A little more than a year ago, I was so deeply dissatisfied that killing myself seemed like the best decision I could make.

Passion

I've always had a passion towards different things; I'd become the best locally at a martial arts and built a martial arts school, got into choreographing fights for film domesticly and internationally, had a threeway relationship with two girls 10 years younger than me, trained police how to arrest more effectively being typically able to take two on at the same time.

I had a lot of things going for me. And I kept pissing it all away again when after I'd reached my inner goal, I just let things completely deteriorate. I would just not call back important film companies, I'd let a student teach for two whole weeks while I was just pissing my time away on playing games, coming up with new excuses.

Seeing everything I built falling down piece by piece, not even by an outside force, but by my inner failures, was so depressing that I put the knife at my chest and considered for a couple of minutes plunging it in as deep as I could. Then I made a pact with myself: I would have to figure this out logicly. Why did I want to kill myself and what would it take for me to not want to kill myself?

It would take learning discipline. I was 99% convinced that I wouldn't be able to do it.

The cause

I was all motivation and no discipline. I knew it would be good to spend 4 hours a week training new martial arts so that I could keep my choreography work fresh and inspired. But I didn't do it. When I felt drive to get a new goal, the motor ran and I had an unstoppable and irrestable energy. But as soon as that desire was fulfilled, I hung like a limp dick, wanting to go to sleep. Maybe for a week.

Enough about me: how's this good for you?

If you know what's important and what you don't enjoy doing, that's what you need discipline for. So it was clear for a while that discipline was the key factor I was missing. Without discipline there can be no consistency. Below I've compiled all the things that I used to develop discipline in myself.

The value of discipline should be obvious; you'll be able to do things that you value as important logicly. You might not feel a drive to get out of bed early and run to your local fitness studio, but you can logicly deduce how important it is. If there were a drug that healthy it be tightly controlled. This one is almost free with more benefits that can be summed up in one post.

It's simple. Just go. But that isn't always easy. Simple, but not easy.

Discipline allows you to do the things that are simple, but not easy.

How does one build discipline?

Routine and habits

This is actually a cheater category. Routine and habits aren't discipline exactly. If you're scratching your ass because it's routine, it's not discipline. It's just muscle memory.

Do you think your body cares whether you eat healthy out of habit or because you are willing yourself to do so?

Externally you can't really see the difference whether someone is doing something out of habit or discipline. People always saw me as disciplined because I trained hard for martial arts, they didn't get that I really loved it (and they didn't realise I cheated on most pushups or "boring excercises").

Habits may not be real discipline, in my opinion, they are the strongest force a person has at their disposal. Habits are the programming you have and nothing defines you more than your habits. We all have good habits and bad habits.

I think it's likely if you're reading this that you've already removed some of your bad habits and replaced them with good habits. Then you know how powerful it can be, especially once the good habits start building on each other. If you haven't: start this week. No, scratch that, start today. No not even that. Start this 30 minutes. Clear the coming 30 minutes from your schedule and select one small bad habit. Like not flossing your teeth. Or using your phone in bed. If you're going to complain about using it as an alarm function in the morning, go out and buy a 15$ alarm clock. The money spent will help you maintain the habit of not using your phone. Put in the work to make your first habit change immediately; don't even read the rest of this post. Just enjoy your success at changing one habit and once you have, make the second habit to observe your habits and pick one to improve.

Anyways, back to scheduled programming for the people that do know what it's like to change bad habits for good habits.

There are a lot of ways to build habits that have been covered before and I plan to write a seperate post about it in the future. But no amount of theory beats trying out a method earnestly and evaluating it. Do according to what you currently think is best. Then see if you can improve it. It's not an airplane, you're not going to die if you configure it imperfectly. In fact, you'll get a better understanding of it instead.

Habits are the most powerful tool in your arsenal

Decipher the right goals

The more you learn, the more accurately you'll know how to aim for something worthwhile. You might think you want to spin 6 plates and fuck 2 new girls every week, but in practice that might distract you too much from other things you care about. You might think you long to have a deep 1-on-1 relationship as equals with a woman, but in practice the women who are worth and able and remain enthusiastic in such a relationship are as common on venus as they are on earth. Each new experience allows you to better define your goals.

The most reliable goals are goals that would be good for anyone. For example, a goal to build more income and savings is something that is beneficial to practically everyone. This means that no matter how much you'll change, you'll appreciate having worked towards the goal.

Don't be afraid to take a risk and follow deeply personal goals either. You don't really live your own life if you don't. There's nothing wrong with following goals that other people don't always understand. But don't pour all your hope into a single goal having to be a success; if you think you'll be a progamer certainly, then you're pouring all your energy in what may turn out to be useless skill.

Try to have conversations with yourself about these things. Write down your thoughts. Try understand what your emotions are telling you. When you understand what they are telling you'll know if your doubts are fear that should be ignored, or fear that should be listened to.

At some point I was afraid that I was pissing away my time learning something that is a mostly useless skill in modern society (martial arts). Sure, it always advertises itself as being good for your life, healthy, build self-confidence, discipline, blah blah, all the feelgood crap. But wasn't I just staying comfortably where I was because it felt safe? I started entering dialogue with myself about this. It took me considerable time to figure out my deepest motivations for doing martial arts. And without shame I figured out that my motivation for learning to fight was rooted in two desires: for my brother not to bother me (I had an older brother that would physically stop me from going to parts in the house) and for my father to respect me (he always loved watching martial arts movies). Well my brother had long since stopped bothering me and my father still didn't respect me, so I was still feeling unfulfilled and still driven forwards. I realized that I need to change my gameplan and helping my dad do elderly fitness now. He respects and appreciates my patience with him. This takes a lot less time and effort than I was pouring into it and I feel a lot more fulfilled.

In another case I was sad that women just weren't that attractive anymore. I had done so many crazy sex stuff and fulfilled the fantasies I had with the two girls that I didn't see the point of wooing any other girl after I broke things off. When I started talking to myself and figuring out my motivations, I was completely wrong. Especially when I stopped masturbating: there were so many attractive women. I just didn't want to face the fact that I couldn't attract them at will. Or dared make a move. The limitation was a fearful side in myself. I was taking myself out of the running, because rather than face the fact that I was still controlled by fear of rejection, I convinced myself that I wasn't attracted to them anyways.

Figure out what your goal is by dissecting underlying motivations

How to build discipline

Discipline is the ability to perform that set of actions that you value the highest, regardless of difficult you find to perform them.

Habits are a way of making difficult things effortless. Building habits requires discipline, continuing them is mostly automatic.

Ask yourself repeatedly throughout the day:

Am I doing the the most valuable thing I could be doing right now?

At any time when the answer is "no", you are a failing in your discipline. Whenever the answer is "yes", you are succeeding in your discipline.

The more often you ask yourself this question, the better discipline you'll develop. Who cares if it hurts? Who cares if you're afraid? If it's the most valuable thing, it's the path you must take.

And if you're anything like me, you'll have times where there's a voice in your head trying to convince you to do something else.

I don't want to workout, I am going to help to move someone tonight and it's better if I'm fresh. And that's a workout anyways!

You wouldn't want to settle down with this girl for x reason, so no reason to escalate

If I order a pizza, I can continue working so it's actually a way to buy some extra time

(the last one gives me maybe 10 minutes for wrecking my diet).

There is one thing that really changed my success rate; it's the realization that EVERY SINGLE time you change your behaviour when you're not doing the best thing you could be doing and EVERY SINGLE time you are doing the best thing you could be doing matters more than almost anything else.

Why? Because everything you do IS either the end of a habit or forming of a new habit. That's why discipline is important. Habits are the houses you build as part of the city of your success. Discipline are the bricks you're laying to build those houses.

If you make a habit of reading redpill posts and then nothing else, you are training yourself to be theory-warrior. Conversely, if you have a habit of skimming redpill posts and only picking out the good ones and then taking some time and effort to see how you'll implement the knowledge into your own life, or at the very least, experiment with it and test it out, then you are training yourself to derive value out of the redpill.

Everything you do is the building of a habit. Everything you decide not to do is the destruction of an old habit.

The moment I realized this, I stopped cheating so much. I stopped cheating my diet, I stopped cheating excercises. Remembering that everything is either building or destruction of a habit is something that I expect has the potential to radically change your life. It did for me. Having test-run this idea for 2 weeks, it's give me so much more than I could have expected.

Here's what it's given these last 2 weeks:

  • Able to work on long term goals for 7 hours a day (previously unless I had a specific external deadline, I reached 3 hours a day)
  • For the first time ever able to keep to a diet as I planned it (I could do 3 out of 7 days before)
  • Able to do solo-workouts daily with ease (I could do no more than 3 a week)
  • Generally act better in the face of fear, being able to do what needs doing regardless of how I feel about it (before I avoided a lot of things)

So it worked for me. Now I want to know if this was just a personal tweak of mindset or a universal one. That's why I'm challenging you. Ask yourself, are you doing the best thing you could be doing right now? Ask yourself that at least 10 times every day for a week. If you're forgetful, set an alarm right now. Write it down, hang it one the wall. Take an action to make sure you remind yourself.

Take it for a testdrive and let me know what results it gives to you. I want to know if this is a personal victory or a universal one to be shared with more people. You are not just helping yourself, you're possibly helping hundreds by being one of the brave and curious to test this out.

I'm really looking forward to your results with doing the best thing you could be doing.

Pay it forward. Let everybody here benefit from your experience.