How to Build Self-Discipline: The Mindset Method

Let's talk about discipline. Here's my transformation story.

In less than five seconds, I used to be lazy, self-absorbed, did a lot of drugs. I sucked. Now I don't. Plot twist. But in that journey, which was, for the record, longer than five seconds, I had a really cool emotional growth. And that was from a place where I didn't respect myself to a place where I did. What changed? What was the secret ingredient? Wanna know? You guessed it. Discipline, baby. It was doing the things that I said I was gonna do, despite resistance, which is, incidentally, my definition for discipline.

This video is how I cultivated it from a mindset point of view. And heads up, this whole thing works way better if you're physiologically fulfilled. Drink enough water, eat the right food, exercise. All of the clichés. And also, it'll happily work in tandem with those classic discipline hacks. You know, things like a Pomodoro clock, or an accountability partner, or a guy named Steve who you pay to stand in the corner and yell your motivational quotes at you every hour on the hour. And that right, Steve? You can do it. Thanks, bro.

And remember that this mindset method is just what works for me. So if something resonates, use it. And if something doesn't, ditch it. Alrighty, let's get disciplined.

Step one: Reframe discipline as a function of self-love.

There's this pretty iconic Will Smith interview where he's talking about discipline. And the way that he talks about it is, it is a function of him loving himself. Because he loves himself, he is going to treat himself like somebody he loves. The example he uses is pizza. You say to yourself, "Hey man, look, I know you want to eat that pizza, and it'll be really good, but I can't let you eat that, man. 'Cause if you eat that pizza, you're gonna feel like you know." And I, I just, I love you too much to let you eat that.

Self-discipline is self-love. If you want to be happy, you have to love yourself. I really like starting here because I think that discipline can get pretty toxic if it comes from the wrong place. So, me, for example, when I was trying to quit drugs on willpower alone, it just didn't work. It would always be short-lived and empty and full of guilt and shame. And I was just trying to turn myself into this obedient robot. But when I reframed it as, "Well, I love myself, therefore I'm gonna treat my body as a temple," it became a lot easier and a lot more sustainable.

Now, here's the cool thing. It's a spiral. Self-love can give you discipline, but discipline can also give you self-love and self-respect. By acting like somebody who you would respect, you naturally, just by definition, respect yourself. So, I noticed a few years ago that I really respected people who conquered their fears. And meanwhile, I had this fear of certain marine life, mostly squids, octopi, sort of sharks, I guess, kind of even fish, to be honest. And so I started getting into the ocean a lot more and looking at these creatures close up. And after I did this, I would always be like, "Damn, I faced my fears." Oh well, now I respect myself. Cool.

Step two: Make discipline part of your identity.

So, to start this step, we need to take a mental shift. And that is, accept that being a disciplined version of yourself is inevitable. The reason we're doing this is because people act in line with the person that they think they are. Very easy example: Michael Jordan thought he was a winner. So every time he'd lose, he would double down to win again because that is what was consistent with his identity. Similarly, that dude that you went to high school with who's now a massive stoner won't get off the couch because that is not in line with his identity.

So, the thing that I've found works for me is painting a very clear picture of who I'd look like if I was disciplined. If I did the things that I said I was gonna do, who would I be? Here's a few questions to answer for what discipline you is like: What does their day look like? Where do they live? What do they eat? What do they wear? What does their week look like? What do they do for work? Who are they surrounded by? What do they think and feel? What do they say no to? What do they say yes to? And write any other details that you think will help you describe this person.

Now, it's time for some mental gymnastics. Fully accept that at some point in the future, you will be this person. Just be open to that possibility. Whether it's true or not is a different story. And you might feel some resistance from your own head, but you know, push through. That's what it's all about.

Step three: Reflect this new identity in your environment.

Your environment is a great way to outsource your discipline. And it's also a great way to give you tangible reminders of the person that you're becoming. So, you know, when you go to your hometown or go to a place that you used to visit a lot, and you kind of get a sort of wave of nostalgia and also a wave of cringe, it's because there's so many tangible reminders of the person that you used to be. Your brain, whether it's conscious or not, is picking up on all these physical cues, and your emotions and your actions follow. Which can be negative, but we can also use it to our advantage.

So, for this exercise, you want your environment to look as much like what your disciplined self's environment would look like. A super obvious example would be, if your disciplined you was an athlete, your environment would be: I leave my yoga mat out. I have weights here. I've got a gym bag at the door. I wear activewear. So when I'm looking at a menu, I pick the healthiest thing. Things like that, tangible things that keep you reminded of the future that you could have.

Step four: Internalize the threat of not doing this.

All right, we're gonna advanced class now. We are gonna threaten ourselves into being disciplined. And this might not work for everybody. Like I said at the start, this is just my method. Just take what works and leave what doesn't. But I may as well go over everything.

Loss aversion is proven to be a more powerful motivator than gain. You would rather avoid losing a dollar than gaining a dollar. The way that we can use this to our advantage to trick our own brains is to make us feel like we are losing something if we're not disciplined. For example, there's this website called StickK, wherein they ask you to create a commitment contract. Then you put your money on the line. Let's say it's $200 or something like that. And you say, "Unless I do this one thing, which I said I was going to do, unless I'm disciplined, that money is going to go to a cause that I hate. It's going to go straight into the pockets of neo-Nazis."

Now, not only do you have the loss aversion of losing your $200, but you have it even greater because who wants to give $200 to neo-Nazis? Not me. Not at all. Not for a goddamn second. I'm actually using loss aversion as a motivator at the moment. So, one thing that I've never been able to properly nail is consistent YouTube uploads. But this year, I've decided to try something different. I've got an editor, but there is one twist: I have pre-paid them. They get the money regardless of whether I film something or not. The theory is that my drive to not lose money is stronger than my drive to skip a week of videos. So, let's see how that pans out. Fingers crossed it works.

But the key takeaway here is, when you're looking at being disciplined, try to turn one of the habits that you want to build into a system wherein loss aversion can motivate you. And then replicate that loss aversion in your life in a healthy way in order to get you going. Well, that was a mouthful.

Step five: Have a good system to start things.

For me, starting work is harder than sustaining it. It's like that first push on the pedal of a bicycle. It's always gonna be a bit harder than the one when you're actually cruising. But you can have all the self-love and identity in the world, but you won't be disciplined unless you actually start doing something. So, I've got two techniques here that I split into starting systems and eliminating friction.

A starting system is just whatever gets you going. So, one thing for me as an author, still feels new to say that, I'll often not really feel in the mood to write. And this is because it's hard. Who wants to do hard things? My starting system to get over this is to write what I hate. It's to rant. And usually, I'll just pick some extended family member that I don't like and just have a little rant about them for five minutes. And then, oh, now I'm typing. Now the good words that I actually wanted to write aren't as difficult. I've started the bike. Now I'm pedaling. Life is good.

Another starting system was one that my brother was telling me about. He was having trouble getting up out of bed in the morning. He just kept hitting snooze on his alarm clock, which I think we all can relate to. And so we got this app called Barcode Alarm Clock. The alarm on your phone won't turn off until you scan a barcode. So he would set that barcode to the coffee in his kitchen. So he would have to get up, walk to the kitchen. Now he's at the coffee, he may as well make himself the coffee. And now he is awake. What I really like here is he made starting pretty much non-negotiable.

The second bucket of starting things is eliminating friction. I went through a dark period of my life where I was a 5 AM gym guy. I'm sorry, that was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. But I remember when I was starting to build this habit, I would use any excuse not to go to the gym. So my alarm would go off at 5:00 AM, and I'd be like, "Well, I don't know where my shoes are in this exact moment. Guess I'm sleeping." Eliminating friction is just having all your gym gear set out the night before.

The late Mitch Hedberg had this joke about bread. You know that Pepperidge Farm bread? That stuff is fancy, man. It's wrapped twice. You open it, and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it. I don't need another step between me and toast. Eliminating friction is taking out the steps between you and whatever your toast is. If it's drawing, it's having your book and pencil ready to go before you start work. If it's running, it's having all your gear in one spot so you don't have to look around the house trying to find them. And if you've got a passion for art heists and you want to steal the Mona Lisa, it's all about having your gloves and grappling hook by the door, not in your storage locker, not in the cupboard. Make it easy. Eliminate that friction. You've got this. Steal that artwork.

Step six: Have a good method to sustain things.

This step is all about making sure you don't burn out. We don't want that. Discipline can exhaust you. Now, with this step, I will just say as a big disclaimer: I don't have a chronic illness. I don't have kids. I'm working with a pretty able body and a pretty open schedule. So I am playing on easy mode. You might be playing on hard mode. So you might need more rest, or you might need more time for your family, for example.

But for me, the most sustainable method, and I hate that this is true, is the work week. The actual Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. This never used to be true for me, but taking weekends has been the biggest change to me being able to sustain discipline without burning out. And what this looks like tangibly is, if it's Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, I'm working. I take nights. I take weekends. I make sure I sleep. All of that. Your system might look totally different, but what you want to find is a weekly or a daily or a monthly routine that makes sure that you are not getting exhausted. Way easier said than done.

But yeah, this step is about finding a sustainable routine and finding what you can do when you're not working that fills you with energy. And if you are looking for what energizes you, just at the end of every day for about a month, ask yourself, just in a notes app on your phone, "What energized me today?" And then at the end of the month, look for the commonalities. I can pretty much guarantee that there'll be something that shows up a lot more than other things. And for me, if I do more of that thing, it stops me from burning out.

Step seven: At some point, the only true path is to just do it.

I find any time that I'm looking for a hack that side-steps "just do it," I've already lost. And when I say "just do it," I am talking about literally doing the work, doing the workout, stealing a Mona Lisa. But thankfully, what I have found is you can make "just doing it" come more naturally with something called discomfort training. We're all familiar with that probably Zen Buddhist quote: "How you do anything is how you do everything." The way that you act in small situations will often be the way that you act in bigger ones.

Discomfort training is something that uses this to your advantage. It's like going to the gym for your willpower. And it's a way of building up that muscle so that you'll have it there ready to go when you actually need to "just do it." So, how do you get your reps in? How do you actually build up the willpower? What is discomfort training? It's pretty simple. It's just doing small things that make you uncomfortable. It's basically, in micro-moments in your life, choosing the less comfortable option. For example, if you're somebody who gets bored easily, next time you're in a waiting room or in a queue, don't pull out your phone. That's discomfort training, baby.

The most common example I hear is having cold showers. For me, the most common example I use is the two-minute rule. If something takes less than two minutes, I do it immediately. And by practicing discomfort in these small moments, the idea is that it builds up and creates discipline throughout the rest of your life.

[Music]

So, you feeling more disciplined? The reality is that discipline and resistance are lifelong battles. We're all just climbing a mountain with no top. But the cool part is, if you get the foundation, the mindset right, it makes it so much easier. Ain't that right, Steve? I believe in each and every one of you. Steve. Subscribe if you're new. If you want my book, it's out now. The links are in the description. Your Head Is A Houseboat, all about mental health and mental clarity. So give it a shot if you can. Have an amazing day and good luck with discipline. Catcher.