Discipline - The best gift you can give yourself.

We are animals with a short life span. Life is a gift; we are fully responsible for what we make of it. Developing self-discipline is the most loving thing you can do for yourself. Your decision to become more disciplined is the decision to become the best version of yourself. We are all works in progress throughout our whole life, and self-discipline will advance this progress like nothing else.

Making the most of our one life relies on self-discipline. A good life does not roll off an assembly line; it is put together piece by piece, with lots of trial and error and persistent effort. You are responsible for personalizing and designing your life, living your life as if it's a story that you actively write and act out the script for.

More darkly, you are responsible for your ratio of regret vs. contentment on your deathbed. You have to actively decide on a worthy direction to head in and then consistently devote time, effort, and action into those goals on a daily basis. Doing so provides comfort when you get into bed at night and feelings of satisfaction, as humans are goal-striving animals; we need to know we are moving towards our goals to feel our best.

Your future self can look back with feelings of gratitude for the hard work you put in today and can feel proud of your actions today. Wasting your limited time guarantees the crippling price of regret. Everyone has a certain ratio of regret and contentment in varying proportions on their deathbed — proportions in which we are solely and 100% responsible.

We can alter the balance in our favor on a daily basis, respecting our future self by taking action that benefits them. Disciplined action reduces the regrets that will torment you on your deathbed, and discipline will increase the levels of contentment that comfort you on your deathbed. Self-discipline gives us the ability to shift this ratio of regret vs. contentment in our favor on a daily basis.

Make your days add together to create a desirable future and become your best self. The pain of regret is a much heavier burden than the pain of disciplined effort. NOTHING is as important for your mental health and well-being, and to become the best version of yourself, as building self-discipline.

Discipline not only provides freedom from regrets, it frees you from being a slave to your desires.
Discipline is freedom as it makes your true desires and a fulfilled life possible, rather than being a slave to your short-term fleeting desires that only steal your potential and sap your soul. Actively fight being a slave to your impulses, knowing these distractions directly hinder your ability to do what you were put on this earth to do with your one life. Life can seem complicated, and we can get lost in our thoughts, but a good life can be heavily simplified. Freud once said, “Love and work, work and love, that’s all there is.”

Discipline creates habits and habits become your life.

Habits form your mood. Routine, what we habitually do on a daily basis, creates our mood — not the events in our life or what happens to us. Our habits create our mood and are the scaffolding for our lives. As habits create, our habits become our lives. Good habits enhance the quality of our life, bad habits reduce it. You create yourself; you are the writer of your own movie starring yourself. When we discipline ourselves to take action we personally value, the rewards are inevitable. Any realistic dream any human being has had is always achieved through applying self-discipline to shape their daily habits. Humans being creatures of habit means our success and happiness depend on what we habitually do. Living with a routine we PERSONALLY see as meaningful is deciding we want feelings of contentment and is respecting and valuing the limited time we have. Being conscious about shaping our habits is the decision to grow contentment, behaving in ways we personally value. Acting like our limited time has value — that we have value! We have limited days to live, and our habits determine what we get from these days — days that contribute to contentment or days that contribute to regret.

The comfort zone is a graveyard for humans.

Humans naturally drift to the path of least resistance, or what should be called — the path to regret. We all have habits and they create our lives. We must consciously put effort into shaping them, and in doing so, we shape our lives — even into creating our ideal lives. We all have the power to tinker with our habits, altering them on a daily basis to be more positive. Habits and routines that align with your values, goals, and priorities. You can politely and unapologetically say no to absolutely anything that does not align with these. You are only responsible for your own ratio of future contentment vs future regret. Be ruthless in filtering out activities and people which shift this ratio towards regret — embrace, cherish, and give your all into those that add to contentment.

Relying on motivation is a trap.

Your future self is screaming at you to maintain your routines that promote good mental health, and this requires discipline, not motivation. No one wants to exercise at first. You have to force yourself to exercise because NO ONE feels worse AFTER exercise. Motivation comes AFTER action, NEVER before. The best athletes in the world have countless days when they are simply going through the motions of their 'passion'. When they do not feel like exercising, they train regardless and reap the rewards. Not a single person feels worse when they get their required amount of sleep — this requires discipline to start the day without hitting the snooze button, getting early morning sunlight into the eyes, exercising, eating a diet you see value in, acquiring and maintaining healthy relationships, meditating, avoiding screens and lights an hour before bed. Deciding to take these kind actions for yourself despite how you feel BEFORE doing them is incredibly powerful. Discipline is doing the right thing, regardless of how you feel. It's a paradox. Mindlessly scrolling for hours on your phone takes away our energy and impacts our mental health negatively. Deciding to go for a walk in nature gives us energy and improves our mental well-being. Comfort kills more men than hard times do. “You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.” Esteemable acts create positive feelings and momentum for more positive action. You can't stay motivated all the time. That is impossible. But what you can do is take disciplined action whether you’re motivated or not. When you take action aligned with your life goals and achieve them, the more you get motivated — motivation rarely comes before the action. Motivation is a trap and rather useless. Relying on motivation robs you of achievements that bring you genuine satisfaction and reward. Discipline is everything, the path of all human achievement. Wait for motivation at your peril.

A TRICK: Carry out actions that you respect and value in others. When doing so, you increase the positive feelings you have towards yourself. This, in turn, increases your ability to carry out further positive actions — hence upward and downward spirals in life! Disciplined action is how you get out of ruts and build momentum, getting you back on track to become the best version of yourself.

When the world seems against you, with things not going your way, you have your self-discipline.
The most powerful and reliable tool for good mental health and quality of life. Self-esteem, positive feelings, are not achieved through thoughts but achieved through disciplined action.

Practical examples

If we value our mental health and understand how circadian rhythms and a sleep routine are so important, then hitting the snooze button becomes harder to accept. Hitting the snooze button is the opposite of ‘chilling out’; you are creating internal panic, presenting future problems to your future self. Deep down, you sense this and it lowers your mood and energy levels. Instead, take actions that benefit your future self, solve problems for your future self.

Fully accept you are not motivated, accept you want to press the snooze button and linger in bed, then force yourself to get up and attack the day — deeply knowing the times when you have done this benefited you. There will be days you come home from work and do not feel like cooking, but you can cook anyway. Taking action we Taking such actions is necessary to become your best self.

Force yourself into action. See taking actions you value to benefit your mental health and quality of life as requiring no choice; you just do them. You get them done regardless of how you feel. If you feel like doing it, great, then do it. If you don't feel like doing it, do it, knowing it's what you value and what will improve your quality of life. When you avoid the actions you know benefit you, it's incredibly harmful to your mindset and sense of achievement.

Never delay

Discipline requires not postponing those things you know you need to do. Your brain is constantly aware of these tasks, and you best believe it affects your mental health while you're avoiding them. When you eventually get these things done, you’ll wish you had done so sooner. Also, those actions are ALWAYS less daunting and less challenging than you believed while ignoring them. Avoidance and laziness (not acting) are enemies to your mental health. Anything you delay is sapping your mental health. Take action immediately, suck it up, get it dealt with. Almost always, the problem was much easier to deal with than how we imagined while ignoring it. Never delay starting, start, no matter how small.

Create ‘whys’.

Assign purpose by having goals you value and desire. Discipline yourself to think for yourself, and make decisions that align with your own priorities, goals, and values. You must identify what your priorities, goals, and values are in life, and use discipline to take actions that align with them. Identify the daily steps that walk you closer to this desired direction, and walk those steps with willful intention and consistency. When you are walking towards a destination you desire, the benefit this has on your mental health and well-being is life-changing.

This is even seen in children. Studies show that children with the lowest self-esteem are those who are not held accountable to rules and consequences, as opposed to children with high self-esteem who follow rules and accept the resulting consequences. Here is the interesting finding, though: those with the greatest self-esteem understand why and the purpose the rules are put in place for them. Apply this to your life. You do not hit the snooze button because you understand why it reduces your mental well-being and life satisfaction. You exercise because you understand why it increases your mental well-being and life satisfaction. Discipline yourself to delve deeply into the whys, having as many in-depth reasons as possible. E.g., Why do you want to reduce your screen time? Align everything with your goals and associate it with lowering your deathbed regrets.

Being disciplined in modern society is a superpower.

Modern society is designed to kill your soul. Society is structured in such a way that you are constantly distracted from the decisions that would benefit your human contentment. We are bombarded with messages that only serve to promote short-term comfort and fleeting pleasure. In today’s technological age, it’s easy to become a pleasure zombie. Throughout history, humans have constantly come up with inventions that make life easier. Can we do this on a personal level? Our personal effort and discipline on a daily basis make our whole life easier. Even building a small amount of discipline in today's world, which is rife with distractions, is comparable to a superpower. Hijacked attention and addiction are manipulative forces. Protect your attention ruthlessly. Impulse control is important. We need to create defenses by knowing ourselves and our values. Get into nature, eat for nutrition, and not to escape yourself. Overindulging in instant gratification is a path to devastating regret and hardship. Strive for personal excellence. Get your life together mentally, physically, and financially by building self-discipline.

It’s a trap. When we rely on instant gratification, anything that requires effort (everything worth having in life) feels much harder than it would if our brains were not accustomed to relying on instant gratification. The good news is that we can shift this balance in our favor and reap the rewards. Swap out Netflix with one minute of reading, for example. Every TV advert break, read a few pages. Over time, your brain will adjust.

This must be fought diligently.

It takes very little time to start escaping the trap of modern society. When we work hard today, we make the rest of our life exponentially easier. Build habits and routines to counter the part of the world we live in that is extremely sick. Self-discipline is the opposite of punishing yourself; you are creating a better future for yourself, lowering your deathbed regrets. Are there many better gifts than that? Defend yourself from a numb existence, a culture based on escaping, and a sick society that processes unresolved emotional pain.

Recognize the quality of the feelings and energy that healthy habits versus unhealthy ones give you, even the energy from people around you. Endless scrolling for entertainment creates a foggy, numb mind. In solitude or with healthy people, interact with things that want to give you energy—a fair energy exchange. Look out for things that are stealing your energy and provide nothing of benefit to you in the medium and long term.

Why Instant Gratification is the Path to a Lifetime of Regrets

It is completely pointless to read any further until the following is completely understood: overindulging in instant gratification kills us, while delayed gratification gives us everything we desire and more. Overindulging yourself in instant gratification is a big "f-you" to your future self, presenting the burden of regret and "what ifs." Building discipline to carry out daily actions involving delayed gratification is giving your future self real senses of achievement, contentment, and satisfaction—improved mental health and quality of life.

Your ratio of delayed vs. instant gratification is largely responsible for the ratio of regret vs. contentment you will have on your deathbed. Gain a good understanding of instant gratification vs. delayed gratification. We do ourselves well if we truly appreciate the pain of regret—it can absolutely be insurmountable, an annihilation of yourself. Of course, you will not be regret-free; it’s all about shifting the balance of future regret vs. future contentment in your favor. Take your future self deadly seriously—your daily actions depend on how riddled with regret they are and how gifted with contentment and reasons for suffering they will be. Slightly shift the balance of instant gratification vs. delayed gratification in your favor. What at first gives a pleasurable taste in the mouth can turn painful in the belly.

Action in Tiny Steps

It is essential to develop a mindset that allows you to celebrate small wins—every small step is extremely powerful. Humans landed on the moon as a result of small steps adding together. You must see every single step, no matter how small, towards your goals as extremely powerful. Positive momentum is not to be underrated. When you consistently take these small steps, you will look in the mirror one day and see the results of those small steps adding together.

We know that habits shape our lives, but how do we build new habits? Doing so requires strategy and hard work. Habits are hard to form, but easy to maintain. To form them, it's essential to start small. Actions as simple as listening to an audiobook, sitting in silence, meditating, or reading a book (all delayed gratification) are great places to start. Set a goal of just one minute per day, be strict with this, and set a timer. If you decide to continue, great; if not, perfect. You've taken some action to create a new habit that is guaranteed to transform your life. The saying "easy does it" does not mean taking it easy or being lazy. These small steps will add up. We overestimate what we can achieve in a day but underestimate what we can achieve in a year. The proper use of "easy does it" is, "Do it, but take it easy!" Take those steps toward a worthy goal, and enjoy the inevitable benefits. Delay them at the cost of your contentment and quality of life.

Discipline compounds and transfers

When we practice discipline in one area of our life, it transfers over to every other important area. Discipline is a muscle. Growing this muscle massively transforms who we are and the life we live. One discipline leads to every other discipline we are working on. If we are disciplined in one area of life, we are better at building other fulfilling and rewarding disciplines.

If we never decide to harness discipline in any area of life, we are massively dampening our whole lives—effectively self-harming. Self-discipline is the biggest gift we can give to ourselves and those who care about us.

If we decide to exercise daily, it enhances our ability to study. If we discipline ourselves to study, it improves our focus and skills at work. If we decide to binge-watch TV in our free time, our jobs seem less worthwhile and more like a chore. Things loop together and cause upward spirals, leading to drastic change. This way, you are rewiring your brain, and those positive actions you feel good about yourself before become easier to carry out in the future. Whereas TikTok binges make you feel depressed and promote future negative actions.

Habits you deem as positive, when carried out, make you more disciplined, and in turn, this makes it easier to be consistent with your healthy habits that enrich your life. Building self-discipline is a beautiful cycle that feeds on itself: Take action > Gain confidence and momentum > Do the next thing > Gain more confidence and momentum.

It’s only small changes that lead to big results because small changes compound over time. Making big changes is impossible and irrelevant; think about what small change you can make. We all know examples of human beings who have made drastic and impressive changes. This is always through becoming more disciplined in consistently taking small steps toward a goal on a daily basis.

The benefits of discipline are endless

You will find this mindset applying to almost everything in life. For example, when people say you must think positively, this does not help one bit. We have to pick the weeds out of our minds ONE at a time. We have to plant flowers in our minds ONE at a time.

Ask if a thought is useful to us or not, without judging ourselves if we have unhelpful thoughts—acknowledge them for what they are. Be diligent in asking the question, "Is this something in my control to change or not?" On a daily basis, be conscious of seeking out positives and creating positivity. Over months and years, we see more positivity naturally. Nothing in life is a fast fix, but the faster you acquire the mindset of incremental changes daily, the better.

This is not just necessary; it is freeing and brilliant for mental health. If we see things as huge projects, we procrastinate and distract ourselves instead of chipping away at them daily. Do what's best for you EARLY.

Quit waiting for motivation, get into the trenches, out of your comfort zone and become the best version of yourself!