- Hey, what is goin' on guys? So today we are gonna be
covering six important strategies for improving your level
of self-discipline. Now before we get into the nitty gritty, I do wanna take a brief moment to define what exactly self-discipline is, because when I asked you guys to tell me about your problems with
discipline on Twitter the other day, I got a lot of answers, ranging from motivation to distractions to cell phone addiction, all
kinds of things in between. And while all these answers
are legitimate problems, I don't think that all of them fit neatly into the category of self-discipline. Where they do fit is
in the broader category of behavior change, and that
is the big goal for most of us, we wanna change our
behaviors to be more aligned with our goals and our long-term desires. And when it comes to that general mission to change your behaviors,
I see four main areas that we need to focus on, one of which is the cultivation of self-discipline, which we're gonna tackle in this video, but also the building of new habits, which can make that behavior automatic, the customization of our environment, which can remove roadblocks
and help us resist temptations by basically removing them, and of course, the consumption of as
much Brawndo as possible, since it is the thirst mutilator. But, as you may have guessed, this video is only about that
first area, self-discipline. And where I wanna start is by asking and answering two questions. Number one, what exactly
is self-discipline? And number two, how does
it differ from motivation? Because I think a lot of people get these two terms confused. To start, I wanna share
a quote from the writer Samuel Thomas Davies
because it actually answers both those questions in a pretty tidy way. Self-discipline is about
leaning into resistance, taking action in spite of how you feel, living life by design, not by default. But, most importantly,
it's acting in accordance with your thoughts, not your feelings. Put another way, motivation
is your overall level of desire to do something,
whereas discipline is your ability to do it
regardless of how you feel. And for any of you who've
ever woken up thinking, I don't feel like it, which is
all of you, myself included, you can see now how
important self-discipline is. It's building that baseline
that allows you to act in accordance with your long-term goals, no matter how motivated you feel. So, with that being said, let's cover six important strategies for
building your self-discipline. And we're gonna start
with one that doesn't seem very tangible or actionable at first, but stick with me here,
because this is a mindset shift that I've found more
helpful than any other self-improvement technique
I've tried in recent memory. (smooth, upbeat music) To put it simply, when you're
trying to change your behavior forget about the goal
you're trying to achieve, the external outcome, and instead focus on the change in identity you want to happen. This is a concept that I first read about in James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, which I highly recommend, by the way. And there's this passage near
the beginning of the book that really encapsulates it well. So I'm just gonna read it to you here. Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke,
the first person says, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit." It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still
believes they are a smoker who's trying to be something else. They are hoping that their
behavior will change, while carrying around the same beliefs. The second person declines by saying, "No thanks, I'm not a smoker." It's a small difference,
but the statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was a part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify
as someone who smokes. So, the general idea here is that once you've embraced a
change in your identity, you're gonna find yourself
acting in alignment with that change. And if you're wondering
why exactly this happens, the third chapter of
Robert Cialdini's book Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, has a great explanation for it. Essentially, humans feel
this natural compulsion to act consistently with
their past decisions. As he writes in the book,
once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we
will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures
to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause
us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision. And shifting my mindset in this way has been incredibly helpful
in the past couple of months. And the first way that I implemented it was by starting to think
of myself as an athlete. Now, I've always been
a pretty active person, and I've had a laundry list of
athletic goals on my website for quite a long time now. But I never really took the leap and started thinking of
myself as an athlete. And there was some imposter
syndrome reasons for this. But, after reading that
passage in the book, I decided to take the leap
and start thinking of myself as an athlete, not just as
somebody who does active things. And that shift in mindset has done wonders for my levels of self-discipline
in many different areas, from going to the gym more consistently, to training harder while I'm there, to even improving my diet,
which has been a lot better than it used to be over
the past couple of months. So, seriously, if you take
nothing else from this video, I'm puttin' this first for a reason, start thinking about behavior change in terms of the identity
that you want to embody rather than the goals
that you want to achieve. (smooth, upbeat music) All right, strategy number two is to frequently remind yourself of why you're being
disciplined in the first place. At the end of the day, we
have to have a strong why for our actions if we want
to do them consistently. And every time I think about this concept, I'm reminded of a story
about the actor, Jim Carrey, and it goes like this. After he had arrived in Hollywood and he was still kind of
an impoverished actor, one day he took out a napkin
and he drew himself a check made out to himself for $10 million, and postdated for 10 years in the future. And then he put that check in his wallet so that every time he'd
bring out his wallet, he could see it and remind himself of why he was working so hard,
what he was working towards. And this is something that you might find very helpful to do as well. Try writing down your goal or the identity you wanna assume and put
it maybe on a sticky note next to your desk or by your computer so you can see it every single day and know that this is why I'm
building my self-discipline, this is the reason for all
the work I'm putting in. (smooth, upbeat music) All right, strategy number
three is to find ways to embrace discomfort and
embrace the resistance you feel towards doing something that takes hard work or that's unpleasant. Just like going to an actual
gym and lifting weights makes you better at lifting
weights in the future, and able to lift more weight
the next time you go in, every time you embrace discomfort, you're essentially doing
a rep of the exercise that is self-discipline
because it is a skill that can be learned, it is a muscle that can be built over time. This is why I'm such a proponent
of taking cold showers, because a cold shower is something that most people don't want to do. It's not very comfortable
standing under that stream of ice cold water, and that's the point. Every morning that you get into the shower and you choose to turn that
handle to cold instead of hot, you are embracing discomfort, you're leaning into the resistance, and that makes you better
at doing so in the future regardless of what the task is. So, as you go through your daily life, find ways to embrace discomfort. It could be cold showers,
it could be signing up for a 6:00 a.m. ROTC fitness class, it could be takin' the stairs
instead of the elevator. Basically, whenever your
brain throws up that I don't feel like it excuse, that is an opportunity to build
that self-discipline muscle, and you should take it. (smooth, upbeat music) Okay, we are on to item
number four of our list, which is to target the fundamentals first, and by the fundamentals I mean the biological necessities of life, your sleep, your nutrition,
and your exercise habits. These are all crucial to pay attention to because the part of your brain that handles executive functioning, the part that regulates your
desires and you impulses, requires a lot of energy and regular rest to function at peak levels. Always remember that you
are first and foremost a collection of biological systems, all of which require the right inputs if you wanna get the
best outputs out of them. And, I know, it's easy
to picture the brain as separate from all of this, as existing in this metaphysical realm where the only needed fuel
sources are motivation, and determination, and wholesome memes. But, the brain needs rest,
and it needs exercise, and it needs the right
balance of nutrients just as the rest of your body does. So, if you're sleep deprived, which, judging from the
amount of views on this video, you probably are, or you
haven't gotten enough exercise regularly, or your diet is crap, that is where you should
focus your discipline first. (smooth, upbeat music) And that brings us to our
fifth item on the list and it pains me to say this one because I personally hate doing it but, you may wanna try meditation. And the reason you might wanna do this is that meditation has
been shown scientifically to help people improve their
levels of self-discipline. In fact, a 2013 study
at Stanford University showed that people who went
through compassion training, which was a specific meditation program, were better able to regulate
their emotions afterwards. And this is crucial for
remaining disciplined and being able to make rational decisions. Now, an easy way to get started would be by using guided meditation,
which you can use through apps like Headspace and Calm, or through many free
videos here on YouTube. But the form of meditation
that I've always practiced, which I think is better
for the development of self-discipline specifically, is a form of what's
called zazen meditation, where I simply sit and
concentrate on my breath with my eyes closed. And when my attention is
inevitably pulled away by a random thought,
I work to notice that, and let that thought go, and then bring my attention
back to my breath. And doing this over the long term has helped with both
self-discipline and concentration. And like I said, I am not
a huge fan of meditation, it's probably the
self-development practice that I hate doing the most, but the benefits of
doing so are undeniable. (smooth, upbeat music) And that brings us to our
final item on the list, which is to practice building new habits. Now like I said earlier,
building new habits is kind of a separate discipline
in the overall pursuit of changing your behavior. But, the initial stages
of building a new habit often require self-discipline, because the behavior isn't automatic yet. So, this can be a great way to, not only establish a new habit, but become more
disciplined in the process. Now, I've got an entire
video on building new habits coming up for you guys in
the next couple of weeks, but until then, remember
that for whatever habit you choose to build, start
small, track your progress, maybe use an app like
Habitica, or Strides, which is my current favorite
one, or HabitBull on Android. Celebrate your wins, and
also remember to not focus too much on purity, on perfect streaks. Instead, focus on making
sure that your trend is going on an overall positive direction. And remember that as it is doing that, and as that behavior is
becoming more automatic, your self-discipline is
improving in the process. Now, if you've already taken care of those health fundamentals
we talked about earlier, and you're looking for a new
habit to sink your teeth into and to get this process started with, then one that I might
suggest would be taking on an independent learning project and putting some daily effort
into learning something new. Perhaps, if you have the
same interests that I do in the area of computer
science and algorithms, not only are these two topics
incredibly fascinating, but if you happen to be the kind of person who wants to be web developer someday or wants to be a programmer, then learning these computer
science fundamentals can really give you a leg
up on the competition. And, if you're looking for
a good place to get started, then you should check out
the computer science courses over on Brilliant. Brilliant is a fantastic learning platform for anyone wanting to learn math, science, and yes, computer science,
much more effectively and much faster than they normally would. This is because Brilliant takes an incredibly active approach to learning. Instead of just passively
delivering material like in a lecture, they
immediately throw you into challenging problems
that keep your interest high and give you something to
apply your current skill set to right from the get-go. Now, with this approach, you are going to get stuck sometimes. Like I got stuck with the
sorting algorithms part in their computer science
algorithms course. But, when you find yourself
in that stuck situation, they do have this incredibly detailed wiki where you can go look at example problems and detailed explanations
of all the concepts within their courses. And once you've done
that, you can then go back to those problems armed with
new knowledge and solve them. And the best part is,
while you're doing this, while you're solving these problems, in their computer science courses or maybe in their calculus course or their course on classical physics, you're not just getting
better at solving problems within that one topical
area that you're focused on, you're becoming a better
problem solver in general. So, if you wanna start
improving your analytical and creative problem-solving
skills across the board and start learning something new, then you should go over to
Brilliant.org/ThomasFrank and sign up to start
learning for free today. And if you're one of the
first 83 people to sign up with that link, you're
also gonna get 20% off their annual premium subscription. I wanna give a big thanks
to Brilliant as always for sponsoring this video
and being a huge supporter of my channel, and thank you
so much for watching as well. If you enjoyed this video,
give it a thumbs up, definitely get subscribed
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