I Found the Formula for Self-Discipline (Literally)

I somehow found this internal military report on their secrets to extreme discipline and what I found here is actually life-changing think about it procrastination laziness and not feeling like it none of that is tolerated in the military somehow they're able to take average people thousands of them every year and teach them what this paper calls behavioral reliability otherwise known as consistency self-discipline is the power and self-control to do the things you know you need to do day in and day out and this report has transformed my understanding of how you acquire discipline and even what

discipline and self-discipline actually are written in 1993 by Major Kevin S Donahue the anatomy of discipline breaks down how and why the US Army creates disciplined soldiers I'm not quite sure how I found this I haven't seen it anywhere else online but from it I feel that we can extract a formula that anyone can use to start becoming a more disciplined person in this video you'll learn what discipline actually is how important it is to your life and a formula you can use to get more of it like I'm actually so excited for today's video

cuz you're going to learn some extremely useful stuff this may be the most valuable video I have made in a maybe ever so if you find even one good tip please let me know in the comments and hit the like button if you want to see more content like this so the main idea of the document is that discipline isn't really just one thing instead it should actually be considered two separate categories these categories both work together to create a disciplined Soldier or in our cases just a disciplined self but before we discuss the paper's

idea of military discipline let's take a look at the dictionary definition of discipline so we're all on the same page I think the Cambridge definition of self-discipline is probably most similar to what we think about when we think to ourselves I wish I had more discipline self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do things you know you should do even when you do not want to I say that's pretty spot on in terms of the way that we understand discipline and as I've learned and as you'll learn today discipline is actually a skill it's a

skill that anyone can acquire and it's a process of training yourself to obey your own rules I quite literally cannot think of a skill more valuable than this and for me this document has unlocked exactly how you do that so according to the military discipline should be split into two separate things discipline B and discipline a disciplined behavior and disciplined attitude discipline B refers to the observable measurable behaviors of discipline while discipline a refers to internal disciplined attitude both b and a together are what create a truly disciplined Soldier and they're both acquired in different

ways and in the military this entire process begins with discipline B and what the military calls boot camp otherwise known as basic training every year the US military needs to take thousands of wide-eyed uninitiated young men and women and turn them into a well-oiled disciplined machine the moment the recruits step foot off the bus they'll leave their old lives behind and be plunged into 10 weeks of what the document calls a booster shot of discipline here's what that looks like in basic training each day begins with yelling and whistleblowing around 4: or 500 [Music] a.m.

that was devastating I was like I want to go home from there recruits must spring into action as they only have a few Choice minutes to prepare themselves for the grueling day ahead in the world of discipline B structure and routine are Paramount here nearly every moment is scheduled accounted for and regulated and nearly every Behavior seems to be subject to a rigid code of conduct respond like this hands at your sides feet right here every action must be executed exactly according to instructions rigid adherence to protocol is the only option available to a recruit

unless they want to endure one of several forms of punishment regardless of who they were before training recruits will have their desired Behavior drilled into them until it becomes Habit in basic training recruits are essentially learning one thing above all else to obey orders recruits must forget about what they feel what they think they want or even what they think they need these feelings must be subdued in service of obedience in service of follow the orders that were given to them at all costs and under extreme pressure your orders don't care that you're tired sore

that you don't feel like it you've got to do what you've got to do no matter what now according to the document the protocol we've just described is how you create an army of disciplined soldiers and to sum it up it's done by forcing the trainees to behave in a rigid disciplined way under threat of punishment you do what you're told and if you step out of line your insolence will be punished and then essentially the habit of following orders no matter what is drilled in so many times that it becomes Habit in other words

what they're doing to create discipline B is essentially just forcings to behave in a disciplined way until they actually become disciplined and if this is what the military has deemed results in disciplined Behavior I believe them because let's think about it you and I are trying to master the art of doing what you're supposed to do even when you don't feel like it to better Our Lives and better our character but in the military having soldiers execute on what they said they do having them behave in a predictable reliable way every single time is a

matter of life and death you have to take thousands of people and train them all to behave with what the document called behavioral reliability executing even and especially when they don't feel like it like if you think about it what they're actually training them to do is silence every Instinct in their body that tells them to run away from danger and run directly into it instead and the document actually describes this in a really really useful way for us trying to create self-discipline they call it resolving the Clash of Wills within in the military's case

it's the will to be disciplined slf follow orders versus the will to live now in our case The Clash of Wills seems almost trivial in comparison the will to do what you said you would do versus the will toward relaxing sleeping eating chilling the main manifestations of just not feeling like it but if you think about it this solution is to our diet in terms of our own lives do you have the power to really commit to something and show up for yourself every single day regardless of how you feel do you have the power

to push past feelings of discomfort to consistently do the things you know are best for you do you have the power to silence all doubts impulses desires inside you to execute the task at hand over all the weeks months years that it might take in order to reach your goals this is self-discipline it's the skill of showing up for for yourself when you need the most it's doing the hard things day after day for no other reason than you said you would discipline is deferring to the authority of your higher self the self that knows

what's best for you and has crafted a meticulous plan to get you there a plan that would deliver to you the life of your dreams if only you could stick to it also I hope you guys know that I'm saying all this as someone who's also trying to be more disciplined not as someone who's like attained lots of discipline you know it's funny most of us would never think of breaking big promises to our loved ones or missing a deadline for our boss at work but then we're 100% comfortable letting ourselves down but in basic

training you basically don't have the luxury you're being forced to show up and perform according to plan no matter how you feel Zero Tolerance no excuses and there's a drill sergeant literally screaming in your face making sure that that happens but although their methods are a little different than what we might be able to do at home the military's process of creating discipline be reveals some core truths about how we can create discipline ourselves I TR truly didn't comprehend this concept until I made this video I didn't quite see how discipline differed from say self-control

or willpower I also kind of thought it was just about just doing it or just forcing yourself every time you didn't feel like it and yeah obviously it's a little bit of that but it's also a lot more than that so here's what we can take away about acquiring discipline B from the military's example how to become disciplined one discipline starts with standards in basic training nearly every behavior is subject to a standard a rule it has a clear process for the way that it should be done similarly self-discipline starts with creating standards rules and

plans for your own behaviors and then following through with the rules that you create for yourself two uphold said standards leave no room for compromise the military and its drill sergeants give zero that you did not get enough sleep they don't care how you feel today they don't even care if you're sick they really don't care if there's a really good reason that you can't if something is in order it's in order end of story this is again so revealing about how we can actually become self-disciplined people because how many of us myself very much

so included have rough instructions a general guide for what they want out of themselves each day but leave tons of room for compromise I'll make a to-do list for myself knowing full well writing them all down that I don't even have time for half the things that I put on that list but if our goal is behavioral reliability like the military then this is an issue because to cultivate self-discipline we need some rules for ourselves that are never optional zero compromise like the military couldn't produce discipline B if either a the standards were unclear or

B the drill sergeants didn't uphold the standards half the time because it's the combination of the both the rules and the adherence to those rules that creates predictable reliable behavior when it matters most think about what would happen if you tried to train a dog to do something but half the time you decided that the dog's response was optional you asked them to sit but you still gave them a treat if they didn't sit the dog is learning that your rules don't mean anything they don't matter and so sometimes they'll sit and sometimes they won't

and that's what you actually train them to do by being inconsistent with your rules and your standards of what you're asking of them so creating behavioral reliability creating the conditions that ensure that you show up for yourself every single time is about following your own rules and taking your own orders very seriously I told you there was life-changing stuff in this video like isn't that not just like in my opinion this is all also a form of self-respect you're respecting the orders that you give yourself as if there would be a harsh punishment as if

there was a drill sergeant waiting to give you a sugar cookie if you didn't do what you said you would now with self-discipline there's obviously no one coming to yell at you for breaking the promises that you made to yourself so in this instance you're both the soldier and the sergeant and to the extent that the two have a solid Dependable relationship you get behavioral reliability you get consistency and predictability of behavior the drill sergeant creates the orders and the soldier follows through no matter what that's their relationship and it's ultimately built on respect how

much respect do you have for your own word your answer will be dependent on your previous track record of success and the relationship between the part of you that creates the orders and the part of you that follows through with the orders or doesn't so framing it this way you can see that every time you break a promise to yourself it's yourself respect that's on the line in other words you either build up or tear down the power that you have over yourself with every Behavior you do or don't follow through with so from this

we have our first formula for creating self-discipline one create standards for your behavior and two follow through with them no matter what through this you're building respect for the sanctity of your own commands and you're building respect up for yourself by following through with what you said You' do which points to another important element of self-discipline three set yourself up for success by by only creating orders you can and will follow the tasks asked of a military recruit on day one are a lot different than the tasks asked of them on the first day that

they step onto the battlefield you can't expect them to perform incredible Feats of discipline until they've been trained to do so that's obvious yet how many of us create impossible standards for ourselves and then beat ourselves up for not achieving them it's important to not only be the good soldier that follows through but also a good drill sergeant a good leader of yourself so that you have the opportunity to build up that self-respect and self-report I'm eroding my authority with myself if I'm creating standards and rules for myself that I can't possibly comply with if

you're starting with zero self-discipline no order no rules in your life that you have a track record of consistently following through with then making your standard the like perfect daily routine is not only unrealistic but by the logic of this video detrimental to creating actual discipline because then your drill sergeant is all bark and no bite because if the drill sergeant is creating rules that the soldiers can't win and they're unnecessarily cruel or difficult to the men that they're trying to train then they're creating insubordination because they haven't earned the men's respect a real leader

challenges their team but at the current level every time you create a rule for yourself that's too hard or impossible to follow through with you undermine that relationship within and finally the fourth truth based on the document is that four discipline is acquired through training until the point of habit did anyone start watching this video thinking that discipline is maybe like a thing that you kind of have it or you don't like a personality trait I know throughout my life the most people that I've known that have been extremely disciplined have been kind of like

that their entire lives so it's definitely something that crossed my mind but the military example is just so Illuminating in the army they train their officers to acquire discipline by drilling the desired Behavior into them over and over again until the desired behavioral response becomes habit and this according to the document is the beginning of the the acquisition of discipline a so according to the document once you've had so much training and discipline discipline behavior that it becomes habit you transitioned to disciplined attitude but a better way of saying it is that at the point

that the transition occurs you move from merely behaving in a disciplined way to actually being a disciplined person at this point discipline actually seeps its way into your character and identity and actually becomes part of who you are this is when things get really interesting I think discipline a is what each of us are looking for when we say G I wish I had more discipline what we're really asking for is more of the skill of discipline the power to employ this tool as we need it because as the document claims discipline control from without

can only be relaxed safely when it is replaced by something better control from within so until we transition to discipline a we're going to have to be really mindful about continually forcing ourselves into discipline Behavior over and over and over again so until this point discipline is really something that we're doing but it's not really something that we have we haven't actually acquired it as a skill yet until we transition to discipline a and I thought it was really interesting that the document then goes and quotes Aristotle in discussing how exactly a virtue such as

discipline might be acquired quote virtues are initially acquired through their purposeful activation leading to the habituation of virtuous Deeds eventually the learner internalizes The Habit ual Behavior leading to the next step of virtuous character and according to literally Aristotle once a virtue becomes part of your character becomes part of your identity this is when things really start to shift you start to behave more naturally in a way that's more aligned with this new part of your self-concept once you've really and truly acquired discipline the choice to behave in a disciplined way becomes the more Natural

Choice to you the best way to explain this is probably through Joo willing you somehow don't know who he is he's an ex Navy SEAL who like bleeds discipline whose whole brand is disciplin who has posted a screenshot of his watch saying 430 a.m. the time he gets up to work out every single day for like years now his Instagram kills me at this point being this disciplined of a person it would probably in a way be more difficult for him to behave in a way that's undisciplined versus behave in the disciplined way it's hard

to make that make sense it doesn't mean that he's not tempted to slack off I'm sure he does like everyone else but at this point his identity is so intertwined with the virtue of self-discipline he can really count on himself and his character to show up and do the hard thing even and especially when he really doesn't want to and obviously that's exactly what we're looking for when we say I want more self-discipline we want to be able to stay on track with our goals no matter what we don't want to be battered around by

circumstances we want to be in charge of ourselves when it matters the most we want to become masters of our minds we want to be able to choose the harder but clearly better option in any and all situations so let's put everything that we've learned into a process on how to acquire discipline for ourselves to acquire the virtue of discipline as we said before one start with our standards create rules and standards for yourself two never break these promises to yourself do not compromise an inch on these standards three the most important thing is to

keep these promises at all costs so therefore start small until you've established a track record of success you want to be extremely cautious with which things that you choose to be standards now the classic military example is making your bed and I think this is pretty much the perfect discipline for most people to start with as evidenced by the 49 million view video by Admiral mccraven on the importance of making your bed if you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day it will give you a small sense

of Pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another and by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many task completed making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter if you can't do the little things right you'll never be able to do the big things right and if by chance you have a miserable day you will come home to a bed that is made but you have to be smart if you're currently at a point where you're always

late for work or you're really chaotic in the morning then setting that as your first discipline you might be setting yourself up for failure the goal is 100% compliance rate so start silly small start with something you 100% know you can do every single day essentially for the rest of your life four build up to a disciplined lifestyle as soon as you've established a track record of success with the silly small stuff one by one start to add in the most important stuff starting with things like adhering to a daily routine of your choosing working

out or getting some sort of physical movement every day and disciplined with your school or work those are obviously very vague but you want to look within them for the specific behaviors that you can turn into standards or rules do it one by one as soon as you've mastered one move on to the next one and again upholding these standards is the most important part five expect to be on guard with all of these disciplines for at least the first year if you drop your guard you may drop your disciplines I quite literally cannot think

of a more valuable skill than training yourself to obey your own rules and creating a lifestyle where you adhere to the standards that you create for yourself like if you don't have the skill then what do you have you know like I feel like this skill is really the basis for any sort of self-mastery I've always really valued discipline and like looked up to people who are really disciplined but I never quite understood how you could actually get more of it and the classic advice seemed to just be to just force yourself it was missing

that piece about discipline really being this whole process of training yourself to take yourself seriously and to end it all off with another Aristotle quote to the point of all of this is that the reason that all of this is worth the effort if it's wasn't already obvious is that freedom is obedience to self formulated rules aka the 300 BC version of discipline equals Freedom hope you guys are enjoying the first taste of the new content and if you haven't heard yet my new online course how to change is almost ready click the link below

if you're interested in more information thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one