Motivation
And the first thing that goes into discipline is MOTIVATION. Now what happens is that most people just wait for their motivation.
People so often say - Oh, I don't feel motivated to do so, and in saying that, what you are saying is that your motivation is somewhere out there - it's somewhere in the world floating around, and you're waiting for the motivation to find it's way to you.
But your motivation isn't out their - It's not anywhere in the world, but is rather within you. Motivation isn't something that you find. Motivation is something you cultivate - Motivation is something that you develop, and you make it stronger everyday with your efforts and putting your intent into it.
Remember your dream - remind yourself of your dream every single day - what is that you're working towards? Why does that matter to you? What will be different in your life when you achieve this goal?
Remind yourself of that daily - Remind yourself of it every time you experience a temptation - and do it over and over and over again, because every time you do that - you strengthen your motivation - you strengthen your will power to bring the change you so desire, and in doing so you become more and more disciplined.
Immersion
Take monks for example - In order for attain their training, they completely immerse themselves. They leave everything else and focus on one thing - their training. They read about it everyday, they talk to other monks about it, they practice for their training every day. They completely immerse themselves - and that what helps monks develop the discipline that they have.
The more you immerse yourself into something - more it stays in your conscious mind, which tells the automatic parts of your mind that this goal, this topic that you are immersing yourself in, is important to you.
With immersion, you also gain more knowledge, which literally helps make new connections in your brain, developing new ways of thinking, and acting.
Now of course, you can't give-up everything and live like a monk, so what can you do in your day-to-day life to develop this immersion? And the answer to that is four things:
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Read and research - Read books or listen to podcasts on the topic every single day. The more you read or hear about a topic, more you learn about it - it stays active in your mind, which allows you to truly immerse yourself into it.
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Watch movies or documentaries. Watch YouTube videos - anything that helps you visualize your goal. Vision is one of the strongest senses for humans - use that your advantage. Visualize the goal and the journey by immersing yourself with movies or documentaries.
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Have a role model - Have someone you can look up to for reference - someone that helps you visualize what this disciplined life looks like, and how your role model handles temptations, and the ups and downs of life.
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Talk to your friends and loved ones about it - Share about your goals and your new passions, your efforts to immerse yourself into it. This will help you find support in your friends and family, which is SUPER IMPORTANT for any goal to be successful. If you don't have external support from people who matter to you, then it becomes really difficult to stay disciplines and keep working towards your dream.
Persistence
The thing with discipline and goals is that "It's not easy - It's going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it."
I want you to write that down somewhere you see it daily - so you can remind yourself daily that what you are doing - the change you are working towards is hard. You're putting in the hard work, but you're doing that to achieve a dream - to get something that will be worth all this effort.
Practice discipline in your day-to-day life, not just in the one area where you establish your goal.
Discipline is a trait - practice with everything. Things that don't matter... you can not be disciplined in one area of life, and lack discipline in another. It is a skillset that transcends different goals and habits in your life. You can't really be disciplined towards one goal, and not be disciplined towards another.
So practice discipline across the board. Practice it in your day to day life. Something as simple as starting your day by making your bed can help you develop discipline through persistence. If you can stick with that goal day after day, through all the temptations and excuses, you can strengthen your discipline.
You could practice being persistence with any goal that you set - regardless of how small or big the goal is, but when you do so, practice being consistent and persistent in all areas of your life. If you develop discipline towards one goal, towards one habit, you can use lean-in on this very discipline for another habit too.
And your discipline, you motivation, your willpower starts to compound with each effort and each success. So to stay disciplined against all the temptations, believe in yourself and your goals, immerse yourself completely into it, and then lean-in on your own motivation to persist, and to keep going until you achieve your own dreams.
