Self-Discipline -Introduction (Part 1)

The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline

The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. If you take the first letter of each word, you get the acronym “A WHIP” — a convenient way to remember them, since many people associate self-discipline with whipping themselves into shape.

Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. But first a general overview….

What Is Self-Discipline?

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.

Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Picture yourself saying to your body, “You’re overweight. Lose 20 pounds.” Without self-discipline that intention won’t become manifest. But with sufficient self-discipline, it’s a done deal. The pinnacle of self-discipline is when you reach the point that when you make a conscious decision, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll follow through on it.

Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Within the domain of problems it can solve, self-discipline is simply unmatched. Moreover, it becomes a powerful teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning.

Building Self-Discipline

My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger you become. The less you train it, the weaker you become.

Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. Everyone has some — if you can hold your breath a few seconds, you have some self-discipline. But not everyone has developed their discipline to the same degree.

Just as it takes muscle to build muscle, it takes self-discipline to build self-discipline.

The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest.

Similarly, the basic method to build self-discipline is to tackle challenges that you can successfully accomplish but which are near your limit. This doesn’t mean trying something and failing at it every day, nor does it mean staying within your comfort zone. You will gain no strength trying to lift a weight that you cannot budge, nor will you gain strength lifting weights that are too light for you. You must start with weights/challenges that are within your current ability to lift but which are near your limit.

Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge. If you keep working out with the same weights, you won’t get any stronger. Similarly, if you fail to challenge yourself in life, you won’t gain any more self-discipline.

Just as most people have very weak muscles compared to how strong they could become with training, most people are very weak in their level of self-discipline.

It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistently starting the very next day, you’re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.

If you can only lift 10 lbs, you can only lift 10 lbs. There’s no shame in starting where you are. I recall when I began working with a personal trainer several years ago, on my first attempt at doing a barbell shoulder press, I could only lift a 7-lb bar with no weight on it. My shoulders were very weak because I’d never trained them. But within a few months I was up to 60 lbs.

Similarly, if you’re very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that were once impossible for you will eventually seem like child’s play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter.

Don’t compare yourself to other people. It won’t help. You’ll only find what you expect to find. If you think you’re weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you’re strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There’s no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward.

Let’s consider an example.

Suppose you want to develop the ability to do 8 solid hours of work each day, since you know it will make a real difference in your career. I was listening to an audio program this morning that quoted a study saying the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. So there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Perhaps you try to work a solid 8-hour day without succumbing to distractions, and you can only do it once. The next day you fail utterly. That’s OK. You did one rep of 8 hours. Two is too much for you. So cut back a bit. What duration would allow you to successfully do 5 reps (i.e. a whole week)? Could you work with concentration for one hour a day, five days in a row? If you can’t do that, cut back to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If you succeed (or if you feel that would be too easy), then increase the challenge (i.e. the resistance).

Once you’ve mastered a week at one level, take it up a notch the next week. And continue with this progressive training until you’ve reached your goal.

While analogies like this are never perfect, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this one. By raising the bar just a little each week, you stay within your capabilities and grow stronger over time. But when doing weight training, the actual work you do doesn’t mean anything. There’s no intrinsic benefit in lifting a weight up and down — the benefit comes from the muscle growth. However, when building self-discipline, you also get the benefit of the work you’ve done along the way, so that’s even better. It’s great when your training produces something of value AND makes you stronger.

Throughout this week we’ll dive more deeply into the five pillars of self-discipline. If you have any questions on the subject of self-discipline (either specific or general) that you’d like to see addressed, feel free to post them as comments, and I’ll do my best to incorporate them along the way.

by Steve Pavlina

TO BE CONTINUED

About Steve Pavlina

In January 1991, my life was going downhill fast. I'd just been arrested for felony grand theft after a few prior arrests for misdemeanors. I got expelled from college because I ditched most of my classes. I played video games for up to 18 hours at a time. I'd fallen into a pattern of self-destructive, out-of-control behavior.

I didn't know how at the time, but I decided I had to make some serious changes. I really didn't want to spend my adult years wearing orange pajamas.

I began listening to personal development audio programs, and I liked the positive messages they shared. Sometimes I listened to them for 2-3 hours per day. This had a major effect on my attitude, thoughts, and beliefs. I gradually began setting goals, working on my self-discipline, and overcoming bad habits.

Soon I started over at a new college. Thanks to all this positive conditioning, I was able to take triple the normal course load, and I graduated in only 3 semesters with a double major in computer science and mathematics. At graduation I was presented with special award given to the top computer science student. I was amazed at the powerful transformation I went through as a result of exposing myself to daily inspiration.

After college I started a computer games business and ran it for 10 years. For the first 5 years, it was a real struggle. I sank into debt and went bankrupt. But I didn't give up because I understood the value of persistence. I kept going and eventually turned the business around. For the next 5 years, it did very well. Our games won several awards, and we had a write-up and photo published in the New York Times.

As I began to appreciate the amazing payoffs from investing in personal growth, I devoured many more books in the field and eventually read more than 1000 of them. I listened to audio programs and went to seminars to keep learning and growing. Soon I was formulating my own insights to build upon this knowledge -- and to connect the dots between what I'd learned from others and what I'd experienced for myself.

Paying It Forward

I felt a strong desire to "pay it forward", so in 1999 I started writing articles to share what I learned with others.

At first I wrote articles on software development, business, and sales. Later I branched out into time management, organization, and success. I loved receiving feedback from people who applied my ideas to their lives and businesses with positive results. This motivated me to share even more.

I volunteered to serve for a year as Vice President and then another year as President of the non-profit Association of Software Professionals, which gave me an even greater opportunity to give back to the community. Years later I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I'd been voted into the ASP Hall of Fame.

I also launched a discussion forum for game developers on my website. It became very popular, and I loved bringing people together to share ideas, lessons, and insights so that all of us could grow and improve. After several years I handed off that community to some of the members; the last time I checked, it was still up and running.

I began getting invitations to speak at software conferences, and I hosted an indie roundtable for a few years at the Game Developers' Conference. Since indie developers didn't get much respect at the GDC at that time, our roundtable was always assigned the very last time slot on the final day of the conference. I turned that into an advantage though. Since no one needed the room after us, I invited the attendees to stay and hang out as long as they wanted to, or until the clean-up staff finally kicked us out. As a result our 1-hour roundtables turned into 3-hour pow-wows, and people got a lot of value from them. Years later one of the attendees told me that those sessions and the discussion forums I hosted inspired him to build a very successful games business with more than $1 million in annual sales.

A Passion for Personal Growth

I didn't earn any money from all this growth-related work. I sure spent a lot of time on it, but I regarded it as a side hobby. My games business covered all my expenses, so I could afford to continue writing articles, speaking, volunteering, and hosting discussion forums.

To this day I remain a huge advocate of compersion. Compersion is the opposite of jealousy; it means taking pleasure in other people's successes. I love helping people experience those wonderful a-ha moments that precede positive changes. It lights me up inside.

By request I added an archive of my free articles to my games website, so people could access them in one convenient place. These articles got picked up by search engines and began attracting many links and referrals, which brought in thousands of new readers from outside of the software industry. I didn't do anything special to promote these articles, but they kept getting shared by word of mouth.

Soon I was receiving frequent requests to republish my articles in books, magazines, and newsletters, as well as offers to translate them into other languages. I continued receiving positive feedback about these articles from all over the world.

Within a few years, I discovered to my amusement that more people were coming to my website to read my articles than to download our games. During that time CNET also began paying me to write articles for one of their monthly newsletters. This convergence of events encouraged me to seriously think about a career change. Could I actually turn this side hobby into something more?

Gradually I began losing interest in computer games. Writing games was my dream when I was in my early 20s, but after 10 years of living that dream, I was ready for something new. It was becoming obvious I had an emerging talent for inspiring people to make positive changes.

I did some serious soul searching and concluded that I could potentially do a lot more good if I retired from game development. Even within the confines of the gaming industry, I couldn't help but notice that I was helping other developers create and release many more games than I was capable of creating on my own. I also began receiving books and music CDs in the mail from people who told me that I helped inspire them to create these works.

I felt like I was being guided down this path, and with each passing year it became harder to resist it.

Transitioning

In mid-2004 I went to Hay House's I Can Do It! Conference in Las Vegas. As I watched Dr. Wayne Dyer give a beautiful talk about the power of intention, I felt this huge swelling of emotion in the center of my chest. Tears began streaming down my cheeks. It wasn't so much what Dr. Dyer was saying, but the amazing energy of the place and being surrounded by so many growth-oriented people really got to me. I had this undeniably powerful feeling of coming home and realizing where I truly belonged. By the time Dr. Dyer concluded his talk, I had a clear vision that I was supposed to be that guy on the stage, helping to motivate and inspire people.

After the conference I put that vision on the back burner for a while, not really knowing how to take action on it. Honestly I wasn't sure if I was ready for it. But I'd already seen how it was possible to grow into a new vision of myself. Eventually I leaned into it by joining Toastmasters International, so I could start gaining comfort and building more skill in public speaking. I loved Toastmasters and quickly improved, giving dozens of free speeches. Later I joined the local chapter of the National Speakers Association and spoke at some of their meetings too.

In the Fall of 2004, I took notice of the rapidly emerging blogging scene. I saw that blogging could be a terrific new medium for me. No longer would I need to hand-code my articles in HTML and manually add links to them. I could focus on creating new content and let the software handle the formatting and archive management. I thought it was especially cool that people could use a feed reader to subscribe to my RSS feed, so they'd automatically be notified when I published new material. This seemed like a golden opportunity. I couldn't justify any more delays.

I launched StevePavlina.com on October 1st, 2004 and began publishing new articles immediately. I put my games business on the back burner and publicly announced that I was retiring from game development. I decided to scale down the business gracefully, partly so that customers would continue to receive support for games they'd already purchased.

StevePavlina.com quickly took off, and within a couple years it became one of the most popular personal growth websites in the world. I didn't spend any money to promote it, and I had nothing to sell. I simply loved sharing, so I gave away all my best ideas for free. I believed that as long as I kept learning and growing, there would always be new ideas to share and that I'd never run out.

Being in the Flow

I seemed to have a knack for writing articles that people liked sharing, and my web traffic grew quickly from word of mouth. Apparently Google loved my articles too and began listing my new content faster and faster. Soon I saw my latest articles showing up on Google within seconds after I published them. I focused on writing the best articles I could, and I avoided using sneaky search engine optimization tricks. If my articles ranked high in search engines, I wanted to know that they deserved to be there. I had already seen what the something-for-nothing mindset had done for me earlier in life, and I had no desire to revisit it.

StevePavlina.com didn't generate much income at first. During the first six months, it earned $167 total, mostly from Amazon's affiliate program. Eventually I figured out how to make a sustainable living from this kind of work. By 2006 the site was bringing in more than enough money to cover my expenses, and by the end of that year, it was generating more income than my games business ever did. Since then I've continued to experiment with different business models, with my primary aim being long-term sustainability. I want to make sure that financial concerns don't get in the way of contributing.

In October 2006 I completed the shutdown of my games business. I'm sure I could have sold it, but I was so passionate about this new career path that I wanted to keep all my energy moving forward.

About a year after I started blogging, I received a letter in the mail from someone who shared that he was looking for a way to commit suicide when he somehow stumbled upon my website. He said he read my articles for 6 hours straight, and by the time he was done, he no longer wanted to kill himself. Instead he began thinking about his life purpose and what he might be able to contribute to the world. I was deeply touched. Since then I've received countless other stories about how this work has positively affected people, including from those who claimed it saved their lives by restoring hope. I feel very fortunate to be able to help people in this way.

A Beautiful Circle

In 2007 Hay House approached me about doing a book deal, and in 2008 my bookPersonal Development for Smart People was published. The book hit the Amazon.com top 100 list 3 months before it was released, just from the pre-orders. Since then it has been translated into a dozen different languages, including Romanian and Bulgarian.

As a result of that book deal, I ended up speaking at Hay House's I Can Do It!Conference twice. So my vision of being the guy on the stage literally came true. I opened those talks by sharing this story with the audience, and I could tell that people found it inspiring. At one of the speakers' dinners, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Wayne Dyer and to personally thank him for inspiring me. Isn't it beautiful what's possible when we follow our hearts and do what we love?

Since I began blogging in 2004, I've written more than 1000 articles. That's enough to fill 25-30 books. In 2010 I relinquished my copyrights and donated all of my articles (as well as my podcasts) to the public domain. This includes any new articles I write as well. So now you have as much right to all of this content as I do. This means you're free to translate it, republish it, or even repackage and sell it. If you search for my name on Amazon.com, you'll see that lots of people have already released products based on my work. My desire is to help spread conscious growth ideas far and wide, so I consider this a win-win arrangement, even when people make money off my content.

In 2009 I started doing my own 3-day personal growth workshops in Las Vegas, beginning with the Conscious Growth Workshop. Later I added the Subjective Reality Workshop, the Conscious Success Workshop, and the Conscious Relationships Workshop. If I went back in time and told my 19-year old self that I'd be doing this type of work someday, he'd never believe me.

My Philosophy of Personal Growth

My approach to personal growth is extremely hands-on. I love to dive in and conduct my own experiments. Some of these are temporary excursions, while others lead to long-term lifestyle changes. For instance, I went vegetarian in 1993 and vegan in 1997 after conducting  30- dy trials to test these changes. I also ran the L.A. Marathon, trained in martial arts for 4 years, performed in an improv troupe, and experimented with 100% raw vegan diets and polyphasic sleep.

Committing myself to conscious growth has had its share of challenges. In 2009 my wife and I separated after 15 years together, mainly because we grew in different directions. I accept these consequences because I know that personal growth can bring many waves of change. This lifestyle sometimes requires making tough decisions, but it remains immensely fulfilling.

The three principles that form the core of my philosophy are Truth, Love, andPower.

I'm deeply committed to open and honest communication. I feel that in order to grow, we must be willing to look into the dark corners of our lives and bring them to conscious awareness. I don't consider any growth-related topics taboo or off limits. When I feel it's important, I'll gladly write about topics that other writers in this field won't touch. My first commitment is to the truth. I'm not willing to water down my content just to make it more palatable to certain people. I'll gladly suffer some reputational slings and arrows as long as I know I'm communicating with integrity. Truth is truth, whether it's popular or not.

I'm also committed to doing what I love and being happy and fulfilled with my life. I'm not willing to stress myself out, work crazy hours, abuse my health, or take advantage of people. I've already made those kinds of mistakes in years past, and that isn't who I am today. For me this requires setting realistic boundaries and taking time to sharpen the saw. While I like to work hard at times, I also take time off for travel, to enjoy a rich social life, and to relax and have fun.

Finally, I'm committed to empowering people to face their fears and to grow stronger. I believe that everyone has greatness within them, but it takes a lot of inner development work to fully express it. I don't preach overnight success and phony quick fixes. I tell people upfront that personal growth involves a great deal of hard work... and that it's well worth the price.

I know that personal transformation is possible because I've lived it. By making a serious commitment to personal growth, I went from sitting in a jail cell facing felony charges to becoming a globally recognized author, speaker, and personal growth expert. This did not happen overnight. It took 15-20 years to reach this point. But what if I hadn't made this commitment? I might have eventually received a much less pleasant 15-20 year sentence.

My life purpose is:caring deeply, connecting playfully, loving intensely, and sharing generously;
joyfully exploring, learning, growing, and prospering;
and creatively, brilliantly, and honorably serving the highest good of all.

The Message vs. the Messenger

Some people think I'm a bit unusual, which is a valid criticism. I don't find much value in living a "normal" life. I'm willing to be myself and let others determine whether I'm a good match for them.

I haven't had a regular job since 1992. I love to create new streams of passive income via the Internet. I live in Las Vegas and love the vibe of this city. I'm very playful and love to share laughs with people every day. I love women, kissing passionately, D/s play, threesomes, and long cuddle sessions. I love to travel, and I always get excited at the chance to hop on a plane to someplace new. I love meeting new people and feel equally comfortable with introverts and extroverts alike.

Now that you know something about the messenger, I invite you to spend some time with my material to discover what resonates with you. You'll undoubtedly encounter some ideas you love and other ideas that challenge you or push your buttons. That's perfectly normal. If you and I agreed on everything, we'd be the same person. Personal growth is a very individual experience, and no two people react to ideas in quite the same way.

My goal here isn't to try to convince you of anything. My goal is to help you grow in the ways that matter to you.