Discipline is the most important factor to success, right? I’m not convinced. I believe there to be a much more effective route towards success that allows you to succeed without discipline.
Is discipline necessary for success?
Let’s talk today about how to succeed without discipline.
Do you need discipline in your life?
Absolutely!
Will discipline work long-term?
No.
Let me explain:
I’ve traveled to over 80 countries, spoke to audiences in 35 different countries around the world.
Having the capacity to do those things I definitely needed to have discipline, however, I believe there is something much powerful than discipline.
You see – discipline is short term.
It was hard for me to come to this realization because I am a marine…
I spent six years in the US Marine Corps and boot camp.
Discipline was ingrained into our minds.
When doing push-ups – down was discipline, up was integrity.
Coming out of the Marine Corps NOTHING could stop me. I had the mentality to outwork everyone & I genuinely believed I couldn’t lose!
(I still did lose… a lot).
The same mentality was applied to my fitness.
I’ve stayed in great shape most of my life, however, I never had six-pack abs up until a few years ago.
So, I told myself I was going to get six-pack abs and that I was going to get them with extreme discipline!
The following 90 days, I busted my ass like crazy.
Perfect eating…
No cheat meals (my trainer didn’t believe in cheat meals)…
No alcohol…
And I was like, “YEAH! I’m so disciplined!”
Can you guess what happened?
The discipline was not worth it!
I was relying on discipline and not the love of the game.
Not the love of being in shape.
A few months later, I lost my six-pack abs.
I came to the realization that…
Discipline is not enough…
You’ve got to change your mindset.
This is how you succeed without discipline.
I made the decision that I was going to get my six-pack abs back and I was going to be discipline for a time…
…but I was going to do something that was going to be sustainable long-term.
Something that was going to allow me to love my lifestyle and eating regimen.
So, I decided to have cheat meals…
Drinking (very small amounts) if I was out with my buddies…
I decided to do something that was sustainable long-term and wasn’t going to kill me.
Discipline was necessary at the beginning to help with the next thing that I did…
Change your programming
It took a couple of months of discipline but what happened was that I started changing my vocabulary.
I started saying, “I’m addicted to working out. I love working out!”.
When I did the 90-day intensive program, I would tell myself, “I hate cardio, but I’m going to do it because I’m freaking disciplined!”
Because I didn’t fall in love with cardio…
I stopped.
As soon as I hit my goal, it was done.
I began telling myself, “I love cardio”.
Most people would tell me things like, “you’ve got to tell yourself the truth! If you hate cardio… tell yourself you hate cardio and just do it anyway.”
I call bullshit.
The truth is what you freaking make up.
Truth is whatever your programming has been for your life. That’s what you decide the truth is.
If you believe you can’t “succeed without discipline” then you won’t succeed without discipline.
It’s kind of like, “I hate mornings!”
That’s only true because you make it true. You hate mornings because you don’t have the discipline to get to bed on time.
You hate mornings because you’ve programmed yourself your whole life that you hate mornings.
If you want to change your truth…
You’ve got to change your programming.
Ask yourself – “What do I love more?”
I started to love being at 10% body fat more than eating chocolate cake.
The feelings I got when looking in the mirror were more enjoyable than my love of empty carbs!
I love telling myself that I’m a peak performance athlete (even though I’m not compared to others).
Discipline got me started…
…but the reason I have six-pack abs two years later after I made that decision is because of HABITS.
I don’t need the discipline anymore because I have a habit of eating right…
Of working out every day…
Doing cardio most days of the week.
Guess what?
I love it! I love the fact that I’m more concerned with my health than I am eating a bunch of desserts (even though I still love some chocolate cake every now and again).
How does this apply to business?
Maybe you need to make 10 or 20 sales calls a day and you don’t want to make them because you’ve been programmed that you hate the phone or hate rejection.
What do you need to do
Become discipline for a short period of time.
You’ve got to have the will to go make the 20 calls/day.
While you’re doing this…
Re-program your mind.
Tell yourself that you love making calls, new connections, and new friends.
Fall in love with rejection because you understand that you’re that much closer to a yes.
Life is what you make it. It can be an amazing game and a lot of fun…
or…
It can be miserable and you’re going to have to sludge through life.
Sludge through making sales calls.
If you don’t want that for yourself then have the discipline to change your narrative.
Do the work for long enough until you develop the habit and you fall in love with the process.
The two keys to success in life:
Consistency and love of the game.
The reason you’ll be consistent with something is if you fall in love with it.
How do you fall in love with something?
You program yourself to fall in love with something. You look at the benefits of things versus the negative things.
What are the joys of doing the things you need to do versus what are the things that hold you back from doing the things you need to do?
I realized that I love being wealthy way more than I hate rejection.
I’m in love with what money will do for me.
I love being able to travel the world, make an impact on the lives of other people (especially in network marketing) and guess what…?
There is no way you can make a positive impact on the lives of many people unless you’re willing to go through a lot of rejection and failure.
Yes, you need discipline in the short term, however, once you’ve developed sustainable habits you find that you can continue to succeed without discipline.
Go make it happen.
If you want some advanced training on leadership
Feel free to hop over to LeadwithMatt.com. I’ve got some strategies there on becoming a powerful leader and recruiting powerful leaders.
I’d love to hear what your biggest takeaway was out of this in the comments below.
If you feel like this can add some value to some others, feel free to share it.
Take care.
If you’d like to learn how to impact others, check out this blog post.
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Matt Morris
#1 Best Selling Author of The Unemployed Millionaire
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