There is a popular conflation mistaking something else for discipline, and I'm going to clarify both concepts so that you can actually align your Self with discipline and stick to a routine to achieve your long term goals.

Lets start out with the wrong approach taken by most people.

This approach is like whacking a tiger with a small stick. It's mostly useless and you will end up worse off than when you started. Getting eaten by the tiger is a result of attempting to beat a large animal to do your will.

This is failure, and you may know this by the development of self loathing that occurs after years of failures and blaming yourself for it.

The small stick is what most people think discipline is. There's a reason it doesn't work.

Discipline is NOT forcing yourself to do something over and over again.

Endurance is forcing yourself to do something over and over again. That's why the stick is being used in the metaphor. It's literal forcing.

Most people conflate endurance with discipline, and thus they fail.

This common failure births millions of self help bullshit from bullshitters who can't help themselves.

Endurance isn't useless though.

Endurance is useful once you have discipline.

But most people don't have discipline.

They don't have discipline because they are fundamentally at odds with the tiger.

A major part of discipline is learning how to ride and guide the tiger.

WTF does that mean.

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You. Are. The. Motherfucking. Tiger.

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The tiger desires what it wants and takes what it wants from the jungle.

Do you think a powerful beast will just allow anybody to ride it? Especially some idiot who attempts to uselessly beat it with gusto?

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No.

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The way to create discipline is by aligning your will/desire with the tiger.

The first step to doing this is self love.

There are a lot of implications from this.

A common one is that whatever goal you are trying to achieve, you need to do it for yourself and not for other people.

The typical example is diet.

Why are people trying to lose weight, and why do they continuously fail?

Because they are doing it for social validation, not for their Self.

That means they are trying to create change not from a place of self love.

Self love is a sustainable and infinite energy resource, while social validation is like fossil fuel. The latter being toxic and finite, but makes cool sounds when used in a flashy car.

Are you getting the idea?

If you think that's some hocus pocus woo woo hippie bullshit, think about the endurance methodology for goal achievement.

Endurance is a negative reinforcement methodology. And if you've gotten this far, then you likely agree it does not work for n00bs.

The endurance methodology is like a horse rider using his spurs to get the horse to move faster.

You have to be on the horse for it to work.

The average person is so clueless as to the reality of their life situation that they're just standing on solid ground, tied to a horse, and trying to lose weight by click clacking their spurs together as they jump up and down chanting "faster, faster".

Negative reinforcement methods only work if you have already aligned your will with your goals. But the average weak person does not align their will with anything, they are willed by external social forces. This is not a simple matter to undo.

Society, your family, and your stupid past behaviours have trained the tiger to live off cheap dopamine thrills.

Why would a powerful person want to help out a weaker person. You think hitting them helps? Oh yes, of course you DID because that's what children do to parents when they don't get what they want.

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The opposite approach is needed.

You get the tiger on your side by influencing it to realize that your goals are its goals.

The source of this comes from love (the ultimate positive reinforcement), and not negative reinforcement.

Endurance methods don't work when you start out because they fundamentally put you at odds with your Self.

You and the tiger need to be on board with the same goal.

Your desires needs to be the same.

The fastest way to this alignment is through self love.

This is the start of discipline.