The 7 Rules to Follow for Limitless Discipline
1) Know Your Values
First and foremost, if you want to have a sustained or meaningful disciplinary habit, it is paramount to know your values. Every disciplinary practice, to an extent, is stressful physically, psychologically, and/or biologically. To reduce the magnitude to which the stress is experienced, you will need to be appropriately calibrated with your reasons. Otherwise, you will perpetually be in a tussle with the will against the intensity of the stress. And perhaps you could win by sheer tolerance or enjoyment towards change, but knowing your reasons and values is getting a step closer to “knowing thyself” as a necessity for accurately exploring the world around you, as Socrates concluded.
Remember, to Evolve as a human is to struggle against the inner human, and not knowing your reasons is to be shackled to the constraints of undefined whims. It is liberating when they can be taken off by command and examined whether the sacrifice is worth the result.
Ask yourself these questions:
What is/are my goals?
Is there an end objective?
Why do I have these goals?
What am I looking to achieve?
Will this undertaking direct me closer to the person I want to be? If so, How?
What am I sacrificing? Is it worth it?
Are my values enough to get me through a hard day?
2) Be Conscious and Adjust
Whatever this may mean for you: begin to notice the discrepancy at the time you wake up, how often you eat, how much you eat, time spent in self-care or caring for others, time spent watching T.V., browsing Social Media, the quantity of alcohol drunk; on the whole, be more conscious by assessing for 7-14 days without alteration in behavior or habit. By following this rule, you are beginning to be acquainted with your current self, and more importantly, you have a foundation to make a future road map. As Buddha teaches, you connect to the higher consciousness daily. And this higher consciousness is represented and embedded obliquely yet actively in between the strings of the envisioned symphony.
After familiarization— adjust.
Adjustment, in other words, is reshaping. You can only expect a change or progress towards a goal if you adapt to the first stimuli and continue to adapt to the preceding ones. This rule of adaption applies to preserving life and thus applies to everyday life.
Examples:
1) If exposed frequently to smoke, your olfactory senses adapt to the smell of tobacco.
2) Incremental increase in salt intake results in a higher tolerance to salty foods.
3) Frequent exposure to heat results in greater tolerance to hotter climates.
However, the stronger the stimuli, the more time is needed to adapt. And a failure to adapt can be the result of stress that is too high. I recommend manageable adjustments that can easily allow advancement in adaption.
Examples:
If you're in the habit of watching 25 TV episodes (45 min/av.) a week, subtract 20% from your weekly average and replace it with one of your goals. Not only are you saving nearly 4 hrs a week in this example, but you're allocating it towards the better you. Or if you work from home and only watch tv passively, subtract an episode, 1/2, or whatever works a day for two weeks and see whether you are more productive or/and efficient. If not, you can adjust the numbers and assess. If you still notice no significant improvement, then, by all means, don't make the adjustment. Unless your values are NOT efficiency and productivity. Know your values and allow yourself to adjust.
3) Record. Record. Record
There is no need to be hyper-fixated or hyper-obsessed with what or how often you record but be obsessed with recording accurately. I stress the point “accurately” because naturally, we perceive ourselves slightly better than our current selves, even if the evidence suggests otherwise. We make excuses, convince ourselves of those reasons, and we have no concern for change. We are both the prisoner and the guard: Record— Record— Record, and do it daily for accuracy.
A study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine showed that adults who received a weekly group session for 20 weeks, recording what they ate (at an average of 3.7 days a week), lost about twice more than the non-recording group in diverse racial groups.
A meta-analysis of 22 studies further validates the efficacy of self-recording. And even more so if that recording is seen by someone else. The idea behind having a food diary, a tv-diary, a social media diary, or any other diary is:
1) to be conscious of yourself.
2) consolidate not to deceive yourself.
3) deterrent from doing what you ought not.
Do I want to indulge in a midnight ice cream if I have to record it? Do I want to scroll through Instagram if I have an app that shows me how long I’ve been on it that I later have to record?
4) Visualize Failure
You might have heard that if you want to accomplish your goals or be disciplined, then close your eyes and imagine what it would feel like, how you would feel after you accomplish this task or this goal. Imagine the bat secured within your hand and how it feels in your grip. Visualize the ball's movement as it flies towards you, your control of the circumstances, etc. Despite that being the general recommendation of most influencers, the emerging research suggests that you should instead imagine failure to succeed.
According to 4 experiments conducted in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, indulging in the visualization of positive achievement hinders performance compared to questioning your future.
This may sound counterintuitive, but it makes a lot of sense. It is well known that when you visualize success, you can stimulate the same brain regions associated with that achievement. This may help some people. But it may also be the case, by visualizing success, you mentally reward yourself, and when you fail to meet that standard, your energy output towards that goal becomes degraded. It is much more motivating to visualize failure.
Let us presume you left your downtown workspace for a walk around the block. Let's go ahead and suppose you have yet to eat. Now, as you're out walking, you pass by a bakery at the exact moment someone walks in. Suddenly, you get stormed by an aroma of roasted coffee and cinnamon, mellowed by traces of something sweet.
Visualizing success to overcome the temptation of walking into the bakery might help in this circumstance, but what's even more compelling is visualizing failure: your health slipping between your fingers, your biology straining to keep itself together, a future diagnosis of a disease, and the person you'll become looking back at the person you desperately wished you were.
Is it harsh? If you want discipline, above all else, to achieve your goals, it may be necessary until you establish yourself. For others, it might be a lifetime practice towards attaining some degree of freedom of the senses.
*More research must be done on this practice's effects on emotions and well-being.
5) Wake up Consistently
Most people should get at least an average of 49 hours of sleep a week (7 x 7) and wake up within a 25-minute time frame. If you usually wake up at 7:00 a.m., don’t extend it past 7:25 or 6:35 unless you have to or are working towards waking up at a different time.
At 5:00 a.m. every morning, an English Academic Philosopher named Richard Whately would awake, study for 2hrs, then stroll about the walkways at Oriel College. Despite the day’s temperature, he was always outside, looking within. “If you lose an hour in the morning, you’ll spend all day looking for it” (Richard Whately).
If you lose an hour of sleep, you’ll spend all day paying for it. Studies show that a degraded and insufficient sleep-wake cycle is linked to impaired glucose, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, fatigue, depression, and premature death.
The sleep-wake cycle is linked with health, which is linked to your capacity to handle stress. If you have the luxury, then wake up at a slightly uncomfortable time but one that could be adhered to 6 days out of the week. Or follow the 85% rule advocated by neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman.
6) View Sunlight in the Morning
Viewing sunlight within the hour after waking consistently aligns circadian rhythm, and "almost every cell in our body has a circadian clock" (Satchin Panda). When we are most or least active, the communication between our cells is influenced by a circadian rhythm. And now more than ever, research is validating this biological fact.
The circadian rhythm, or the circadian clock, can be divided into central and peripheral clocks. The central clock resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (CSN), a region in the hypothalamus responsible for regulating rest and activity, core body temperature, memory, neuroendocrine function, and autonomic function. The peripheral clock in just about every tissue and organ in the body regulates cardiovascular, metabolic, endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems. If these systems are disrupted by circadian dysregulation, hormones, nutrients, nutrient distribution, and many more biological processes can be depressed or function when they shouldn't.
By simply viewing sunlight in the morning, you will begin a habit that optimizes mood, making discipline more manageable.
How much sunlight should you get in the morning? No fixed number applies to everyone since age, diet, genetics, and sensitivity to light all play a role in determining the right amount of time. Moreover, mood, biology, physiology, and the lux of light produced by the sun vary daily. Still, by following this simple guideline, you should be able to determine what works best for you.
Direct sunlight (80,000-120,000 lux) 3-15 minutes
Sunlight (40,000+ lux) 7-25 minutes
Overcast (5,000+ lux) 15-45 minutes
Very overcast (1,000+ lux) 30+ minutes
LED 12 W (800 Lumens) not recommended
Standard 60 W (800 lumens) not recommended
Unlike lux, the strength of lumens diminishes significantly the larger the surface area needed to cover. For example, if I had one light bulb of 800 Lumens that covered 15 meters of space, one sq. meter of light would amount to 800 lux of light— 10 sq. meters would amount to 80 lux of light. And 15 sq. meters would amount to about 53 lux of light. View sunlight whenever you can.
7) Nutrition
This rule doesn’t establish what diet you should adhere to. How many times should you eat? How much should you eat? I am not advocating that “The Religion of Food” is the path toward discipline. If it were that simple, many of us would be disciplined. Instead, be strategic, do a little research, and invest in a product that will give you the most benefit for the money with no investment on time. Or skip the research and consider any 1 of these three supplements from least expensive to most.
1. Magnesium ($16/month) ($47.25 for the product)
Magnesium is an essential mineral responsible for over 300 enzymatic reactions. And low magnesium status (which is common), known as hypomagnesemia, might result in neuromuscular, cardiac, and neurological disorders. Finding magnesium that is suitable for you is just as important. Many of the magnesium supplements today sell less functional or bioavailable magnesium.
Recommendations:
Magnesium L-Threonate for the brain
Magnesium Malate for the muscle
Magnesium Glycinate for sleep
Magnesium Taurine for high blood pressure
Magnesium Citrate for constipation
2. Omega-3 ($35-70/month) ($35 for the product)
Omega-3s (EPA & DHA) is a polyunsaturated fat most common in algae and marine sources. If you opt for marine, the rule is: the smaller the fish, the better. This is because fish derive their omega-3 from the food they eat.
Omega-3 has been studied and shown to reduce cardiovascular and liver disease risk, increase insulin sensitivity, treat depression, treat migraines, and much more with a 35-dollar monthly investment. I use the brand KION, and most of these studies use about 2g of EPA + DHA, which is double the recommended dose, a 70-dollar monthly investment if taken daily ($2.34/DAY).
Other brands to consider:
Pure Encapsulation, Nordic Naturals, Thorne.
3. Athletic Greens ($96/month) ($96 for the product)
Tim Ferris, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. David Sinclair, Dr. Peter Attia, and Dr. Andrew Huberman are just a few of the many influential and well-respected individuals who swear by the effectiveness of this supplement.
TGA registered, NSF Good Manufacturing Practice, and with over 75 vitamins, minerals, and ingredients such as:
Spirulina: a source of carotenoids and antioxidants
Apple Powder: a source of antioxidants and associated with gut health
Chlorella: a source of carotenoids such as lutein, zeaxanthin, beta-carotene
Bilberry: a source of anthocyanin’s
Rhodiola: according to some studies may help treat depression.
Ashwagandha: according to this study helps reduce anxiety, and other studies may also improve physical performance
Reishi: contains Beta-glucans and triterpenes, which can stimulate immune function
Probiotics: live bacteria that protect and preserve healthy intestinal flora
Athletic Greens, in my opinion, is the best comprehensive green powder on the market.
Conclusion
The statement “If you want to get ahead, you need to improve your discipline” has, from time immemorial, been insufficient in its effect. If it were, the quote would be a verbal relic to be esteemed and even praised. But instead, what we see is an aphorism without substance, preserved by dogma, evident by our increasingly shortened discipline. Certainly, distractions are more assessable, but that means discipline or the struggle within is more necessary. “Through self-discipline comes freedom,” Aristotle.
But even before Aristotle, before verbal communication, discipline in its nascency was there, just unnoticed, regulating and reinforcing our patterns of behavior. The moment our species were able to transcend these mazes of networks by creating maps from those patterns was when our species was aware of the concept of discipline; then, houses were built, crops were planted, cities were made, roads were paved, and a modern future emerged.
What are we working towards? Perhaps we are working towards our future selves— the ability to resist the sirens of temptation.
From the Disciplined
“Through Self-discipline comes freedom.” Aristotle.
“Discipline is between choosing what you want now and from what you want most.” Abraham Lincoln.
“We don’t have to be smarter than the rest: we have to be more disciplined than the rest.” Warren Buffet.
“The first and best victory is to conquer self.” Plato.
“Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you’re undisciplined, then you are a slave to your emotions and your passions.” Eliud Kipchoge.
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius.
“Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.” Thucydides.
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