Use This Secret Ninja Tactic To Strengthen Your Self-Discipline
Hey.
Have you ever caught yourself mindlessly doing some boring chore (that didn’t even really need to be done) just so you could put off the thing you knew you should be doing?
I was a champion at doing this.
One second, I’d be thinking of hitting the gym… a few seconds later I’d find myself doing laundry. Or the dishes. Or yardwork. Or checking emails.
I may have even laid down to watch part of a TV series I’d been neglecting.
So, yea, I had a hard time consistently sticking to a workout program.
I had an even harder time sticking to a healthy eating program.
It’s tough.
Both of them.
But here’s the thing…
You Can Strengthen Your Self-Discipline Muscles.
Yep, you read that right.
Self-discipline is nothing more than an untrained muscle. It’s the scrawny bicep within your brain that has withered away from years of neglect.
But here’s the good news.
You can strengthen your self-discipline.
Doing this was a complete game changer for me, so if you’re having the same problem sticking to your goals then I think figuring out how to build up your self-discipline will help you as well.
Let’s jump in…
Here’s The Super Ninja Tactic That Helped Me Strengthen My Self-Discipline
Have you ever heard of Duolingo?
It’s a language learning app.
A while back I was using the app to learn Spanish, and I got a bit addicted.
For those not familiar with Duolingo, it’s an app you download onto your phone, and it allows you to take quick and simple lessons to learn a new language.
Each lesson only takes somewhere between two to five minutes. They’re super easy and convenient, but here’s the weird thing…
Whether I wanted it or not, everyday I’d get a strange notification on my phone from Duolingo.
It would look something like this…
Every single day Duolingo would send me one of these notifications reminding me of my daily streak for completing a Spanish lesson.
Now this is going to sound weird and stupid and I understand that it makes no logical sense but there were many days when I’d go completely out of my way to ensure my streak did not end.
If needed, I’d hide from the crowds and hunker down in a bathroom so I could knock out my Duolingo lesson and protect my streak.
It was weird, for sure.
Even when I no longer wanted to further my language learning, I still found it difficult to stop.
That’s when I realized that when you have a goal and your goal is based on consistency and not quitting, then a streak grows to strange levels of importance in your brain.
It’s a powerful motivator.
Here’s how I used the power of streaks to keep me consistent with my weight loss and fitness routine.
First things first, I made the tasks as easy as humanly possible.
Imagine if I would have first opened the Duolingo app and the first lesson was two hours long and the assignment was to look up fifty Spanish verbs and then use all the verb conjugations in five different sentences for each verb.
The next day’s lesson was going to be more of the same.
I’ll tell you now, my streak would have lasted all of five seconds.
Trying to start like that…with that level of extreme difficulty…
It makes zero logical sense.
No one is going to stick with it. Not for the long term.
But this is exactly how normal people all over the planet choose to start a fitness and weight loss program.
They want to start as difficult as possible.
They want to start with HITT training, or with a hard-core super restrictive diet. They want to punish themselves in the gym. They want to walk from the gym hunched over, sweat pouring down their face. They want to brag about how sore their thighs are the next day.
They want to hurt.
I mean…
What The Hell????
Normal people are nuts.
But as nutty as they may be, I get why they do this.
Heck, I did it too. For many, many years.
It’s because normal people worldwide are focusing only on the immediate goal rather than focusing on the process of obtaining the goal.
They want to do everything now, thinking that by doing so it will get them to their goal quicker.
But in reality, they are only making things so difficult now that both their brain and their body will not be able to handle the long term process of continuing.
And to stay fit and in good shape, you have to continue the process.
Today.
And tomorrow.
And the next day.
And the next.
And the moment your foot comes off the gas and the cookies go back in your mouth, that’s when you’re depressed and buying a bigger pant size again.
That’s when you have to start over.
Normal people do this.
They’re continuously in a cycle of starting and stopping, of trying this and then trying that, of looking for the newest workout, the newest supplement, the newest diet that will give them their dream body now.
Unfortunately, they will be going through this cycle forever, always searching until they finally give up and accept their excuses as reality.
Don’t fall into this trap.
Don’t do the normal things that all the normal people are doing.
Be different.
The first different thing I did was to start with a task so freaking easy that my mind could not possibly come up with a valid justification for not completing the task.
And trust me, even when the task is ridiculously easy your mind will sometimes still hee and haw.
And your mind is one savage negotiator.
It’s like a five year old in a toy store. Nagging and begging and pleading until it eventually gets its way.
Give your mind two or three weeks of going to the gym and doing those grueling workouts and it will revolt. It will suddenly remind you of how important it is to do the laundry. Or the dishes. Or the yardwork. Or to check the emails.
It will insist that you need to lay down and finish watching the TV series you’ve been neglecting.
It will barter. It will conjole. It will beg.
And that is your brain’s job. To keep you away from the things that will cause you pain and discomfort, and to bring you closer towards the things that will give you pleasure and safety.
Your brain does not want to start as difficult as possible.
That is not it’s job. That goes against it’s very nature.
If you don’t enjoy HITT training, then your brain is going to give you a million different reasons why HITT training should not be done consistently.
If you do not associate a hard-core super restrictive diet as pleasurable, then your brain’s job is to keep you away from doing it.
Your brain doesn’t want to punish itself in the gym. It doesn’t want to walk from the gym hunched over with sweat pouring down its face. Your brain doesn’t want to brag about how sore its thighs are the next day.
Your brain doesn’t want to hurt.
Consciously, you want these things because you think they will bring you to your goal quicker, but unconsciously your brain does not want to do these things because they are painful and cause discomfort.
And here’s the BIG lesson I learned:
If You Are Always Fighting Against Yourself, Then You Will Never Win.
So in order to win the war against weight loss you must become an ally with your brain.
In order to do this, it’s imperative that you start your streak with simplicity.
Again, the way I did this was to start with a task that was so freaking easy that my brain could not possibly come up with a valid justification for not completing the task.
For me it was pushups.
For you it may be something else.
I don’t mind doing pushups.
Sounds weird but I kinda enjoy pushups.
Now I don’t enjoy them to the point where I go out every Saturday night and do pushups at a fancy restaurant and then do more pushups during the preview at the movie theater.
I’m not an idiot about pushups.
I don’t necessarily love doing any exercises, but my goal was to get in the best shape of my life, so I knew I had to do something.
So I committed to starting with pushups. Because I don’t hate them and I don’t consider them to be complicated or backbreaking.
On the morning of Tuesday, November 08th, 2022, I did 10 pushups, then I waited one minute, did another 10 pushups, waited one minute, then I did 17 more pushups.
And then I went to work.
The next morning, I did the exact same thing. 10, then 10, then 17 more pushups.
I was not killing myself. It was not punishing. I was not pouring sweat when I left the house. I didn’t go to bed dreading having to do my three sets of pushups the next morning. I wasn’t waking that next morning and thinking of how I should take out the garbage instead of doing my pushups.
It was relatively easy.
It took all of about four minutes.
Some days, there was a slight grumble from my brain about not wanting to do this. But it’s easy to silence those thoughts when you can counter with: “It’s literally only three measly sets of pushups that take less than five minutes to complete.”
Not even my moody brain could muster a winning rebuttal against doing something that was so painless, quick, and easy.
Today, this morning before I left the house for work, 08NOV2023, I did my three sets of pushups.
I do more now, because I can do more. I’ve gotten stronger. Now it’s 20 pushups, wait one minute, do 20 more pushups, wait one minute, then I do 28 pushups.
I do them regardless of where I’m at. If I’m at home, I do them first thing in the morning. If I’m at a hotel, first thing in the morning. If I’m at a friends, first thing in the morning.
And today is my one year streak.
365 days in a row of doing pushups every single morning.
Tomorrow I will do them again.
And I will do them the next day, and the next, and the next.
But the first step is to start. With the easiest task you can possibly think of.
And then track it. Daily. Religiously. And focus only on the doing of that one easy simple thing every single day.
Your new goal should not be to lose weight.
Or to get ripped.
Or to fit into your old comfy pair of Levies.
Your new goal should be 1,000 days.
1,000 days of doing something every single day that is so freaking easy that your brain will not possibly be able to come up with a valid justification for not completing the task.
And once you start on that journey…once you begin to build both your streak and your confidence, then you will most likely begin to add other tasks to your streak counter.
That is what inevitable happened to me.
Here is a look at the super sophisticated system that I use to keep track of my streaks.
This Whiteboard poster is literally scotch-taped to the wall in my kitchen.
Is it tacky?
Absolutely.
Am I sometimes embarrassed when people see it?
At first I was…but now I am only proud.
Because it’s my Weirdo Wall.
It represents my journey.
My victories.
You will see that over time I also incorporated weight workouts, and cardio, and diet restrictions onto my streak counter.
As with the pushups, I made the doing of these items as easy as humanly possible.
I now drink Coke Zero rather than the normal calorie cokes. I walk instead of doing any strenuous cardio. I workout every single day but the workouts are quick and easy. I’m normally in-and-out in 10-30 minutes.
Normal people can’t understand this.
To them, it’s all too simple.
Or it’s too easy.
Or the process just takes too dang long.
But to the Weirdos…this is the way.
The way that works.
I hope your own fitness streak begins today.
Because tomorrow is coming quick, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will reach your goals.
If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me at [email protected]
I am one hundred percent more than happy to help you reach your goals.
Good luck on your fitness journey.
May the weird be with you!
Josh
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