Develop Unbreakable Self-Discipline
The Ed Mylett Show
This review is for yet another podcast episode from The Ed Mylett Show. This should come as no surprise, as Ed Mylett is one of the most well-known public figures in the arena of personal development, and for good reason. Most of Ed’s episodes are him facilitating conversation and somewhat interviewing some of the most successful and highest-performing people from all over the world and from different backgrounds and industries. This episode is one of his rare stand-off episodes where he alone is discussing a topic that he would like to discuss with his listeners with no guest necessary. This episode talks about several things, most importantly the importance of self-discipline & ways to achieve it, and even some timeless advice from a 2001 news article on how to become a dominator in all areas of life from several sports icons, most notably Tiger Woods.
The beginning of this podcast discusses the importance of self-discipline and the effect it has on your life and personal development. Ed illustrates this point with one of his favorite sayings “Extremity expands capacity”. In essence, this means that the more that you do, the more that you push yourself to your limits, the more you will be able to do. One example of this in a more tangible sense is maxing out on bench press, or any lift for that matter. The more you train that muscle, the harder you push it and break it down, the stronger it gets, and the more weight you will be able to lift in the future. If you push yourself to your extremity, you will expand your capacity. This seems relatively obvious and the concept is quite simple, but simple doesn’t always mean easy. Although putting this theory into action is easier said than done, there are things that you can do to make it easier on yourself. So, how does one constantly push themselves to their extremities? You guessed it – through self-discipline. During the beginning of this podcast, Ed provides a few strategies he has found helpful for building self-discipline.
The first thing that Ed mentions is that you need to sit down and do a painfully honest audit of the things that rob you of your discipline. What takes your focus and attention away? TV? Social media? Worry? Fear? You need to ask yourself what it is that keeps you from being disciplined and work on better managing these things. You should notice I did not say ‘eliminate’, I said ‘manage’ for a reason. You shouldn’t have to eliminate all of these things completely because odds are these things make you happy and a sense of balance is important. Instead of eliminating these things completely, you need to learn how to separate them and work on indulging in these activities during downtime throughout your day rather than when you should be being productive. The idea of placing these activities in specific parts of the day brings up the next idea that Ed mentions: scheduling.
As I have mentioned several times at this point in various posts and originally from the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear, the most disciplined people really aren’t that much more disciplined than others, they are just great at scheduling and setting themselves up in the best position for their next shot. A schedule is nothing but a showcase of one’s priorities. Anything that you genuinely prioritize, you make a conscious effort to pencil it in your schedule and then you try to put any other lesser ‘priorities’ in if you have enough time. In this episode, Ed says the quote “If you show me your schedule, I will show you your life in three years”. This is because as I said, a person’s schedule just highlights their priorities. If you want to be more disciplined, learn to prioritize the things that make you better and make them the first thing that you pencil into your schedule. Then, after you pencil in these priorities, you can find downtime throughout the day to pencil in the things that you enjoy. Dedicate time to these things, and don’t let them take you away during the times when you want and need to be productive.
The last thing that Ed mentions in his recipe for self-discipline is that you need to keep the promises that you make to yourself. It sounds miniscule but following through on promises you made to yourself can mean the world of difference. If you tell yourself you are going to do something and then you don’t do it, you are breaking your trust in yourself that you can do the things you want to do. In other words, you are slowly eating away at your confidence. When there are things you want to do in the future and you tell yourself that you want to do them, you will subconsciously doubt your ability to follow through because you have lied to yourself many times before. In order to work on building your self-confidence, start small. Make small promises to yourself – wake up 15 minutes earlier, work out for 10 extra minutes, and eat better for one meal a day. Prove to yourself that you can follow through on promises to yourself. Once you start fulfilling these small promises, make the promises gradually bigger until one day you have enough confidence to follow through on even the biggest promises. Make promises to yourself, keep them, and build some self-confidence.
The truth is that no one has natural self-discipline. No one is just born with the innate ability to focus on tasks, keep promises to themselves, and be highly productive. That skill is cultivated over time and the methods mentioned here are tools and techniques to help cultivate this skill. Self-disciplined people build structures and systems around themselves that help them seem more disciplined than they are. They tend to manage the things that keep them away from productivity and schedule and prioritize their days more efficiently. If you force yourself to work on these things, at some point you build an identity of a disciplined person, both to yourself and others. Once this identity is formed, then it becomes easy. Your brain wants to build habits, it wants to work in autopilot as much as possible. Your brain is wired to minimize energy, so it tends to do whatever is familiar to it by default. You get to decide what is ‘familiar’ to your brain. In this episode, Ed mentions the idea that ‘under pressure, you act reflexively’. This is essentially saying that your brain defaults to what it is used to doing whenever you are not consciously thinking about what to do next. It is your job to mold your reflexes to default to habits that serve you.
To finish off the episode, Ed cites an article, which he calls the ‘Manifesto of Self Discipline’ that he has kept with him for the last 20+ years. This article, written by Newsweek in 2001, is titled ‘The Dominator’ and is written around Tiger Woods and his mindset and attitude towards the game of golf. Anyone that is familiar with sports knows that Tiger Woods, in his prime, was probably the most dominant athlete in their respective sport in the history of sports. He attributes a lot of his success to his drive and self-discipline, and his ability to have this ‘Dominator’ mindset. This article interviews several of the most dominant athletes of all time – Wayne Gretzky, Martina Navratilova, Joe Montana, and more – and through these interviews, they came up with the five rules to follow if you want to be the best at what you do. According to some of the best athletes in history, here are the five rules to be a dominator.
1. Genius is 99% perspiration. This is saying exactly what it sounds like – there is no substitute for hard work. There is no magic pill. “At this level, talent is a given. But Tiger works harder than anyone out there, and that’s why he’s kicking butt”. If you get to the top of your field, no matter what field it is, everyone is talented. What separates the dominators at that point is how much work they are willing to put in. Dominators don’t let their opponents outwork them.
2. Let the other guy get nervous. The best performers in any field have the ability to keep their cool in the most pressured situations. “The dominators let the other guy’s butterflies become a weapon on their behalf”. If you train hard enough and practice accordingly, you will be able to perform under pressure because as mentioned before – ‘under pressure, you act reflexively’. If you put in the time outside of the spotlight, you will be able to perform when others can’t underneath the spotlight.
3. Don’t just dominate, intimidate. This one sort of goes with the previous rule in a sense. As mentioned before, once you are at the top of your field everyone is physically talented. One way to separate yourself from the rest of the physically talented is to establish a mental advantage over the others. Learn to not only play the physical game but also the mind game. Tiger wears a blood-red sweater on Sundays for a reason. Reggie Jackson chose to hit last in BP so the other team was forced to watch him hit home runs before the game. “A true dominator can conjure the sense that the Gods are aligned against you and that defeat is inevitable”. In order to dominate, your talent has to extend beyond physical. Learn to master the art of intimidation and the mind game.
4. Have a sense of the historic. The real dominators have an innate sense of what it takes to be remembered. “Every athlete says he wants to win a major title or a team championship. But Tiger doesn’t just want those moments of glory. He has an innate sense that he can’t be a legend without them”. In Ed Mylett’s book ‘The Power of One More’, Ed says that goals are much more likely to be hit if there is a compelling enough reason to obtain that goal. The best of the best have a sense of the historic, and they know what they need to do to include their name in it. This is a compelling enough reason for the best to do what they have to do. This gives you a context to want to be self-disciplined. After all, why be self-disciplined if it is never going to mean anything?
5. Never, ever be satisfied. Again, this is fairly straightforward. “Most athletes work the hardest when they are trying to reach the top, but Tiger has seemed only more committed to improving his game since leaving the competition in the dust”. The great ones work even harder after they get what they want. Great businessmen work harder after they make their first million dollars. Great athletes work harder after they won their first pro tournament. Unfortunately, most people work the hardest when they are trying to reach these goals – and then they let off the gas. If you truly want to dominate at what you do, you have to work even harder with the increasing amount of success. Dominators are never, ever satisfied.
In order to develop unbreakable self-discipline, you have to master both the art and the science of self-discipline. The science of self-discipline is the tools and strategies you use to build it that were discussed in this episode. The art of self-discipline is the mindset. The art of self-discipline relates to the five rules mentioned above. Work on implementing both the science and the art mentioned in this episode to develop unbreakable self-discipline for yourself.
