Brian Tracy breaks down five ways to build self-discipline: time blocking for 15 minutes daily, finding an accountability partner, removing temptation, visualizing your why, and doing the hardest task first. He argues self-discipline is learnable and the foundation of high achievement.
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to talk to you about five ways you can improve your self discipline this year. Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, whether you feel like it or not. As you know from your reading and experience, self discipline is the number one quality that makes all the other qualities possible. Have you ever wondered why some people are able to achieve incredible feats and reach incredible heights within their field? Of course, many factors influence their success, but one thing all high achievers have in common is self discipline. Personally, I love self discipline. I read about it and I have studied it and I've written notes on self discipline. And some years ago a publisher called me and said, you know, we've decided that there is a big market for self discipline and we think that you, it's a New York publisher, we think that you would be the ideal person to write the book. What do you think about that? And I said, I love the idea. I love the idea. I've been studying self discipline forever. So I wrote the book. I got a huge advance. The book is now one of the best selling books in the world in 30, 40 languages. I get paid royalty checks every six months showing me how much it's selling all over the world. It's. I love it anyway, so nothing great. The fact is, nothing great is really achieved without it. Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you can do what you should do, whether you feel like it or not. So luckily, self discipline is a skill that can be learned and cultivated with continuous practice until it becomes automatic, just like any other skill. So today I want to share with you five hacks that you can use to improve your self discipline. My first hack for improving your self discipline is to try some time blocking. Set aside 15 minutes per day, every day to work towards your goals. Block this time off somewhere in your schedule or planner. Treat this time block as you would any standing appointment and show up on time every time. If you think 15 minutes per day doesn't sound like very much, just consider that after one month you will have spent seven hours of dedicated time working towards your most important goal. After one year, you'll have spent 84 hours on your major goal over two weeks of full time work. Commit yourself to small increments of time and don't allow yourself to make excuses or get distracted. Anyone can carve out at least 15 minutes of their day to work on something that's important to them. If you keep showing up, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish in a week, or a month or a year. My next hack to improve self discipline is to get an accountability partner. Finding an accountability partner is a powerful and simple way to build self discipline and accomplish all your goals. An accountability partner is someone who knows the goal that you are working on and will help you to stay focused. They can check in with you periodically to make sure you're staying on track, and you can check in with them to help them to achieve their goal. Why are accountability partners so helpful? Well, many of us find it easier to let ourselves down than to let someone else down. If we keep all of our goals private, nobody will know but us if we abandon them. But if we tell someone about our goals, we will also have to tell them when we give up. This social consequence is often enough to keep us from quitting. Ask a friend or coworker to be your accountability partner. Alternatively, share with your followers on social media. Do what it takes to hold yourself accountable. My third hack is to remove temptation. Building self discipline takes effort and energy. Help yourself out by removing any temptations that may challenge your focus and throw you off track. For example, if you're trying to lose weight, remove unhealthy foods from your kitchen and your refrigerator and pantry, or lock cabinets to prevent yourself from mindlessly snacking. If you're trying to cut your spending habits, set aside a specific budget for necessities and put the rest into your savings account. In an ideal world, we would never give in to temptation and never let anything distract us from our goals. But the truth is, we're all human. Instead of wasting energy on trying to resist distractions and roadblocks, we're better off setting up our environment in a way that makes those temptations unavailable to us in the first place. My next hack for self discipline is to remind yourself of your why the most successful and self disciplined people I know have aim and purpose. They focus all of their energy on their highest priority tasks and they don't waste time on unproductive activities. While it may seem like a superhuman feat and these successful men and women have simply capitalized on their self discipline by remembering their why, the underlying reasons why they are working so tirelessly toward their goal. Every now and then, ask yourself, what will my life look like after I complete this goal? Or what will my life look like if I don't complete this goal? When you remember why you are working so hard towards your goal, it becomes much easier to stay focused on how you'll get it done. Visualize yourself as a success. Reflect on the impact you hope to make. Imagine what it will feel like to be victorious. This will stoke the embers of energy and inspiration inside you and help light the way towards your potential. Now my next hack is for you to eat that frog, which is such a great way to show self discipline and increase productivity that I wrote an entire book on the concept Eating your frog. It means tackling your biggest and hardest, your ugliest tasks first. If you start off your day by eating a frog, every other task will seem like a breeze in comparison. Since you've already done the hardest and most unpleasant thing first. Use this concept to help you prioritize your activities during your dedicated time blocks and the momentum will help you to stay on track and finally create an action plan. It's always possible for you to turn all your dreams into reality as long as you commit to developing your self discipline and taking dedicated action towards your goals. But the time to do so is now. That's where having the right plan in place comes in. If you're ready to unlock your potential, go ahead and download a free copy of my Personal Development plan template that I'll link below for you. This will help you rapidly execute your goals with efficiency and purpose and stay on track no matter what comes your way. Now I'd love to hear from you. So my question today is what will you use these newfound self development disciplines to achieve this year? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action. And take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about self discipline, subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends. Don't forget to click the button on the screen below for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.
