So, the reason why self-discipline is so important:
If you can master your ability to consistently act in a focused way toward your highest priorities - your highest wellness - then there's practically no cap on how high you can go, how far you can reach. But if you don't master this, and if you're constantly going back-and-forth between celery and doughnuts, then it's not practical to expect your life to improve.
Any simpleton can get motivated for a week. But to master your actions in the long-term is the difference that makes all the difference.
I'm going to share this formula for self-discipline that I've arrived at to create long-term habit success in anyone. Importantly: this will not make it easier, or remove the 'effort' element. All it will do is point out what's required. This will not happen automatically, it's done manually. You must do it.
Formula for Self-Discipline: Clarity, Focus, Action, Completion
I'm going to touch on each one briefly:
Clarity
Clarity is asking questions like:
What do I actually want?
What's important to me?
What's on my bucket list?
What do I wish to do, accomplish, or experience before I die?
Am I prioritizing other people over myself?
Where in my life am I kidding myself, deluding myself, lying to myself?
What do I need to start doing?
Along the way we get hypnotized. We get pulled from the main quest into side quests. We prioritize other people's lives above our own. We keep telling ourselves we'll get around to something that we never seem to get around to.
Bring the immediacy of your death into the Now. When you die, it will be in a moment just like this one. It's not THAT far into the future.
What would you do if you knew you were going to die?
Focus
Take the awareness from these questions and create a plan. What do you need to start doing? Make a plan. Set a date to be done by. Create milestones along the way to keep you on track. Prioritize these milestones, don't let anything else come before them.
Wake up every morning focus on your work. Don't let yourself be distracted - just return right back to your work as soon as you realized you got distracted. Don't beat yourself up for being distracted: that's just another distraction.
Just get good at returning to your work. When you insist on it, you develop your ability to focus. When you're able to focus, your success is the only outcome.
Action
Take big, bold action constantly.
If you're to actualize all of your potential, then you'll need to do things that you've never done before. You'll need to become someone that you're not. This means stepping out of the known and into the unknown. It's chaotic. It's scary. There's risk.
The alternative is death with your unexpressed potential unexpressed. What's your choice?
Completion
Drive your results to completion. Start by making promises that you truly believe you're capable of. Promise yourself that you'll go for a run every day - for a week. Stick with it. Don't allow yourself to get distracted. Don't let yourself get talked out of it. When you complete a promise that you've made to yourself, you wake up your power. You wake up confidence. You evolve. There's relationship now between your WORD and your ACTION.
... and that's all.
Keep practicing them, keep returning to them. You'll find yourself placed in front of a a jet-stream of energy that will propel you into the results and traction that you're looking for.
I hope this helps!
For what it's worth, I'm rooting for you.
Brent Huras is a Productivity & Actualization Coach - stay tuned for weekly articles on this blog, as well as on TikTok and YouTube.
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