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00:01:26.210 Figure Out Where You Are

00:22:58.799 Rock-Solid Principles for Lasting Motivation and Self-Discipline

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• Working with the limitations of your own brain requires an honest appraisal of where you are and how you’re functioning. Make it a habit to routinely assess yourself on the following aspects, on a scale of one to ten: Sense of purpose, the presence of positive mentors, sensory rich vision, self-belief, planning and organization, education and skills, patient perseverance, and the ability to see work as play.

• This kind of self-reflection allows you to see exactly what areas you need to work on and see whether your efforts are resulting in progress.

• Depending on which aspects you identify as under-developed, you can do a lot to improve.

• For a stronger sense of purpose, you’ll need to work on self-knowledge, and dig deep into your genuine values. To find positive mentors, reach out to others and network, or simply ask for help and advice from accomplished people.

• To develop sensory rich vision, make a goal collage or practice visualization to conjure up a vivid, five-sense image of the end you’re aiming for. To increase self-belief, actively court failure and rejection—to prove to yourself that your worth as a person doesn’t stem from these things. Meditation, mindfulness, and self-care also go a long way to cultivating self-compassion.

• To have better planning and organization, start by decluttering both your mind and workspace to cut down on distractions. Set up habits that allow you to atomate, delegate and concentrate.

• To build skills and education, keep reading. Become curious, and ask questions, learning where you can. To improve patience and perseverance, focus on the smallest, sustainable change you can make and keep up every day. To see work as play, change your language. Don’t say, “I have to do XYZ,” but instead say, “I choose to do XYZ.” Remember, nobody is forcing you to be the best version of yourself.

• Focus on a few main principles for lasting motivation. These include not waiting for a right time, taking baby steps, working from intrinsic motivation, avoid temptation outright, cutting distractions, monitoring impulses with mindfulness, visualizing in detail our goal, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and allowing our future selves to advise and guide our present selves.

• Finally, the most important may be to recognize that you will slip up, but will always be ready to forgive, learn from mistakes, and move on to be better next time.

#CullDistractions #FlexYourIntrinsicMotivation #Forgiveness #Gratitude #LastingMotivation #Meditation #Michelangelo #Mindfulness #Motivation #Multiply #Selfbelief #SelfDiscipline #STOPMULTITASKING #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #PeterHollins #TheScienceofSelf #TheNeuropsychologyOfSelf-Discipline

Hello listeners, welcome to The Science of Self on March 29, 2024, where you improve

your life from the inside out.

Today's episode is The Neuropsychology of Self-Discipline, based on the book by Peter

Hollins, and you can find out more information on his website at bit.ly.com.

This episode dives into the nitty-gritty of what makes someone self-disciplined.

We'll explore the key traits and how you can cultivate them in yourself.

From finding your purpose to creating a plan and sticking to it, this episode is packed

with actionable tips to finally achieve those goals.

Understanding how your brain might naturally work against you, and building smart habits

to counteract that cycle is super important when it comes to self-discipline.

But in this chapter, we’ll be taking a look at a few extra, last-resort resources and

small things you can do in everyday life to give you the best chance at actually achieving

the important goals you set for yourself.

Figure Out Where You Are.

Imagine a perfectly self-motivated and disciplined person.

What do they look like?

What is their attitude to life and how do they conduct themselves?

There’s a reason people respond well to inspiration al figures and motivational speakers—their

lives can act as a blueprint for a more productive and self-controlled life.

They’re like models that pave the way, showing us how it’s done (or at least, one way it

could be done!).

Usually, these people are not that dissimilar from one another.

They seem to share a handful of traits and personal characteristics that are fundamental

to their success.

It follows that if we want to act and behave more like them, then we can start by developing

those characteristics in ourselves.

That is, it’s a question of not what to do, but how to be.

The following characteristics signal a disciplined high-achiever in any area of life, and are

essential for succeeding at any chosen goal.

Strong sense of purpose – The big WHY behind everything you do.

Without the fire of purpose, calling or passion behind you, you’re not truly motivated.

To be highly effective and disciplined, your purpose has to be genuine, clear, and come

from within.

Seeks out positive mentors – Your role models matter.

If they don’t have inspirational people around them, the self-disciplined seek them

out, deliberately valuing their support, input and guidance.

They are not jealous or threatened but inspired by others’ success.

Sensory rich vision – People with the discipline to succeed see a vision of their goal—they

literally see it.

And smell it, hear it, almost taste it.

They entertain visions of their own success, rather than dwelling in detail on ideas of

their failure.

They fill their minds not just with powerful positive imagery, but with positive material

on all their five senses.

Their visionary goal is imagined in 3D.

.

Strong belief in self – Those who put their willpower to work bringing their dreams to

life must, at a fundamental level, believe that it’s actually possible, and that they

have it in them to do what it takes.

This may mean self-belief even when nobody else can support your vision.

Crippling self-doubt and low self-esteem, on the other hand, will only interfere with

your self-discipline.

Ability to plan and organize – Of course, it’s not just vision and self-confidence.

People who can get things done are those that plan to get things done.

They know how to plot a course of action and they know how to coordinate and focus their

efforts to achieve that.

Chaos and disorganization can dissipate your energies and waste your time.

High value on education, learning, and skills – For some, education is an obligation,

or at bets a means to an end.

But for high achievers, learning is a way of life, and they relish the chance to develop,

to correct misunderstandings, and to challenge themselves to go further.

Patient perseverance – To find effort and motivation in yourself is one thing, but can

you sustain that level for a prolonged period?

Can you wake up day after day and keep going, even in the face of intermittent or delayed

rewards?

Self-discipline requires enough patience to wait for the results of your actions to bear

fruit, and to keep consistent throughout.

Without this trait, we give up easily and quit things when they don’t work out exactly

as we want first time round, or we look for quick fixes and hacks rather than putting

in the work.

Seeing work as pleasure and play – People who achieve well at their work usually have

a mindset where work is not work, but something enjoyable, interesting, engrossing.

They don’t resent it or find it boring.

In fact, they may have very little distinction between “work” and “play.".

This attitude means that they act from curiosity and inner drives, rather than feeling it’s

a burden placed on them.

So, how do you fare on each of these traits?

Time for a little self-reflection.

You can conduct a mini appraisal of yourself any time you like, to get a good idea of your

weak spots, but also to take note where you’re improving.

When you know what areas need attention, you can plan your progress a little more carefully.

Try this - on each of the following eight characteristics, rate yourself on a scale

of one to ten where one is the lowest or most negative end of the continuum, and ten the

highest.

Sense of purpose .

Positive mentors.

Sensory-rich vision.

Self-belief.

Planning and organization.

Education and skills.

Patient perseverance.

Seeing work as play.

You can add up your scores for each characteristic for a global score and then compare this in

time, or you could do a few self-assessments over the course of a few weeks or months to

see how you’re developing in any one area.

Naturally, doing a self-assessment is just a snapshot.

It takes real honesty, and it’s not enough on its own—you need to take what insights

you glean from it and actually make proactive changes.

It may feel a little silly at first, but if you can concretely see the improvement in

an area, in numbers, you may feel more empowered and confident in the steps you’re taking

to be more disciplined.

Similarly, if you’re trying a new technique or method and after three months’ notice

no improvement, you can safely conclude that it’s not right for you, knowing that your

decision is honest and data-driven, rather than just being procrastination or an excuse.

Bringing Self-Discipline Traits to Life .

Let’s look in more detail at how we can actually develop some of these traits in ourselves.

There are practical ways to improve in each dimension, or all of them, and often improvement

in one will spur and support improvement in another.

For our purposes, let’s say that our main goal is to create motivation and inspiration.

We want to spark and grow that passion, energy and even obsession required to build our dreams

and get to work on what we care about.

Motivation and inspiration are emotional reactions, but they are also a result of the traits discussed

above.

If we are deficient in any of them, there’ll be a corresponding weakening in our overall

sense of energy and motivation.

So, being fired up with passion and purpose is not something we can directly cause in

ourselves.

However, we can indirectly create the right conditions in which our passion can ignite—and

we can do it with conscious creation and self-discipline, one action at a time.

Let’s take a look at the eight traits again and a few tips and tricks for developing each

within yourself.

Sense of Purpose .

The tricky thing with this is that nobody can tell you what feels meaningful or worthwhile

to you.

It really has to come from within.

Many people embark on what they think is a self-discipline program, but in reality, they

have merely substituted the teacher or facilitator’s vision for their own, assuming that they want

the same things that they do.

To strengthen your sense of purpose, you need one thing - self-knowledge.

You need to know with honesty and clarity who you are, what makes you tick what values

matter (and which ones don’t matter!) and what ultimately drives you.

Bear in mind, though, that this can change with time.

What felt like our life purpose at fifteen may not feel that way at thirty-five.

That’s why we need to constantly reappraise so that we can fine tune and readjust, making

sure our goals are OUR goals and align with us as individuals.

Therapy always helps with self-discovery, but there are some easy ways to remind yourself

of what your purpose is.

Ask yourself

-

•If you suddenly won the lottery, what would you do?

What does your answer say about what you ultimately value in life?

•What would you like your obituary to say about you?

•In the past, when you’ve been fiercely motivated to work on something, what was driving

you?

•Who do you admire most, and what about them speaks to you?

Is anything of them in you, too?

•Which activities most allow you to get into a “flow”?

Once you’ve identified your values, purposes, and deeper guiding principles, write them

down somewhere.

These are like your compass to guide you back home when you’re lost and floundering.

Positive Mentors.

Let’s be honest, not everyone is blessed with good role models.

In fact, most of us are likely surrounded by those who have been modeling passive, negative

behaviors to us all our lives, or else we find ourselves in situations where we are

unable to develop into our full potential.

Luckily, we can choose.

If you rated yourself quite low on this characteristic, take heart that there is a lot you can do

to invite quality people into your world.

There is a saying that you eventually resemble the five people you most spend time with.

Whether this is true or not, there’s no doubt that our sense of identity, our habits

and our mindsets are powerfully influenced by those around us.

Here’s a two-step activity to try and raise your score in this area.

Firstly, try to identify anyone who is actively holding you back.

You know the kinds of people—pessimistic, critical, sabotaging, or just plain mean,

they are the people who will work against your efforts to improve yourself and reach

your dreams.

Your goal here is obvious - reduce contact or eliminate them from your life completely,

if possible.

Of course, critics and people who disagree are not necessarily toxic people, if their

disagreement inspires us or encourages us to be better.

Next, identify those people that don’t add much to your life.

Perhaps they’re there because they’ve always been there, but they neither hinder

nor advance your overall goals.

These people are great to have around, but you should try to prioritize spending time

with those who more actively support and teach you, or who you enjoy mentoring.

Finally, the third group includes those who are on your side, and are there providing

guidance, help, support or can teach you something.

Even better if it’s a mutual benefit!

These are the kinds of people to prioritize in life.

Attend networking events, seek out people in groups or clubs who are doing the same

thing as you, or even consider asking someone more advanced or accomplished to give you

advice or help.

Sensory-Rich Vision.

Good plans matter, but before good plans comes a good vision.

Ask any creator about their magnum opus and many of them will say that they saw the vision

fully completed in their mind’s eye first, long before they took the first step to bring

it to life.

Every innovator first sees a vision of what could be, and then works toward that.

But don’t get too attached to the word “vision”—you have so many more sense that just sight!

Enlist all your senses to conjure up an image of what you want to achieve, Make it real

in your mind.

Dwell on every detail.

The thing is, people who self-sabotage, procrastinate, and operate below their potential do this

anyway—except they do it negatively.

They vividly imagine scenarios of total failure.

They dwell on possibilities—but only on the negative ones.

This only fosters fear, doubt, anger, and apathy.

Rather than being in a curious, proactive, creative, and receptive frame of mind, you’re

homing in on problems, almost setting yourself up for a bad outcome.

Set up a “vision board” where you paste collaged images that make you think of your

goal.

Position your board where you can see it constantly.

Alternatively, spend time actively visualizing end goals, in detail.

With closed eyes, focus all your attention on what it will look and feel like once you

have accomplished your goal.

Conjure up this sensory image with as much detail as possible.

You may find that the vision is not as clear as you once assumed!

Flesh out the details and you automatically sharpen up your goal—and adjust your plan

for getting there.

Self-belief.

If your self-esteem is in the dumps, you won’t sustain motivation for very long.

There are three main things you can do to take better care of your self-esteem.

The first is to acknowledge and face rejection and failure, i.e. become to it.

The second is to know how to self-monitor and give yourself a pep talk when necessary.

The third is to practice self-care and gratitude—two things that have more in common than it may

seem on the surface.

The prospect of failure, rejection or criticism can be behind our fear of trying.

We weigh ourselves against the challenge ahead and find ourselves lacking.

But we may undervalue ourselves and overvalue the challenge, or else wrongly assume that

failure is the end of the world and something we can’t possibly endure.

But is it?

Rather than bolstering yourself by saying how everything is going to be okay, do the

opposite - say that you might actually fail ...but so what?

You can handle it, you can try again, and failure doesn’t define you.

In fact, you love failure because it’s the kindest teacher.

Mediation and mindfulness practice can help you keep a tab on your most precious resource

of all—your mindset.

If you notice yourself feeling doubtful or self-critical, remind yourself that you have

absolute worth and value whether you succeed or not.

What matters is your attitude and your actions.

Keep curious, chin up, and keep going.

Finally, make sure your self-care is in order.

Take enough rest.

Be kind to yourself and learn to appreciate everything you have and are even as you’re

on the road to something bigger and better.

Gratitude and compassion can make all the difference.

Planning and Organization.

This is one of the easier aspects to cultivate in yourself.

•Tidy your desk and workspace—clutter drains your willpower and your focus.

•Install apps on your PC or phone that prevent you from browsing the internet during fix

periods, forcing you to focus on the task at hand.

•Print out a large calendar to keep track of your month at a glance.

•Commit to focusing on a maximum of three tasks per day, no more.

Schedule these for the time you feel most energetic and deprioritize everything else

.

•As far as possible, automate smaller admin tasks so you don’t have a million little

things to remember and can focus on the bigger picture.

•Be ruthless with paper—when you encounter a piece, act on it instantly (for example

file it away) or get rid of it.

•At the end of every week, sped a few moments writing down what you achieved, what you didn’t,

what you did well, and what you could do better.

Ask what did not help forward your mission, and make a plan to remove or eliminate it

in the coming week.

•As much as you can, delegate.

A big part of staying organized is making sure you’re not putting too much on your

plate.

•Remember the 80/20 rule—around twenty percent of your actions are producing eighty

percent of your results.

Keep an eye on that twenty percent, and downplay everything else.

•If you do nothing else on this list, STOP MULTITASKING.

Instead, do “deep work” and focus—it’s better to do one thing extremely well than

to fritter away time on a hundred smaller projects.

Education and Skills.

It’s a little ironic—human beings want to be better, to improve and expand their

horizons ...but they are also fearful of change, hate not knowing things, and don’t want

to ever risk failure.

Seems silly, huh?

Valuing education is about embracing the fact that if you’re alive, you’re always a

newbie in some way or another.

Learning involves a degree of discomfort, awkwardness, and effort.

You can only access the benefits of further training and education if you’re willing

to do accept these.

To foster a real love and respect for learning, you need to make an effort.

Push yourself.

At the end of every week or month, ask yourself what you’ve learned.

What are you curious about?

Make a note and identify the ways you can learn more.

Who knows more than you about this topic and what questions can you ask them?

What does your failure tell you about how best to try again next time?

The next time you encounter something that looks challenging or too difficult, instead

of shrugging and turning away from it, assume that you can understand it, with just a little

effort.

Enroll in free online courses to brush up on skills.

See a new word in an article?

Look it up in the dictionary.

If someone says something interesting, don’t pretend to know about it already to save face—ask

them to tell you more.

Opportunities to learn are literally everywhere—go online, get interested in a hobby, or dig

deeper into those parts of your life that seem mysterious or difficult.

Oh, and there’s on sure fire way to keep learning - read.

Disciplined high achievers almost always share the same habit of reading, every day if possible.

Patient Perseverance.

Doing all the above means nothing if you only keep it up for an afternoon and then wonder

why your life is not magically transformed.

Abandon the need for quick fixes and overnight success.

There are no hacks or cheat codes (in fact, things that seem that way often cost more

in the long run).

Instead, ask yourself regularly, “What’s the smallest, sustainable change I can make?".

Not the biggest quantum leap, not the grandest plan.

But the action you can comfortably repeat day after day, month after month.

Think in terms of habits and behavioral change rather than flashy one-off achievements.

Focus on process and not outcome.

For example, every day you could commit to walking for thirty minutes.

You’re not committing to running a marathon or losing fifty pounds.

All you have to focus on each day is walking thirty minutes, that’s it.

You may certainly build up to the marathon or gradually lose all that weight, but that’s

not what you focus on each day, each moment.

Just take a baby step each day, then repeat it the next day.

Biting off more than you can chew only means you give up sooner!

If your motivation is really flagging, it’s fine to take a break.

But make it productive.

Ask yourself if your goals and approach are really working, see if you can make any adjustments,

and give yourself a fixed time to get back on the horse.

Seeing Work as Play.

Watch your language!

Don’t say, “I have to do XYZ,” but instead say, “I choose to do XYZ.

” In fact, don’t call it work at all, if you can.

You’re learning, creating, growing.

If possible, use certain gamification strategies to bring more fun and spontaneity into your

“work.".

Work outside for the afternoon or try a completely different approach.

Experiment, play, and see what happens.

Remember, nobody is forcing you to be self-disciplined.

Rather, it’s something you are deliberately pursuing because part of you already knows

that, ultimately, life feels far more meaningful that way.

Rock-Solid Principles for Lasting Motivation and Self-Discipline.

There is no ideal time to start.

“Great,” you think, “this all sounds like a good idea.

I’ll give it a go sometime.”

So many hopes and dreams die in that strange no-man’s land called “someday.".

How many of us waste time and energy because we believe in holding out for some better

moment to start somewhere far off in the future?

The status quo is comfortable, familiar, and already full in swing.

It takes effort and discomfort to break that momentum.

When you start telling yourself all the reasons why you can’t begin yet?

That’s just plain old resistance.

The right moment never actually comes, and in waiting for it, you delay starting indefinitely.

You might think that it makes more sense to wait until things would be easier.

You can’t begin writing your novel just yet because work is chaotic and will die down

next month.

Or you’ll start applying for jobs soon but wait till the weekend when you have the time.

Or worse, you’ll just wait for things to improve in a general sort of way ....

But the outcome is obvious—later down the line, there is some other reason preventing

you from taking action, and so on forever.

The only wait forward is to act.

Act even if you’re unsure, even if you don’t feel prepared (hint - you never will), and

even if you’re a bit scared.

The whole point of taking a big step out your comfort zone is that it’s unfamiliar and

a little scary.

Wait for it to not be scary and you’ll be waiting a long, long time.

But go easy on yourself; you don’t have to do it all at once, and you don’t have

to do it perfectly.

You don’t even have to like it as you do it!

You just have to do it.

In that sense, there’s a lot less pressure on you than you maybe thought.

Just take one small action in the right direction, and do not allow yourself to wriggle out of

it.

Waiting for the ideal moment is a trick of the perfectionist mind.

It speaks to an intolerance for being in process, for doing things inelegantly, or making mistakes.

Think of it this way, though—the first stages of any endeavor often are embarrassing, difficult,

slow, awkward or a little unpleasant.

Why put all that off, when you could start now and get it over and done with?

That brings us to -

Baby Steps, Not Quantum Leaps.

Yes, you want to have a full vision of the end point.

You need to know the goal you’re striving for and hold it in your mind.

But in the day to day, you can actually forget about all the grand plans and big ideas.

That’s because even the grandest plan is small, when seen on the day-to-day level.

Think of Michelangelo painting the Sistine chapel—some days he would have spent just

working on a tiny, unimpressive square inch, only to erase it again later.

You need to zoom out and have big vision, but you also need to zoom in and focus on

all the tiny, countless steps that carry you bit by bit toward that big vision.

If you only see the big vision all the time, you might feel completely overwhelmed with

the daily tasks.

How demotivating to see how much there is to still do!

But if you dwell on this too long, you don’t even begin.

When you pace yourself with small, achievable tasks that are done regularly and consistently,

you build habits, which then work on their own, without the constant injection of willpower.

What’s more, you don’t get discouraged, because every day you are not tasked with

making a huge transformation—you just have to clear what’s on your plate and start

again fresh tomorrow.

Taking baby steps keeps you psychologically motivated and with good forward momentum,

so you don’t stall and give your old habits a chance to settle in again.

Even if you only advance the tiniest bit, you still advance.

Multiply that over a month or a year, and it quickly adds up.

So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed or discouraged, just stop, take a breath, and break things

down into smaller chunks.

Do one chunk.

Just one.

If it still seems insurmountable, break it down further.

If you’re massively procrastinating on doing a project, tell yourself you don’t have

to do anything more than a minute of it, right now.

Don’t think about it, just start.

Tell yourself you can stop after one minute.

The thing is, when you get to the end of the minute, you have another choice - can you

do one more minute?

Maybe you can’t.

But chances are, you can.

Somehow, it’s easier to do sixty small increments this way rather than forcing yourself to sit

down for a full hour.

In practice, momentum takes over after a while and you find the resistance drops away.

But you have to take that first step.

Flex Your Intrinsic Motivation, Not Your Extrinsic .

Here’s the difference.

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside, i.e. from rewards or punishments that come from

others or the environment, while intrinsic motivation comes from within you, i.e. from

your own motivation, passion, or commitment.

So, if a child does their homework because they enjoy the material and like the satisfaction

of mastering the task, that’s intrinsic motivation.

It’s also intrinsic motivation if they feel fundamentally unworthy and are trying to prove

to themselves that they can do it.

But if the child does it because they’ll get in trouble with the teacher if they don’t,

or because they like the praise they receive from their parents when they do, this is extrinsic

motivation.

In life, people are motivated to do things for a mix of complex reasons, some of them

not understandable, even to them.

But on the whole, when it comes to self-discipline and motivated life, you need to aim for intrinsic

motivation.

But let’s be honest, being driven by greed, fear, peer pressure, and so on will get you

somewhere, at least initially.

Employees do work under the threat of being fired if they don’t, and much good has been

accomplished in the world even if for all the wrong reasons!

How can we apply this knowledge?

There is nothing wrong with extrinsic motivators, but they are seldom enough on their own, and

the effect they produce is rarely sustained.

Extrinsic motivation is great to use for tasks you simply cannot muster sincere motivation

for, like brushing your teeth daily or clearing your gutters in winter.

You don’t need to be passionate about either of these tasks, you just need to do them,

and if fear of what happens if you don’t is all that motivates you, so be it.

But for more important areas of life, intrinsic motivation is more appropriate.

You need to be connected to your values, to your big WHY, and if you aren’t, chances

are you’re working with external motivation.

Periodically ask yourself, “What’s driving me right now?".

Intrinsic or extrinsic motivators can be either positive or negative, or a blend.

But you need to understand what is powering your action and take control.

This requires honesty and self-awareness.

Ask yourself

-

•Would I continue to do this if I wasn’t paid or nobody noticed/cared?

•Do I find value in this activity itself, or am I just doing it to get to the end result?

•Am I acting out of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, or a desire for approval?

•What are my goals and values, and are these mine or did I borrow them from someone else?

Lead Yourself Not into Temptation.

The world is made of it.

Every supermarket is bursting with addictive, unhealthy food.

You carry around a mobile phone expressly designed to capture and hold your attention

no matter what.

There is constant distraction and the invitation to indulge in seemingly endless desires.

Friends and family might lure you away from your best laid plans, or you may succumb to

an extra episode of whatever addictive show is on Netflix, or you simply bounce from one

compulsive habit to the next, your willpower slackening all the while.

It's a fact of life.

Temptation is not going away.

So, we need to learn to deal with it.

Willpower is a limited quantity and needs to be budgeted wisely.

You can bravely resist in the face of temptation, but only for so long.

A far better strategy is to position yourself so that you’re exposed to as little temptation

as possible from the outset.

In other words, avoid it.

Make it easier to stick to your commitments than to give in to temptation.

The classic example is to simply not keep unhealthy snacks at home to stop yourself

guzzling them.

In effect, you’re allowing yourself to have unhealthy snacks—but only if you get in

your car and go out and buy them there and then.

So, it’s too hard to act without discipline, and acting with discipline is the default.

Set up as much of your life in this was as possible.

•Cut your credit card in half, give it to someone else to keep, or freeze it (yes, in

a block of ice in the freezer!) so you can’t access it easily ad overspend.

•Put your alarm on the other side of the room so you need to physically get up to turn

it off and avoid the temptation to lay in bed hitting snooze a dozen times.

•If you’re tempted to be unfaithful, avoid that person entirely.

(Not the nicest topic, but you get the idea—why give yourself the chance to creep closer and

closer to what you know is a bad idea?).

An important final tip - if you do give in to temptation?

No big deal.

Forgive yourself, quickly, and get right back on the wagon.

Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up with guilt and shame ...and then say something

like, “Well, I’ve already ruined everything, might as well give up!".

Don’t let a small temptation turn into a bigger one.

Cull Distractions.

You already know not to multitask, and to put your focus into ideally just one project

at a time.

Light beams, when focused onto a single point, act like a laser, which can cut through metal.

When unfocused, those same light beams are weak and diffuse, barely even illuminating

what they fall on.

In a way, being focused and being self-disciplined are one and the same thing.

Discipline is the constant effort required to pull all the light beams into one place,

in essence saying no to countless distractions so you can say yes to the single goal you’ve

identified as more valuable.

Here's a hard-to-swallow truth - many of us don’t even realize a) that our attention

is being derailed and b) what exactly is derailing it.

The first step is to simply recognize that your mind is being pulled away from its task,

and the next is to identify what is the cause.

Only when you’ve done both of these things can you do anything to reclaim your attention

again.

Sadly, the modern world is designed to distract, numb, and pacify you—exactly the opposite

state of mind required to reach your goals.

Common distractions include phones and devices (turn them to silent, put them in another

room, or disable notifications), TV (turn it off immediately once your show is finished,

or avoid it completely), or an environment that is uncomfortable and cluttered (use noise

canceling earphones, put up a Do Not Disturb sign, or clear your desk so it only contains

materials for the task at hand).

Slow down and become hyperconscious of where your attention is going.

Get into the habit of asking yourself, “Is this what I want to be focusing on right now?”

Monitor Impulses with Mindfulness.

To extend the idea about distraction, use the power of mindfulness to watch your fleeting

attention, and see where it goes and why.

Meditation and mindfulness practice are great for whatever ails you, but they’re especially

useful if you feel that your mind is buys, fractured, uncontrolled, or overrun with impulses

it can’t resist.

Try this.

Set a timer for yourself, let’s say ten minutes, where you logically know that the

only thing you need to worry about is the project in front of you, whatever it is.

Now, watch your attention.

Notice if any impulses arise to switch focus to something else (check your phone, open

a new browser to look at YouTube, go look for a snack ...).

Tell yourself that during these ten minutes, you don’t have to work on your project,

but you absolutely cannot do anything else.

If your mind wanders, notice it, and bring it back to task again.

It’s just for ten minutes (actually, this will seem like eternity if you’re used to

getting distracted!).

Try to notice that impulses are just that—brief moments of desire that die away again pretty

quickly.

Also notice that you’re not compelled to follow each and every one of them.

The more you can practice looking at an urge objectively and calmly deciding not to pursue,

the less of a hold distractions will have on you.

You can simply shrug and say, “Oh, hello, distraction.

Are you well?

Great.

Now go away.”

Practicing formal meditation will help strengthen this muscle even further.

Keep bringing awareness to temptations and distractions and then consistently decide

where you want to put your awareness.

There’s no need for judgment or interpretation, however (“You’re such a distractable idiot.

Focus for heaven’s sake!”); simply notice and adjust.

Your focused attention is like any muscle—it strengthens with consistent use.

Make Friends with Discomfort.

Let’s say you make a plan to lose weight and fill your head with the lovely end result

- you feeling slim and trim and pleased with yourself.

You start a diet and exercise plan, and you feel great, but at the first hurdle, you stumble

and go back to your old ways.

Why?

It’s because of the clash between that great feeling (“Hooray, I lost weight!”) and

the cold hard reality of obstacles, challenge, and discomfort getting in your way (“Hm,

this gym membership is more expensive than I thought ...”).

In other words, you didn’t expect discomfort, so you were thrown off course when it appeared.

But the thing is, it always does appear!

By definition, leaving our comfort zone is uncomfortable.

Yes, you’re going to feel great when you achieve your goal ...but in the meantime,

you’re probably going to feel worse than if you’d done nothing at all.

Read that last sentence again - improving yourself or seeking out a goal is going to

be more uncomfortable than the status quo.

This is not a flaw, but a feature.

If you don’t anticipate and plan for it, it will undermine you every time.

What can you do to get around this?

Do the opposite - don’t just anticipate discomfort, but relish it.

Seek it out.

When you go on a diet, don’t fill your head with images of how great it’ll be to be

thinner; instead, dwell on the fact that you will sometimes feel hungry, lazy, or tempted

to give up.

You release the hold these feelings have on you when you can accept them and prepare for

them.

See discomfort as evidence of change.

If you feel stupid, good—it’s a sign you’re in the perfect environment to learn.

Those pangs and aches and worries and doubts?

Welcome them—they are the price you are paying for striving for better.

See what happens if you take a cold shower on purpose.

See what it feels like to delay gratification for a while.

Laugh at yourself if you feel scared or lazy.

After all, it’s only discomfort—it won’t kill you!

Use the Power of Visualization.

Let’s return to the goal of losing weight.

On the one hand, you have the enticing vision of you at your goal weight, on the other hand

you have a temptation right in front of you—let’s say an enormous slice of cake your friend

has just offered you.

Often, we choose the immediately satisfying option instead (cake, now) over the one that

will materialize later (reaching our goal) simply because we are unable to really appreciate

the value of the goal that is delayed in the future.

In other words, we often choose one hundred dollars now instead of two hundred dollars

later—it’s not logical, but our brain has a bias for immediate gratification, overvaluing

what’s right in front of us.

The human tendency is to undervalue those benefits that only materialize in the future.

We focus only on the present—and actually, judging by what’s in the moment alone, a

piece of cake IS better than no piece of cake!

But you can see that in doing this, you are basically giving yourself up to the noisiest

and most alluring distraction or temptation in your immediate environment.

It’s a recipe for lack of focus and lack of purpose.

What you get is a string of temporarily pleasing moments but zero sense of anything amounting

to much in the long term.

There’s one good way to counteract this - use your imagination.

By visualizing your end goal with clarity, you bring the benefits more concretely into

the present moment.

So, the comparison is really - do you want this nice cake, or do you want to feel fit,

healthy, and attractive after you’ve lost weight?

This is a much more realistic way of looking at things.

A good habit is to teach yourself to pause before any decision and recall your goals

and intentions.

Go quiet within and conjure up the image of what you’re trying to accomplish and why.

Build this up internally.

Feel how much you want it.

See how good it’s going to be once you get there.

Now open your eyes and look at the temptation—is it really worth you derailing all your plans

for?

Let Your Future Self Lead You.

A variation on this is to pay attention to the version of you that will arise if you

achieve your goal.

Imagine the person who you’d like to become, the one in a potential future who has achieved

what you want to achieve.

Spend some time fleshing this person out.

What are they doing, thinking, feeling?

Where do they live, who are they with?

In as much detail as possible, visualize this imaginary future you.

Now, let this version of yourself give your present version of yourself a pep talk.

You see, in the moment, it’s the urges, addictions and transient desires that speak

the strongest, but what would your future self say about the slice of cake?

What advice would they give you?

From that point of view, look at your options, and make a decision.

By doing this, you’re again bringing the intangible and abstract future into the present

where you can weigh it up properly.

You might gobble the cake in the moment, and love it, but it’s your future self who feels

bad about it and guilty for yet again sabotaging their bigger, more important goals.

So listen to that voice instead.

It's easy to look at temptations for their immediate virtues and forget about their future

costs.

Invert this and deliberately downplay the instant gratification and amplify the long-term

consequences.

So, when you look at a piece of cake, you don’t see something delicious and amazing;

you see the guilt, bad feeling, and lack of belief in yourself for not having discipline.

You see yourself starting all over again, no closer to your goal than you were before.

Suddenly, the cake doesn’t look all that great.

Know How to Bounce Back after You Mess Up.

Yes, you will face distractions.

Yes, you will encounter discomfort.

The path will be slow and sometimes boring, with little reward in the present moment.

And here’s another thing - you will make a mistake.

On your journey, expect that you will succumb at some point or other to temptation, or you

will take three steps back after taking two forward.

Now, this doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.

It isn’t a sign that the goal you’ve set is too hard, or evidence that you’d better

just give everything up and not even bother.

It’s not permission to slack or make excuses for yourself, and it’s not an invitation

to turn a small slip up into a big one (i.e.

“I’ve had one slice of cake already.

What’s another?”).

It's just a normal, expected part of the process.

You’re not wrong or bad; you’re just trying to do something intrinsically difficult—change.

Things won’t always go to plan.

Sometimes you’ll fall a little short or be disappointed in the outcome.

Sometimes you’ll be tired or frustrated or disorganized and not do as well as you

imagined.

So what?

Forgiveness in these moments is not an excuse—the opposite in fact.

It’s the state of mind that allows you to get back into things as quickly as possible.

If you’re wallowing in self-pity or self-hatred, you’re only delaying getting back to work.

You can feel upset, certainly, but don’t let that stop you from getting proactive - acknowledge

that you failed, look for the reason why, and commit to doing better next time.

There really is no other way forward.

Life will knock you down sometimes, but the longer you stay down, the easier it is for

old mental habits to take hold again.

Don’t skip a beat or lose any momentum, just get back up again and carry on.

Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself—it says, “Yes, that was bad, but I’m going

to let the negativity go and focus on the good.".

And then you do it.

Don’t aim for perfection—perfection is fragile, impossible, anxiety-provoking.

Instead, tune your attention to what can be done right now to get you facing the right

direction and walking back on your right path again.

You may be surprised just how comforting it is to take back control in this way.

Thanks for joining us on The Science of Self.

Be sure to check out the author's website at bit.ly-PeterHollins, and we'll see you

next time.