Everyone struggles with their level of discipline at some point in their lives. But we all know that discipline is vital to have, right? I mean, without discipline how can we achieve anything worthwhile? The truth is that discipline pushes us through the toughest times in life.
But here’s the question. How do you create more self-discipline fast, without having to wait months or years? With so much going on in our lives, it’s easy to see why it’s tough to stay disciplined. After all, we are creatures of habit, right?
The truth is this. 95% of everything we think, say and do is controlled by non-conscious processes. It’s all habitual at the end of the day. Plus (and here’s the kicker), the non-conscious mind is so much more powerful than the conscious mind.
That’s why it’s so hard to kick bad habits or reshape negative thinking. It’s because we’ve been conditioned that way for years, sometimes even decades. Plus, the non-conscious mind is one million times more powerful than the conscious mind.
The Pathway To Rock Solid Self-Discipline
It’s hard to change your life because your behavior is a part of who you are. It’s easy, comfortable, and what you always gravitate towards. But to create real self-discipline fast, you must learn how to disrupt learned behaviors and flip the script.
To do that you first need to create self-awareness around the problem. If you lack self-discipline, it’s likely because some area of your life is spiraling out of your control. Whether that’s your health, finances, relationship, addictions, or something else, you have to regain control fast.
What you need to do is document what needs to change. Don’t just think about it in your mind. You must put pen to paper. Seriously. If you don’t write this down, nothing will change. Why? If it stays in the mind, it remains in the abstract.
When you get real honest with yourself, and you write down what must change, you take ownership. Your ego no longer hides from your inner-self. That is so crucial for creating real lasting change, that if you avoid doing this step, you can simply chalk it for a loss.
Being honest and transparent about what must change is crucial. But that’s not all that needs to happen. Remember that the human mind does more to avoid pain than it does to gain pleasure. Meaning, simply wanting more discipline to gain some favorable outcome won’t cut it.
Getting Real With Yourself
The pain-versus-pleasure paradigm is skewed to the short term. Meaning, we do more to avoid pain in the short term. Not the long term. Otherwise, why would anyone eat fast food, smoke cigarettes, use drugs or any other number of things that are sure to lead to pain in the long term?
Knowing this, you have to hack the mind. You must find a way to create enough pain in the short term so that you can avoid pain in the long term. For example, eating a Big Mac meal, large-sized with a Coke, will stop those terrible cravings and stomach pains in the short term. But the aftermath won’t be so pretty.
Not only does fast food wreak havoc on your body, in the long term, it can lead to serious health issues. But is it a quick fix for hunger pain? Sure. The same thing applies to smoking cigarettes and doing anything else that’s habitual. It alleviates short term pain, but it creates enormous long term pain.
So how do you flip the script to create more pain in the short term so that you can avoid the things that are habitual or pleasurable? To do that you have to understand how the mind perceives pain and pleasure, along with how the body’s biological systems respond to it.
Flip The Script On Pain
The body has receptors everywhere that are called nociceptors. They help signal pain and they’re located throughout every part of your body. We’re talking about the skin on down to the organs and blood vessels. When the body experiences any sort of pain, it sends a signal to the brain through the spinal cord.
Once the nociceptor sends a signal, it’s processed in the brain, which then works to alleviate the pain. This happens either through behavior adaptation or through other neural processes. While the science can get complex here, the point of understanding the pain process is to help flip the script to ensure you stay disciplined.
When you’re experiencing pain, the natural response is to alleviate the pain. It’s part of our preconditioning and genetic processes. You’ve heard of the fight-or-flight response, right? The body is genetically programmed to avoid pain as a survival method. However, the problem in modern-day society is that works the wrong way.
Understanding how pain works alone won’t help you create more self-discipline. But it will help to increase your self-awareness of the pain and your body’s natural response. Think about it like this. The waves crash into the ocean shore with an undulating rhythm. Waves come and go and the tides rise and fall.
Pain is very much the same way. But we don’t experience it like that. Imagine a wave crashing into the shore, then the shore retreating away from the ocean. That’s how the human brain responds to pain. It does whatever it can to avoid it.
Step 1. Breathe Through The Pain
Many ancient disciplines focus on breathwork for a very good reason. Breathing through pain is one pathway of relief to help you flip the script. The first is to be self-aware of the pain. Those hunger cravings for something sweet or a fast-food are just the brain’s natural responses to alleviate some form of pain.
When you have no other tools at your disposal, you must breathe. Here’s how this works. It doesn’t matter the type of pain you’re experiencing (mental, emotional, or physical), breathing through the pain works. That’s why all the ancient arts, civilizations, and religions focussed so heavily on breathing. It was their go-to tool.
There are many benefits to breathing exercises when done the right way. Since breathing is regulated by non-conscious processes by the autonomic nervous system, we usually don’t think much about it. Meaning, we take it for granted.
But when you realize that the amount of oxygen you inhale regulates the amount of energy released into your body, you’ll look at it much differently. The best technique for doing this to truly disrupt the nociceptors’ pain signals is called the Whim Hoff Method.
Get Comfortable
Find a comfortable position. Sit down with your legs crossed and your eyes closed. Make sure you can easily expand and contract your lungs.
Take 30 To 40 Deep Breaths
Next, take 30 to 40 deep breaths, either through the nose or mouth. Then, exhale, letting go, unforced. You might feel lightheaded. That’s okay. It’s from the excess oxygen entering your body and brain.
Hold Your Final Breath
At the end of your last 30th or 40th breath, inhale as deeply as you can, and this time, let the air out and stop breathing. Hold like this for as long as possible.
Draw One Big Breath
When you do actually feel the urge to breathe again, inhale deeply. But this time, hold the breath for 15 seconds. Then, release it. This is the end of your first round of breathing. Repeat this cycle 3 or 4 times.
Step 2. Cold Thermogenesis
What does exposure to extreme cold have to do with self-discipline? Well, everything. For those of you who don’t know the benefits of cold exposure please read this. But, at the end of the day, cold is quite literally your best friend and your exposure to cold can transform your ability to stay disciplined.
Thermogenesis is a method of heat production in humans and other organisms. The body is able to produce heat internally. While most people are frightened of cold temperatures, exposure to cold has enormous benefits for long term health and metabolism.
Why do people take polar bear plunges into icy waters? Do you think it’s a form of masochism? In actually, this is called biohacking. You’re hacking the biological systems to stimulate health. But it also impacts your discipline. For example, by taking a cold shower, you’re shocking your system but also creating long term discipline.
By taking ice–cold showers, you can force your body into a disciplined state. If you lack discipline, this is one of the fastest ways to create it in a short period. You can also build up slowly to a cold shower by incrementally making it colder each day. But, it’s far better to just shock your system off the bat than do it incrementally.
Your endurance of the pain associated with cold exposure, will build up your tolerance to other pain. Whether that’s physical, emotional, or mental. This will help you in all areas of your life. Try this technique and you’ll notice a world of difference.
Step 3. Audit Your Time
If you want to increase your amount of discipline, sometimes you have to see where your time is going. Often, a lack of discipline signals poor time management skills. Meaning, you might know what to do, but you’re unable to find the time to do it because you’re wasting time in other areas of your life.
This is why ultra-successful people are so protective of their time. Where their time goes their energy flows. So, what you must do is to audit the time you do have. Where are you spending your time? What are you doing with it? Your time is the great equalizer. No matter your age, religion, sex, geographic location, or income, your time is always the same.
So how do you use your time? Actually audit it. Meaning, track what you do every half hour. Jot it down. If you don’t actually write it down, it’s easy to avoid it. And, it’s easy to do things that are more habitual. But when you track it, you get to see where your time is actually going.
If you really want to create rock-solid self-discipline in your life, you must audit your time. Once you see where it’s going, you must make changes to help push you in the right direction. Don’t just be a creature of habit. Adapt so that you can thrive, not just survive.
Want More Discipline Fast?
If you’re serious about creating more discipline in your life, you can’t expect to just do it alone. When you do things alone, it’s easier to avoid doing things that are hard or painful. You’ll be excited at first, but eventually give up a short time later.
To create real self-discipline, you need a guide. A coach. But we all know that coaches can be expensive, right? That’s precisely why I created the 7-day self-discipline challenge to help you transform your life. We are going on 31,000 members and growing.
If you want to hack your self-discipline, then I invite you to join the challenge. It’s seven days to transforming your life. We go deep into things like time management, goal setting, and habit development. Plus, other hacks that will help create discipline fast.