The navy seals have a saying that everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.

99% of all people are NOT willing to do what it takes to make their dreams come true. The epicentre of bringing all dreams into fruition is self discipline.

Self discipline takes a conscious effort, it goes entirely against our nature. Our nature is to avoid the hard things, run away from pain and seek the easy path. This is generally the case with our diets, our work commitments, our relationships and our dreams….we tend to aim low and reduce expectations on ourselves so that we look in the mirror and see only success.
So would you rather life a life of mediocrity? Or life a life of fulfilment?

Self-discipline is not an automatic process. You will go through pain and you must train yourself to do it. You must create boundaries and guidelines for yourself. Self discipline is a pre-requisite for consistent success.

So here’s 11 things that you MUST do to develop self discipline. And you should do all of these, all the time..

1. Resist impulses. We have, on average, 56 impulse moments per day like, oh, I just feel like a snack, or I feel like a drink, or, oh, I feel like just going out and nipping down to the store and doing that, or I feel like just buying something on the internet, or I feel like just checking on this group on social media, or checking my post or my comments. Resist those impulses. Or I feel like checking my email, resist. I feel like … Resist. Just keep practicing the resistance. And then what will happen is you’ll have that thought and that impulse, but instead of immediately reacting, you’ll actually catch yourself and you’ll be like, “Nope, not today.” It’s funny, people have trained these loops in their minds so well, that when they get to their computer, they just immediately go to this Facebook. It’s just automatic. And then they arrive there and they don’t even know how they got on it. And so, their body is moving automatically without it even passing consciously through the mind. And that’s how strong that is. So when you practice this more, you’ll go to your computer and you might feel like it, or you might have a thought to like go to social media, but you’d be like, “No, that’s not what I’m doing. It’s not what I’m here to do.” And then you are controlling yourself, not your impulses.
2. Love pain. So a lot of people try to avoid pain, right? And I mean we should avoid certain pains like breaking a leg. That’s not fun and that’s not something you should do for fun, but I’m talking about a different type of pain. Most people try to avoid this type of pain, which is if they’re training hard (eg. physical exertion) or going to the limit with their hearts racing very fast, and their muscles are sore and tired, and they’re all sweaty. But people avoid that sort of physical pain. They also avoid going to the dark places in their minds, confronting the things that are hard to think about or confronting difficulties at work, or working on a big project that’s too hard and you’re putting it off. You’ve got to learn to love this stuff and eat it for breakfast. And, every day, you need to practice taking yourself to the dark places. Just go into the creepiest little alleys in your mind and then play around in there and be like, “This is pretty painful, but you know what, I like it.” And confront difficulties. Head on. You’ve got to learn to love this pain – every person that has acheived some kind of success has enormous pain tolerances, and people don’t understand how they can tolerate it. But the truth is, is they actually like it.
3. Exercise. Work out first thing in the morning, every day, regardless of whether you want to or not, and you should love the burn. There are multiple benefits to training first thing in the morning, including; the fact that you just get it out of the way, and it’s something hard out of the way immediately which builds momentum for you achieving other tasks throughout the day. Also, it gets your nervous system fired up, it gets your blood flowing, it gets your body and mind awakened and ready to go. And then when you get into that exhaustion spot and your body is telling you stop, stop, stop, don’t, get off, get off, get off…you tell yourself: “You know what, I’m just going to keep going.” And just play with it, show it who’s the boss and then love the way you are pushing yourself. Your conscious mind will start to lose all of its control of you and this is where you being to take your body to new limits. And that’s when you start to gain self control. This other little voice no longer really does anything.
4. Eat smart. Get a healthy diet plan and stick to it. Sounds boring right? Eating better food will give you more energy, will make you healthier, you will live longer, you’ll be more productive and you’ll look better. Everything in life is better when you’re healthy, so there is no valid argument for not eating healthy. The other positive you get from this is when you wean yourself off flavor, it will sharpen the senses in your mind. Humans are generally so addicted to all of these salts, sauces, sugars, processed flavors and oils that every time we want to go and eat something, we expect a flavor sensation, right? And that isn’t your taste buds. That’s just what you’ve become addicted to. And when you expect such stimulation all the time, stimulation is what you’re trying to remove, because then it sharpens your senses. It’s like if you love sweet food – your senses start to crave it and you start to be able to eat more, and more, and more of it, and you want it in different varieties; in your coffee, as a desert, as a snack, as a packet of lollies – you just need more of it! It needs to stop. Get back to the raw versions of food – food that maintains a level of satiety
5. Meditate. You should meditate for 20 minutes every day before work, and then do it religiously without ever missing a single day. And I mean this. You don’t meditate if you’ve done it once or twice, or you did it for a couple of weeks, and then you didn’t. It has to be done every day, every single day and make it a ritual. Put as much emphasis into your mental health as you do with your physical health without exception.
6. Sleep. Creating a ritual around sleep requires self discipline. It really is. Your sleep, the time you go to bed and the time you wake up is really a measure of your self discipline. Because if you make sure that you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, you have to really police yourself. You have to wake up with your alarm and actually do it, not snooze. And then you have to get yourself to go to bed, even if you’re in the middle of watching a movie or reading a good book, whatever, you just have to do it. And so this is a really good test of your self discipline. It is a game changer for your body and ensures your hormones are in balance. If you’re going to bed and waking up at the same time, your body learns this procedure; it spikes melatonin when you go to sleep and it spikes dopamine when you rise. Now, if you start messing with this and changing it all around, you’re just going to put yourself through chaos because your body is reliant on structure and routine to optimise performance.
7. Get organised. Keep your office, house, car, drawers, desktop, email, and everything in your life clean and organised. The state of your desktop computer, or what your desktop looks like, is probably the state of your mind. The state of your email inbox, state of your mind, the state of your desktop, like your actual physical desk, and then the state of your drawers, the state of your car, the state of your room, the state of your house – these are all pretty good reflections of your mind. So you want to keep everything organised, clean and get rid of clutter. Not only is it nicer to live in, but it will do the same thing to your mind.
8. Manage time better. So plan your months, weeks, days, and hours deliberately and stick to it and say no to everything that isn’t in the plan, and you have to be relentless with this. Will you upset some people? Yes. Will people think that you’re not a nice person? Probably. Will people think, oh, that you should make exceptions? Yes. But do you really care? No, because the world around us, like most people in society, they’re trying to pacify you. They’re trying to numb your senses, make you feel for them, listen to them, hear their voices and their problems, and they’re trying to make you behave and think like everyone else. Don’t fall for this,  you have to not care about that and just stay true to your goals.
9. Set goals religiously. Always look at your vision and your mission and then set your annual goals, your monthly goals, your weekly goals and your daily goals with precision. Hold yourself accountable in your life as much as possible that there is purpose behind every calculated move you make. Keep referring back to the big picture of where you WILL be in 5 years and reverse engineer this to today and how that impacts the next hour of your life.
10. Show gratitude. Always looking to the future can cause fear, anxiety and stress. You need to practice gratitude daily every morning to balance yourself. Because if you’re constantly looking out into the future, you’re never grateful for anything you’ve got right now. You should want things in the future, you should think about things in the future, but you should also be grateful for things and the people you’ve got around you right now.
11. Relentless persistence. Stick to the plan. Never waiver despite emotion, drama, failure, people or uncertainty. Come hell or high water, you have to stay on the rails and get it done. That is the pillar of success right there. Persistence beats talent every day of the week. Success in life is a direct reflection on what you are willing to sacrifice for it. The simple fact is that you can’t have it all. And if you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. So how bad do you want it? Now, people often talk a big game and say they’re hungry, but as soon as you get them to sacrifice something they care about, they reveal their true character and their true priorities. Sacrifice fuels the fire. So every time you sacrifice something, it’s like taking that thing and all of your thoughts about it, all of the time that you spend on it, all of the time you spend thinking about it, and just throwing it onto a fire, and the energy from that thing makes the fire burn brighter. Winners sell their souls. So if you study the GOAT’s (Greatest Of All Time) in any field, sport, discipline or business, what you’ll see is that they’ve sacrificed massively to win, and they gave up everything. They dedicated their entire being, their entire existence to the relentless pursuit of the goal. So what are you waiting for? Remember, success is the sum of your human will, your will to win, your will to prepare, and your will to relentlessly pursue your desires in the face of anything. So let’s go get it.

I hope you find this article powerful guys – look forward to hearing  your feedback!

Live the life you love.