5 Sure-fire Ways to Rapidly Hone Your Self-Discipline

“If you’re goin’ to world champs and you win,” he goes on, “that means you’re gonna be the world champion of that year and… it’s gonna be pretty sweet to be like, ‘yeah, I’m the world champ’, and, it’s just gonna be really cool.”

That 15-year-old kid was Michael Phelps – and he went from wanting to win a medal in Athens 2004 and wanting to be the world champion to being a 23-times gold medallist swimmer and being THE world champion.

How did he get there? Was it through motivation, or something more?

A few days ago, I shared my thoughts with you from Southern California.

Champions are motivated, but they don’t rely on motivation – far from it.

Champions like Phelps didn’t get to where they are with motivation, but through discipline.

Motivation is fleeting and hinging on a moment’s desire; discipline is grounded and held by a gaze towards the long-term.

“I don’t really live a normal life as a teenager,” Phelps claimed, “I give up a lot of things, but I’m getting tons of other things that normal 15-year-olds aren’t getting.”

While we don’t all aspire to be Olympic champions, we can learn from Phelp’s steadfast determination and self-discipline to achieve things that “normal” people aren’t getting.

How You Can Hone Your Self-Discipline

1 • Don’t wait until you “feel motivated”

Waiting for motivation is the most insidious form of procrastination.

“I’ll get to my work after I finish this video.”

“I’ll go to the gym when I feel like it.”

“I’ll study when I’m in the mood.”

When we say these things to ourselves, we’re delaying things to a future that never comes. If it’s a personal goal, it might never happen. If it’s a prescribed task, then if you don’t discipline yourself someone else will!

Don’t believe me? Try not turning in your work, showing up to work late and never obeying traffic laws. If you don’t discipline yourself, others will.

External motivators can be helpful, yet finding and strengthening own internal drive leads to greater happiness, less stress and greater motivation.

Self-discipline leads to motivation, not the other way around.

You act to achieve your goal – you would never wait until your goal is complete to start working towards it. It sounds weird because it is weird – as is a belief that waiting for motivation builds discipline!

Just do it.

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2 • Stop creating excuses

We’re great at giving ourselves reasons to justify and rationalise.

“I’ll finish it later.”

“It’s too late to start now.”

“I’ve got loads of time – I can take it easy.”

Sound familiar? We’ve all used these – and words like these – many times over the years. I know I have!

Excuses help us mask our laziness, fear, inadequacy, and any number of other feelings we’d rather not face.

Be honest with yourself.

Even if you continue to use excuses, don’t believe them for yourself.

“I don’t want to finish it now because I’m bored with it.”

“It’s late, and I just want to watch YouTube videos.”

“I don’t want to start it now because I’m worried I won’t do it well.”

See where being honest with yourself will take you.

3 • Make working easier than not working

Being productive is easy when the alternatives are harder or less pleasing.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t work at home.

Or rather, I can, but it takes a lot of willpower (that is to say, a lot of procrastination) to get there.

That’s why I work out of the house.

For some people, it’s a library, for some a café, and for me, it’s the country club near my house, Stoke Park.

At home, I’m in my room on my desktop computer. I have privacy, I can play games, I watch videos; I can do just about anything within the confines of my desire.

At Stoke Park, I’m on the laptop in the lobby. My laptop’s limitations make playing games harder, and being surrounded by people walking by makes me want to keep working to appear focused. I’m writing this article at Stoke Park right now!

I like to consider this situation using the concept of activation energy in chemistry: the energy necessary for a reaction to occur.

A reaction needs a certain energy requirement – the Activation Energy – to take place.

At home, my “work activation energy” is high.

Stoke Park serves a catalyst that lowers my “work activation energy” by eliminating distractions.

The easiest way to build habits is to make them easier to do.

Where can you find your work catalyst?

4 • Recognise what drives you

Find what sorts of actions positively drive you forward.

In some situations, we are most driven to action by positive (or towards) drivers.

In some situations, we are most driven to action by avoiding negative (or away-from) consequences.

Our preference for positive vs negative drivers is context-dependent.

I use Duolingo to study languages. It uses a streak system that builds with every consecutive day you practice. I go towards building my streak. This simple form of positive reinforcement disciplines me to practice every day for 641 days and counting!

In contrast, in high school I relied on deadlines. Whenever a project was set, I would – except on rare occasions – wait until the last night to finish work for the next day. I being punished for lateness. This universal form of negative reinforcement disciplines us to work – willingly or otherwise – to prevent us from suffering an undesirable fate. However, it is a poor motivator because our mind cannot imagine a “non-outcome” to put conscious effort and energy towards achieving in the long-run.

What drivers do you need to harness to sustain your discipline?

5 • Forgive yourself and move forward

You won’t always be perfect. Be ready to accept, learn and move forward.

Building self-discipline isn’t an easy road.

Along the journey, you have ups and downs and successes and failures.

Don’t get hung up on the bumps in the road.

When you hit a roadblock, acknowledge it, understand what caused it, and use it to strengthen you moving forward.

Anger, guilt, sadness and frustration won’t help you improve.

Accept your experiences, forgive your actions and your feelings, and get back in the driver’s seat to keep going forward!

When you’re dragging yourself down, it’s harder to look up.

Hold the space for all experiences good and bad, and hold acceptance for yourself at your best and worst.

Remember. There is no failure; there is only feedback!