Jon Butcher defines self-discipline as doing what you know you should do, when you should do it, whether you like it or not. He says it's built through practice: sustained willpower becomes automatic habit over time. Procrastination is the main enemy, and discipline means choosing long-term gains over short-term pleasures.
Chapters
And I got to tell you that self discipline is the big one. 50% of the people that go through Lifebook, when asked to choose the number one character trait they want to build more of in their life, they choose self discipline. So this is the big one. And the mindvalley community has asked, how can we create more discipline in our lives? And how does self discipline lead to success? So let's start with the definition. Self discipline is your ability to get yourself to do what you know you should do, when you should do it, whether you like to or not. Right. That's a big character trait if you can get yourself to do that. So how do we create more self discipline in our life? Well, the answer is you've got to practice. You know, when I first started working out, I was in my mid-20s when I started doing resistance training. And when I first started, I had to exercise a lot of self discipline. This was a goal that I wanted, I wanted to be in great shape for the rest of my life. So I decided to be disciplined about working out. And I had to use my willpower for the first month, maybe the first two months. But after I got in the habit of working out every day, I no longer had to use discipline. It became a habit. It took on an automatic quality and I didn't have to use my willpower every second of the day to make it happen. That's how discipline works. It's great. If you do it long enough, you it'll just be automatically what you do and you won't have to feel like you have to exercise discipline to make it happen. Self discipline is about making a commitment to something you want and really committing to getting it done. And the enemy of self discipline is procrastination, because remember, it's about getting yourself to do what you know you should do, when you should do it, whether you want to or not. So you've got to break through that barrier of not wanting to. You might not want to go to the gym, but you've got to go to the gym if you want to be in great shape. So you're giving up your little short term pleasure of skipping for the long term gain of being in great shape.
