard, by implementing the eat the frog and the compound effect. Now, About Health and Fitness. Sub Phase 2- Working out and diet. It's all about taking one step at a time. Start working out with smaller sets and slower exercises, practice correct form and then progressively overload. It's not really that hard. And about diet. Do not eat processed sugars and packaged food. I know that eating healthy is expensive, So perhaps you should try to fix your financial situation too. But eat as much as natural food you can. Look above, Health is very important in Islam. Phase 5- Strive excellence I want you to create your own personalized daily routine that has a balance of Deen and Dunya. If you have any trouble with this, Remember, The UPD Kingdom community is always there to help you out! Now there's one thing that i see so many Muslims not doing that can help them get ahead. Make the Prophet SAW your role model. If you strive to be like our beloved Prophet SAW, Success is bound to come to you. Strive to be better than yesterday, strive to become someone with a strong Iman, a strong body, strong relationships, strong structure of life. Another small actionable. Find a good habit and do that daily for your entire life, and find a bad habit to completely cut out of yout life. Make that habit doing Dhikr. Your Dhikr should contain atleast 100x Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi 100x Astaghfirullah 100x La Ilaha Illalahu Muhammadur Rasool Allah And you can add anything else you want. A cheat code when doing Dhikr is to put a hand at your heart, closing your eyes and then doing Dhikr with full consciousness, Try to be more conscious when doing Dhikr and don't just spam words. Success is imminent if you ask Allah for it. Phase 6- After your success When you've finally achieved your long term goals. You shouldn't stop. You should still continue doing what you've did your entire life, And do not be a slave to the Dunya after achieving success. If you're starting to fall off, Keep doing what you've done, remember Allah, work hard, pray, reading the Qur'an and reading other great books. Keep trusting Allah's plan because Allah is the best of planners. Phase 7- Slow down After your speedboat of hard work has finally reached the destinations you've ever wanted to reach in life, you should slow down a bit, set the speedboat to a slow cruising mode. Discipline is taking your time as well. Now that you've achieved whatever you want, it's better to focus on Deen much, much, more. Instead of the 60/40 focus on Deen and Dunya, You should now go for 70/30 prioritizing Deen more. Because this wordly life is nothing. The only thing that matters here is the good deeds you do in here. So, Even when working for a better wordly life, make sure you do good deeds. Now, that was one Round Of Discipline… May Allah forgive me and you, and every believing man and woman. Ameen. It's time to say farewells. Allah Hafiz Assalamu Alaikum Have a great life.
