I struggled with discipline for years.
I'd start projects with such enthusiasm, but then abandon them within weeks.
I'd set ambitious goals only to watch them collect dust.
And then about three years ago, I hit a turning point when I realized something important.
Discipline is not something you're born with, but it is something that you can build step by step.
So in this video, I wanted to share six practical ways to become more disciplined that actually work in real life.
They're not just theory.
They're the exact strategies that help me transform from someone who couldn't stick to anything to someone who consistently follows through.
So, whether you want to build a business, get fit, learn a new skill or just stop procrastinating, these six discipline building techniques will help you get there.
Let's get into it.
Number one, use the implementation intention.
This is huge and it's something that I discovered that completely changed my follow-through rate.
An implementation intention is simply deciding In advance exactly when and where you'll take a specific action.
So instead of saying I'll work out more, you say I will exercise for 30 minutes at 7am in my living room on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
According to research, people who use implementation intentions are about 300 more likely to follow through with their intentions compared to those who don't.
It works so well because it eliminates the decision-making process when the time actually comes to act.
You don't have to decide whether to exercise.
You've already decided.
You don't have to figure out when or where you're going to do it.
That's already planned.
All that's left is to execute.
I use this for everything important in my life.
And I put it into a simple formula that I picked up from the book Atomic Habits, which is I will enter behavior at time in enter the location.
And the more specific you make this, the more likely you are to follow through.
Number two, five, four, three, two, one method.
One of the biggest obstacles to discipline is that gap between intention and action.
We know exactly what we need to do but something stops us from actually doing it.
We sit on the couch knowing we should work out.
We stare at the blank document knowing we should start writing. but we just don't move.
And that is where the 5-4-3-2-1 method that I learned about from Mel Robbins' work changed so much.
For me, it's ridiculously simple.
When you feel a resistance induced doing something, you count backwards from five to one and then, as soon as you hit one, you take the physical action.
You don't overthink, you don't debate it, you just hit one and you move.
And what this does is it completely bypasses that overthinking part of your brain that comes up with an excuse.
That countdown is, It's a pattern interrupt.
So it shifts the activity from the emotional part of your brain to something that is purely action oriented.
And it's like a mental reset that just cuts through the hesitation.
I use this for everything for getting out of bed without hitting snooze, for doing difficult work tasks, even to record YouTube videos.
I so often procrastinate with recording and I tell myself, I'll just do it later.
I'll do it a bit.
And then I remember this method and I'm sitting on the sofa dreading the idea of coming into this room and recording.
And then i instead count myself down five four three two, one and i immediately get up to walk to this recording setup.
I can't even talk myself out of it because my body is already moving.
The key is that you must take physical action the moment you hit one, with no exceptions.
If you start negotiating with yourself after the countdown, the whole thing is out the window.
It loses power.
Number three visually track your progress.
Nothing builds discipline like seeing your progress right in front of you.
When I first started working out, I used a simple wall calendar where I'd mark an X for every day.
I showed up and I did the work.
After a few weeks, I had a chain of exes that I didn't want to break.
And that visual reminder became a really powerful motivator.
I could literally see my discipline building day by day.
Jerry Seinfeld calls this the don't break the chain method.
And he used it to write jokes every day and it helped him become one of the most successful comedians of all time.
You can track almost anything your workouts completed your pages, read the hours that you spent on your side project, days that you stuck to your healthy eating plan.
The key is to just make it visible.
Put it somewhere where you'll see it multiple times a day, because there's something deeply satisfying about just marking off another successful day.
And when you have a rough day which we all do that visual reminder of how far you've come can be just the thing or just the push that you need to overcome that day and to keep going.
Next, we have succeed in silence.
This one might feel a little bit contradictory, but there is a reason why this works.
There's a psychological concept called the intention behavior gap, which is the difference between what you plan to do and what you actually do.
And here's the hack when it comes to your goals, keeping your cards close to your chest and only sharing them with a very few close friends or accountability partners helps narrow that gap, meaning you're way more likely to follow through with them.
But if you tell everyone, that gap widens, so you're less likely to finish the job.
And there is an article published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology which found that people who publicly announce their goals feel a premature sense of achievement, which makes them therefore less likely to follow through.
This is because your brain can trick you into feeling accomplished before you've actually done anything.
So when you announce your goals to everyone, your brain releases this dopamine.
It's a feel-good chemical just like what you get when you tick something off your to-do list.
And the problem is that your brain thinks that you've already done the work, which then reduces your motivation to follow through and do it for real.
So, instead of talking about your goals, focus on doing the work first, and then let your results speak for themselves.
By the way we've been talking about discipline and how to follow through on things that matter.
But sometimes the biggest question is what actually should matter in your life.
And if you're in a similar place I have a completely free financial life design workshop.
It's not a budgeting workshop, a saving workshop, an investing workshop.
It's about designing a life that you actually want through taking control of your money.
And in the 75 minutes we go through how to use the money you already have and funnel that into things that genuinely matter to you, to fast track the life that you want to build and how to identify what brings you real fulfillment.
I've seen people completely transform their life by taking control of their money not by earning more, but by being intentional about where their current money goes.
So if you want to start designing a life you love, you can check it out.
It's completely free and the link is in the description.
Next, we have start ridiculously small.
One of my biggest mistakes was always to try and make massive changes overnight.
I tried to go from zero workouts to daily 6am gym sessions, or from never reading to finishing a book every week.
Discipline is not built through dramatic overhauls.
It's built through very tiny, consistent actions that happen day after day and then that compound over time.
The key is to start so small that it almost feels laughably easy.
If you want to build a meditation habit, don't start with 30 minutes a day.
Start with just two minutes a day.
If you want to write more, begin with 50 words daily, not a thousand.
When you make a habit ridiculously small, two important things happen.
First, you actually do it because there's almost zero resistance.
And second, showing up consistently builds the identity of someone who follows through.
And that identity, not the individual actions, the identity is what creates consistency, lasting discipline.
I use this approach to build my content creation habits.
I started with just 15 minutes of writing each day.
It wasn't much, but I showed up daily during my lunch breaks whilst I was waiting for the train.
And now, three years later, I create content for hours each day without feeling like it's a struggle, because it's become part of who I am.
And then we have a reframe discipline as self-care.
For years, I saw discipline as a form of self-denial, something that was rigid and restrictive.
That meant saying no to things that I wanted.
But that view made discipline feel like this constant uphill battle.
Instead, everything changed when I started to see discipline differently, as the ultimate form of self-care, as saying yes to what my future self really wants, rather than saying no to what my present self is craving.
So going to work out isn't punishment, it's giving my body the movement it needs to stay healthy.
I'm going to feel so much better in an hour from now.
Saving money isn't deprivation.
It's providing my future self with security, with options, working on my business.
It's not sacrificing my leisure time.
It's creating a life with the potential of more freedom and impact.
This mental shift from have to to get to makes discipline feel way less like a burden and more like a gift that you're giving to yourself.
The truth is nothing feels better than just knowing you could trust yourself to follow through.
That trust comes from consistent discipline and it spills over into every area of your life.
So those are my six practical ways to build more discipline.
Remember, this isn't about becoming perfect or never slipping up.
It's just about gradually becoming someone who follows through more often than not.
Thank you for watching.
If you like this video, don't forget to subscribe so you can watch all the other videos that I've put out and have recorded on my channel as well.
Thank you so much for watching and see you next week.
