Book Summary of Be Your Future Self Now by Benjamin Hardy

In “Be Your Future Self Now,” Benjamin Hardy makes the case that in order to achieve ultimate success, you must become your highest self, or “future self.” Achieving this requires identifying your higher self and committing to life-changing goals above all else. This guide will explore Hardy’s argument and provide recommendations for adopting the necessary mindset, supplemented by other success experts.

The Importance of Your Higher Self

According to Hardy, success in life means reaching your full potential by becoming your highest self. This requires all your present actions to move you closer to that goal. Identifying your higher self early on is crucial because your present actions are driven by your future goals and desires.

Having a clear and ambitious vision of your higher self helps you take productive actions in the present that will benefit you over time. Conversely, lacking a clear vision of your higher self leads to unproductive actions that harm your progress towards becoming your best self.

When You Lack a Clear Vision, You Become Unproductive

According to Hardy, lacking a clear vision of your higher self leads to unproductive behaviors that hinder your progress towards becoming your best self. These include instant gratification and non-crucial activities that feel rewarding in the short-term but do not contribute to your long-term goals.

Engaging in such behaviors takes away from the time you should be dedicating towards becoming your higher self. Hardy recommends identifying your higher self and committing to your future goals and desires to avoid unproductive behaviors and ensure that your present actions are beneficial in the long term. The following sections will outline his recommendations for doing so.

How to Become Your Higher Self

The next sections will cover Hardy’s four primary suggestions for achieving your highest potential and how to apply them.

  • To become your higher self, according to Hardy:
  • Identify who you want to become and the big goals that person has achieved.
  • Prioritize three achievable goals to work on over the next five years that will lead you towards your higher self.
  • Set specific 12-month goals with clear success criteria to measure your progress towards your priorities.

For example, if your higher self is a renowned graphic designer, your priorities may include getting degrees with stellar grades, building an impressive portfolio, and doing freelance work for local businesses. Your 12-month goals may include finding a mentor, planning your required courses, and achieving a minimum B grade in each class.

Recommendation #2: Set Your Higher Self as Your Daily Priority

To make steady progress towards becoming your ideal self, prioritize daily actions that align with your goals and avoid distractions.

Principle #1: Disregard Non-Crucial Activities

Avoid activities that do not contribute to achieving your goals, such as painting your house, which takes time away from pursuing your 12-month goals.

Principle #2: Schedule 12-Month Goals First

Schedule daily time to work on your goals before other urgent tasks, such as working on your graphic design portfolio before your sales job.

Principle #3: Replace Instant Gratification Habits

Cultivate beneficial habits that align with your goals, such as checking out book cover designs on Goodreads instead of playing video games to improve your graphic design skills.

Recommendation #3: Seek Out Beneficial Environments

Hardy’s Recommendation #3 is to seek out environments that will aid in becoming one’s higher self. This can be achieved by stepping out of one’s comfort zone and surrounding oneself with people who are better than them.

These actions can help develop the skills and habits needed to progress towards one’s goals.

To do this, one should attempt tasks that their higher self would excel in and seek out individuals who have achieved similar goals or are closer to achieving them.

Recommendation #4: Have an Empowering View of Life and Fate

Hardy argues that a disempowering view of life and fate can prevent people from becoming their higher selves. This view is often shaped by three factors: their past, their current circumstances, and a sense of helplessness about their ability to control their future.

Hardy advises adopting three empowering beliefs to become your higher self.

  1. Firstly, don’t let your past dictate your future; learn from it and use it to grow.
  2. Secondly, take ownership of your circumstances and ability to change. Find at least one way to benefit from any situation and identify actions you can take to change your circumstances.
  3. Lastly, believe that you’re the creator of your own fate and that your purpose is to achieve fulfillment and become the highest version of yourself.

Adopting a firm belief that you will become your higher self and expressing gratitude for it will reinforce your belief in yourself and empower you to take necessary actions to achieve your goals.

Book Summary of Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Psycho-Cybernetics teaches us to view our mind as a machine, which can be programmed for success and happiness. By adopting this mindset, we can significantly enhance our self-image and boost our capacity to achieve our goals.

Part 1: What Is Psycho-Cybernetics?

In the initial section, we delve into why plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz turned to psychology and cybernetic theory to decipher the root causes of success and failure. Subsequently, we elucidate Maltz’s theory on how the human brain functions in achieving goals based on cybernetic principles.

Why a Plastic Surgeon Turned to Psychology

During his stint as a plastic surgeon, Maltz noticed a distinction in how patients reacted to “physical flaws” being corrected. Post-surgery, certain patients experienced an immediate upswing in self-esteem and confidence, leading to increased goal attainment.

Conversely, some patients’ personalities remained unaltered post-surgery; their thoughts, emotions, and actions stayed the same as if the “flaw” was still there. Despite their transformed external appearance, their self-perception and success rate remained unimproved.

Your Physical Appearance Doesn’t Define Your Self-Perception

Maltz’s observation of the variance in patient response to physical correction prompted his pursuit of the mind-body connection and its impact on confidence and success. He ultimately concluded that self-perception holds greater significance than physical appearance.

One’s thoughts about themselves shape their approach to life, success, and happiness, not their physical features. Maltz realized that to achieve self-improvement and success, it was crucial to eliminate negative thought patterns that hindered patients’ self-perception and success.

Cybernetics: Your Mind Works Like a Machine to Reach Goals

To understand why people perceive themselves the way they do, Maltz analyzed the reverse process of successful goal achievement and linked it back to self-perception. This led to his interest in cybernetic theory, which revealed that the human brain operates based on similar principles as machines. Both rely on positive and negative feedback to guide them towards goals.

For example, a missile uses sensors to hit a target, while the brain uses feedback to learn how to eat. Once a successful process is recorded, the brain discards negative feedback, allowing for repeated action without conscious thought.

Part 2: Your Self-Image Defines Your Experience

Maltz believed that our brains work like a cybernetic machine, using feedback to reach goals. However, it’s not always easy to achieve our conscious goals if our internal programming doesn’t align with them. For instance, you may want to make friends but subconsciously push people away. This conflict arises due to a discrepancy between your conscious goals and your self-image, according to Maltz.

What Is Your Self-Image?

Your brain has recorded all your experiences, shaping your self-image which defines who you are, how you express yourself, and how you act. For example, falling over can be perceived as a fact or lead to an identification like “I’m a klutz,” influencing your behavior and self-image.

What Influences Your Self-Image?

Maltz believes your self-image is a product of thoughts you’ve chosen to believe about your past experiences, even if they’re inaccurate. Your nervous system reacts to your thoughts as if they’re true, regardless of their accuracy. Maltz illustrates this by comparing it to being hypnotized into thinking you’re in a snowstorm, causing your body to physically react to the suggestion.

Your self-image is shaped by the opinions and beliefs of those around you and your own imagination. Mental images and strong impressions become beliefs that define your self-image. Your nervous system reacts to these beliefs, creating emotional and physical responses.

Your Self-Image Impacts Your Behavior

Maltz believes humans and machines interpret feedback differently to achieve their goals. Humans rely on their self-image to interpret feedback, which can lead to failure or success. To achieve success, you need to align your self-image with your goals and interpret feedback that moves you towards them.

Part 3: Use Your Imagination to Create Success

Maltz suggests that by using your imagination, you can improve your self-image and reprogram yourself. The first step is to become aware of whether you’re using your imagination positively or negatively.

If you’re using it negatively, you need to make a conscious effort to create a mental picture of yourself as successful and practice feeling successful. By regularly creating positive feelings, you can replace negative beliefs with new successful beliefs and improve your self-image.

Five Self-Image Alignment Methods

Maltz presents five methods for using imagination to improve self-image and achieve success:

  1. Change a daily habit to prove that change is possible and affirm that you can choose to think differently.
  2. Practice physical relaxation to make your mind more receptive to positive suggestions and create space for positive thoughts.
  3. Use imagination to recall successful memories and create successful feelings to imprint on your self-image.
  4. Focus on a clear goal to find the motivation to change your self-image and develop the habit of success.
  5. Cultivate happiness to improve overall wellbeing and increase resilience to physical setbacks. Maltz argues that negative attitudes are bad for health and happiness.

Part 4: Release Your Limitations

Maltz suggests that breaking free from negative thoughts and developing a happy, successful mindset is possible by creating positive feedback loops. He recommends three methods to replace negative thoughts with positive ones and redirect yourself towards success.

Method 1: Turn Challenges into Opportunities to Improve Your Self-Image

Maltz believes challenges are opportunities for growth and success, but those with negative self-image often see them as crises. Planning ahead is crucial in overcoming fears and moving past your comfort zone. By identifying fears and using imagination to visualize confident responses, one can better prepare themselves for challenges.

Method 2: Practice Reflecting Only on the Facts

Maltz argues that negative feelings are a result of your habitual thought process, and not an indication of reality. Negative thoughts can lead to false conclusions that keep you stuck in a negative feedback loop. To break this cycle, choose to replace negative thoughts with rational ones that encourage positive beliefs.

Method 3: Forgive and Forget

Maltz argues that holding onto past mistakes and traumas prevents people from experiencing success in their lives. Emotional scars created from these experiences may seem protective, but they actually keep people trapped in a negative state.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, allows individuals to heal emotional scars and move forward. Accepting that everyone makes mistakes and forgiving yourself and others liberates you and enables you to focus on your goals.

Book Summary of Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans describes the routines and convictions of 101 top achievers, including IT investors, business owners, athletes, and artists. You can succeed by adopting the behaviors and viewpoints of those who are successful in your preferred field.

Our summary focuses on the book’s major themes of habits, showcasing patterns in motivation, work and business success, happiness, and health across all 101 individuals.

Inspiration and Goals

Visualizing long-term goals is a common habit among titans, as it provides clarity and motivation for the hard work ahead. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, stresses the importance of having a clear vision of the end goal, as it helps endure the challenges and pain on the way. Knowing why you’re pushing hard makes the journey easier.

Be Courageous. Be Brazen

Feeling unprepared to tackle a big goal? You may be holding yourself back with artificial constraints. Titans advise pushing past these boundaries, whether self-imposed or societal. Remember, every admired titan faced formidable obstacles just like you. The difference is their courage to push through.

Tim Ferriss’s Fear Exercise

Overcoming fear can be achieved through Tim Ferriss’s fear exercise. Firstly, imagine the change you wish to make, then consider the absolute worst possible outcome in vivid detail. Ask yourself how bad and permanent the damage would be, and how likely it is to happen.

Next, envision the best and realistic outcomes and how they would improve your life. Through this exercise, you’ll realize that even the worst outcome isn’t permanently crippling, and you can recover even if you fail.

Work Habits and Career

After setting your goals, productivity strategies are essential to make progress in limited time. Titans advise on laser-focused prioritization of opportunities that align with your goals.

Instead of getting caught up in minor tasks, prioritize big rocks first, and evaluate opportunities based on the “hell, yes!” rule. Avoid the “culture of cortisol” by focusing on goals and cutting out unnecessary activities that cause unhappiness.

Deciding What to Work On

Advice for choosing a career path in a world of endless options:

  • Become a double/triple threat by being above average at two or more things and combining them.
  • Augment your career with useful skills like communication, management, sales, finance, and internationalization.
  • Make an impact by working in a field where you can’t be easily replaced.
  • Example: Tim Ferriss chose to focus on self-improvement instead of becoming a venture capitalist because he could make a greater impact on people’s lives.

Personal Habits

The book features highly disciplined and goal-oriented individuals, and offers advice on personal habits. Success comes from action, not just knowledge.

Start with small actions to build momentum towards your goals. Identify and confront your weaknesses, and imagine your future self giving advice to overcome them. Don’t make excuses for your weaknesses, visualize the real costs and work towards improvement.

Creativity and Ideas

To generate more good ideas, focus on quantity over quality. Don’t be afraid to generate bad or silly ideas, as they can lead to good ones. Challenge yourself to come up with a certain number of ideas each day, even if they’re not all business-related.

To think of ideas, ask dumb questions, question conventional wisdom, and put yourself in new environments. Remember, being imaginative is more important than being right. To do innovative work, you need to believe something that few others believe.

Testing Ideas

How to identify good ideas from a pool of many? It’s difficult to be objective about your own ideas, as you may not see the bigger picture or spot flaws. To ensure that an idea is worthwhile, seek feedback from others who can stress-test it.

Investor Marc Andreessen and co-founder Ben Horowitz, for instance, scrutinize every idea they bring up to each other. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gauges his staff’s mettle by whether they push back on given strategies.

Meanwhile, the military employs “red teams” whose mission is to sabotage plans to challenge their efficacy. If an idea can withstand such critical evaluations, then it is likely a good one.

Business Strategies

Entrepreneurial titans shared their tips on starting and growing successful businesses. Rather than having millions of followers or being a global superstar, you only need 1,000 true fans who will buy anything you produce.

Authenticity is key, as people crave connection and realness. Don’t be afraid to differ from societal expectations to be yourself. When it comes to business tactics, think 10 times bigger rather than 10% bigger, avoid hyper-competitive areas, and charge for your product. Failure should be avoided, and quick execution is essential.

Happiness and Mindset

Success isn’t just about productivity and achieving goals; being happy and emotionally in control is important too. Titans practice gratitude and reflect on their lives, focusing on what worked and taking risks.

When dealing with negative emotions like anxiety, stress, and anger, it’s important to stay calm and acknowledge the emotion rather than suppressing it. Being cynical or jaded is like being dead; it’s important to keep an open mind and stay curious.

More Useful Questions to Ask

Redesign your life now, instead of waiting for $10 million. Tim Ferriss found that his desired lifestyle cost less than he thought, and the resource he lacked was time, not money. Try doing the opposite of what you normally do for 48 hours to find new successful ways of doing things. When you lose something like an investment or opportunity, don’t try to make it back the same way you lost it. Tim Ferriss sold his house instead of wasting time managing it, realizing that his time was a valuable asset that could be used to grow his brand and business.

Book Summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear

In “Atomic Habits,” James Clear shows how changing your habits can transform your life. This guide covers why habits are important, the three mindsets for creating them, how habits are formed, the four keys to changing them, and ways to continue improving. We’ll also compare Clear’s approach with other expert methods.

Small Adjustments Lead to Massive Transformations

Clear believes that small changes in behavior, called “atomic habits,” can transform your life because behaviors compound over time. One good behavior leads to another and creates a ripple effect of positive changes. Clear categorizes habits into three levels: goal-driven, system-driven, and identity-driven habits.

Goal-Driven Habits

According to Clear, a goal-driven habit is a behavior done to achieve a specific objective. Many people try to change their behavior this way, such as studying two extra hours a day to ace a test.

System-Driven Habits

Clear suggests that system-driven habits focus on processes that lead to achieving goals, instead of focusing solely on the goal itself. An example of a system-driven habit is developing a study routine, which emphasizes the process of studying rather than just aiming for a good test score.

Identity-Driven Habits

Identity-driven habits are behaviors that align with our beliefs about ourselves, or our identity. Clear suggests that we perform these habits because they match our identity. For instance, if you see yourself as a good student, you develop a study routine because that’s what good students do.

How to Change Your Habits: Start With Your Identity

Clear recommends creating identity-driven habits instead of goal-driven habits for lasting behavior change. By embodying the person you want to be, you reinforce that identity with evidence and make performing the corresponding habits easier.

Your desired identity should guide the systems and goals you choose. For instance, if you aim to be a conscientious person who excels in tests, you might prioritize getting enough sleep. These habits lead to achieving your goals and are sustained even after you reach them.

How Habits Form: The Four Stages

Clear describes the four stages of habit formation: cue, craving, response, and reward. The cue prompts the brain to notice a reward, leading to a craving and a behavior that satisfies that craving, resulting in a reward.

Over time, this pathway becomes stronger, forming a habit. For example, coming home stressed from work (cue) prompts the craving for relaxation, leading to the response of drinking a beer, which satisfies the craving and reduces stress (reward).

Four Keys to Creating Habits

To create new, beneficial habits, Clear recommends altering each stage of the habit-forming process. He provides four keys for doing so, one for each stage: cues, cravings, responses, and rewards.

Key 1: Cues: Identify and Use Them to Your Advantage

To create positive habits, Clear advises identifying cues by making a list of daily habits and noting which actions precede and follow them. This helps to cue new desired behaviors, such as drinking water right after turning off your alarm.

Use Awareness to Your Advantage

Clear recommends planning in advance using the formula “When X occurs, I will do Y” to make cues noticeable and increase the likelihood of performing a new behavior. For example, schedule studying for 6 pm if that time is currently vacant on your habit list.

Clear’s “habit stacking” technique links a desired behavior to an existing habit by using the formula “After I do X, I will do Y.” For example, “After I put my dinner dishes in the sink, I will study for one hour.”

Be specific about the behavior that follows a cue to make it effective. Ensure the cue is feasible, as logistics can hinder new habits. For example, “I’ll study at my desk for an hour after putting dishes in the sink” is more effective than “I’ll study after dinner.”

Key 2: Craving: Increase the Appeal of a New Habit

Clear recommends two techniques to make creating habits easier by affecting the second stage of habit formation, the craving. Firstly, associate the new habit with other positive behaviors. Secondly, reframe the struggle of a new habit in a positive light to maximize the appeal of the desired behavior.

1) Connect Habits You Should Do to Things You Want to Do

Clear’s first strategy for increasing the appeal of a new habit is to link it to something positive by sandwiching it between an existing habit and a desired activity. This can be done by using the formula, “After X, I will do Y. After I do Y, I get to do Z.”

2) Reframe actions as opportunities rather than obligations.

To change your attitude and perceive obligations as possibilities is Clear’s second tip for attracting a new habit. By focusing on the positive elements of the behavior and the reward that comes with it, you can view your struggles as steps towards your goal, which increases motivation to do the behavior.

Key 3: Response: Decrease the Difficulty

At the third stage of habit building, Clear advises concentrating on the act itself to strengthen habits. Making the behavior effortless is what Clear advocates doing in order to keep your preferred identity, build confidence, and advance.

Make Behaviors Easier

Clear advises simplifying behaviors by removing obstacles and breaking them down into smaller, two-minute steps. Doing so increases the chances of taking action and maintaining the behavior. Instead of large changes, committing to small actions leads to small successes that boost motivation. Breaking down tasks, such as cooking dinner, into smaller steps, like opening the fridge or pulling out a vegetable, makes it easier to achieve.

Key 4: Reward: Make It Fulfilling

Clear suggests that for a habit to form successfully, the rewards must be satisfying. However, since many rewards are delayed, it’s essential to find ways to create immediate rewards that keep you motivated to continue.

End New Habits With Rewards

Clear suggests adding immediate positive reinforcement at the end of a desired behavior to create fulfilling rewards that keep you motivated. You can maintain motivation in a manner that delayed incentives cannot by engaging in an activity that is instantly gratifying after the action. The incentive of a higher mark next month may not be enough to motivate you to study, but concluding each study session with a cookie can.

Record Your Habits

Clear suggests using a visual representation to track progress and increase motivation. By marking a calendar or tracking sheet, you can see your accomplishments and feel rewarded for each successful completion. This act of tracking can be satisfying and motivating, creating a cue to continue the habit.

Breaking Bad Habits

To break a bad habit, disrupt one of the four stages of habit formation:

  1. Make the cue unnoticeable.
  2. Decrease the appeal of the habit.
  3. Increase the effort required to perform the habit.
  4. Make the reward unfulfilling.

To break the habit of shopping at the mall, change your route to avoid the cue, add a reminder of how much money you can save, increase the effort required to get there, and pay only in cash to decrease the reward.

Finding the Right Habits

Clear suggests focusing on developing habits that align with your strengths and interests as they are more enjoyable and easier to maintain due to your genetic makeup and predispositions.

The Big Five Personality Traits

To identify ideal habits, understand your personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. While not determinative, traits can guide toward habits more likely to succeed. Clear advises finding the version of a habit that aligns with your personality, rather than copying others. For example, if you dislike crowds, daily walks may work better than gym visits.

Continuing to Show Up

To maintain the effectiveness of a habit, it’s crucial to address its potential downsides. Clear offers strategies for tackling these issues, which include:

Make actions more difficult to avoid boredom

Clear suggests making habits challenging to combat boredom but not too difficult to discourage you. It’s important to ensure some level of success and failure to maintain motivation. This intermittent reward system reduces boredom by making each attempt novel.

How to Keep Progressing: Build on Momentum

Clear warns that creating habits can lead to stagnation, as automation may cause you to miss mistakes and hinder progress. For example, playing the same piano scales every day without noticing small mistakes can reinforce bad habits and impede progress.

How to Keep Changing: Develop an Adaptable Identity

Clear warns of a third downside of habit formation: becoming too attached to the identity that the habit represents. This can make it challenging to evolve beyond that identity because losing the habit means losing a part of yourself and your motivation. For instance, if you identify as a “good student” due to your habit of studying every day, graduating and losing the habit can lead to an identity crisis.

Looking Forward: Continue to Reflect and Adjust

Clear suggests that habit formation is an ongoing process that requires continual evaluation of your identity and behaviors. Your brain is always seeking ways to automate behavior based on environmental cues, so it’s crucial to reflect on your habits regularly.

By making small adjustments, you can promote growth and refine your actions to stay on the path to your goals. With hard work and awareness, you can become anyone you want and achieve anything you desire.

Book Summary of The Power of Discipline by Daniel Walter

It might be difficult to be productive when you’d rather do anything else. Our natural tendency is to favor immediate satisfaction above effort and long-term objectives. In contrast, Daniel Walter contends in The Power of Discipline that developing healthy habits will help you become more disciplined over time.

Walter, a Canadian author and cognitive neuroscience Yale graduate, specializes on enhancing focus, routines, and memory. This manual will discuss developing productive habits, biological hurdles to self-discipline, and its difficulties. To assist readers attain their maximum potential, we’ll also rely on other works like Awaken the Giant Within and The Power of Habit.

What Is Self-Discipline and Why Do We Struggle With It?

The capacity to make wise decisions, withstand pressure, and act in your best interests is known as self-discipline. Daniel Walter emphasizes the significance of setting objectives, forming positive habits, and working consistently hard in order to achieve success.

Self-discipline is a talent that requires experience and work to develop since people have a tendency to choose quick satisfaction above hard labor. In addition, Walter lists four innate characteristics that undermine self-control: the need for consistency, exaggerating one’s own talent, procrastination, and unreasonable expectations. To develop self-discipline and accomplish your goals, it is essential to recognize these inclinations and work to overcome them.

Tendency #1: Craving Consistency

Walter identifies the first biological tendency that hinders self-discipline as our resistance to change and preference for consistency in our lifestyles, jobs, and environments.

This tendency prevents us from taking uncomfortable steps that can trigger improvement and success. Experts like Brianna Wiest attribute this phenomenon to the brain’s hardwiring for homeostasis, which sends us urges to resist change and maintain consistency to avoid emotional changes that alter bodily chemistry.

Humans Fear Loss and Failure and Desire Comfort

Humans resist change and crave consistency due to three reasons: fear of loss, fear of failure/regret, and comfort in the familiar. To overcome this tendency, Walter suggests performing a thought analysis exercise when making important decisions.

This involves listing the pros and cons of each option and determining which choice will be most advantageous for personal improvement and goal attainment.

We Crave Consistency Because of Our Pain vs Pleasure Response

Walter and Robbins both explore why humans resist change and favor consistency, but they have different approaches to overcoming these urges. Walter identifies three underlying reasons why we resist change, while Robbins argues that all unproductive behaviors and decisions stem from our biological urge to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

Robbins explains that neuro-associations control our pain and pleasure responses, and he identifies three factors that determine whether we’ll form a pain or pleasure association with an experience. These factors may explain why we resist change and favor consistency. Walter suggests performing a thought exercise to overcome these urges, while Robbins recommends reconditioning our neuro-associations.

Tendency #2: Over-Estimating Personal Abilities

The Dunning-Kruger effect can impact self-discipline by causing people to overestimate their ability and neglect practicing it. To avoid this tendency, seeking feedback from proficient individuals is recommended. Procrastination weakens self-discipline as it becomes habitual, and there are two main forms: delaying hard work for instant gratification and spending more time planning than doing work.

To resist procrastination, start tasks as soon as possible and stop planning when 70% sure of success. It is important to accurately judge one’s own abilities and improve self-awareness to enhance self-discipline skills.

Procrastination Isn’t Always Bad

In “A Mind For Numbers,” Oakley discusses two types of procrastination. She argues that deferring tasks to plan them is useful, while consciously delaying work for more immediately enjoyable activities is unproductive and termed as habitual procrastination.

To overcome procrastination, both Oakley and Walter recommend starting tasks as soon as possible. However, Oakley suggests completing the toughest tasks first to avoid burnout and using planning time effectively. She does not support Walter’s idea of starting work at 70% certainty.

Tendency #4: Setting Unrealistic Expectations

Walter highlights the common mistake of underestimating the time and effort required to reach our goals, leading to failure and discouragement. Giving up too easily weakens our ability to self-discipline, as it reinforces the habit of instant gratification.

To overcome this, it’s important to set realistic expectations, analyze our goals and actions, and avoid self-sabotaging behaviors. For instance, someone who wants to learn how to knit must practice consistently for the required time frame to achieve their goal. By doing so, they can preserve their self-discipline and avoid giving up.

The Impacts of the Planning Fallacy and How to Resolve Them

Experts attribute unrealistic expectations to the planning fallacy, a cognitive bias where people underestimate the time needed to complete tasks due to poor planning and overly optimistic performance expectations. This bias stems from optimism bias, motivated reasoning, and taking the inside view.

Setting unrealistic expectations can lead to a lack of self-discipline and trigger negative thoughts, self-judgment, depression, and burnout. To avoid this, Walter recommends analyzing behaviors and prioritizing tasks, managing time and resources, and considering potential obstacles. Experts suggest seeking advice, defining priorities, blocking time off in your calendar, and brainstorming potential obstacles to ensure a realistic perspective on goals.

Improve Self-Discipline With Good Habits

To enhance self-discipline, Walter suggests replacing bad habits with good ones that support discipline. Habits are actions we do automatically, and forming habits that are detrimental to our interests reduces our ability to adopt positive habits.

However, Gary Keller cautions that building new habits can quickly deplete our limited supply of self-discipline or willpower. To overcome bad habits, Walter recommends cultivating good habits such as:

Habit #1: Create Morning and Evening Routines

Walter suggests that establishing a consistent morning and evening routine helps to promote productive behaviors and make better choices, reducing unproductive temptations that can harm self-discipline. By making these routines a habit, you can resist behaviors like sleeping in, eating poorly, or staying up too late.

A morning routine should include a plan for waking up, eating breakfast, and leaving for work, while an evening routine should start an hour before bedtime, with activities such as brushing teeth, washing face, setting out clothes for the next day, journaling, and then getting into bed.

Habit #2: Create Plans to Achieve Your Goals

Walter suggests that big goals can be overwhelming and lead to inaction, which weakens self-discipline. To avoid this, clearly define your goals and create a plan of action that breaks them down into daily tasks and sub-goals. By doing so, you can hold yourself accountable and increase your chances of success.

To create an effective plan, identify your end goal and then break it down into tasks like applying for residency, finding an apartment, and researching costs. Finally, create a daily schedule to accomplish a task or subgoal every day.

Habit #3: Gain Control Over Your Impulses

Walter says that acting on impulses without thinking is a bad habit that harms self-discipline. It leads to giving up and instant gratification, which can be harmful in the long run. To counteract this habit, he suggests two strategies: the 40% rule and the 10-minute rule.

The 40% rule advises to push through the discomfort and complete the remaining 60% of the work, whereas the 10-minute rule suggests waiting for ten minutes before acting on an unproductive impulse to assess if it’s the best decision.

Applications of the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that can also help with avoiding instant gratification. It involves setting a timer for a period of time, such as 10 minutes, and using that time to be productive. This can help you avoid giving in to temptations and stay on track with your goals.

By engaging in productive behaviors during these short bursts, you may be more likely to continue being productive and less likely to give in to instant gratification. This technique can be useful in various contexts, such as when you feel the urge to binge eat and can spend 10 minutes doing yoga instead.

Habit #4: Become Familiar With Discomfort

Walter advises that self-discipline often requires doing things we don’t want to do, like work instead of partying. However, practicing self-discipline can help us resist unproductive behaviors and persevere through tough times. To become familiar with discomfort, Walter suggests stepping out of our comfort zone intentionally.

For example, if you’re uncomfortable on stage, try karaoke with friends to build resilience. Experts note that this approach can also boost confidence and creativity, but caution against overwhelming yourself too quickly. Instead, start with small steps and consider going with a friend to ease into discomfort.

Habit #5: Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Walter suggests that mindfulness, or focusing on the present and controlling thoughts and emotions, is crucial for self-discipline. Negative thoughts and emotions can make it harder to practice self-discipline, but if you focus on the present and control your thoughts and emotions, they won’t influence your ability to self-discipline.

One way to develop mindfulness is through meditation, which improves focus, decision-making, and delaying instant gratification. Mindfulness and meditation are highly effective for increasing self-discipline, indirectly improving sleep quality and alleviating stress. A beginner-friendly meditation technique is “noting,” which involves recording thoughts, feelings, and urges to overcome impulses.

Habit #6: Fully Commit to Your Goals

Walter says that to improve self-discipline, you must fully commit to your goals and put in 100% effort. Half-hearted efforts hinder self-discipline, and true success requires a strong belief in your ability to achieve your goals.

To overcome subconscious intentions that prevent full commitment, identify limiting thoughts and habits and replace them with positive ones. Brian Moran, author of The 12 Week Year, also agrees that weak commitments stem from subconscious intentions and must be addressed to achieve goals.

Increase Commitment by Pacing Yourself and Creating a Routine

Walter’s recommendations for maintaining commitment and momentum towards your goal are two-fold. First, avoid taking on too much too soon, as it can lead to loss of motivation and weaken self-discipline. Second, establish a goal-focused routine and maintain it even after you achieve success, as consistency is key.

For instance, if you want to gain supporters for your new innovation, posting on social media randomly won’t help. Instead, set a routine of posting twice a day, and even after achieving success, continue to post twice daily to maintain and strengthen your community.

Habit #7: Create Positive Associations

Walter warns that relying solely on self-discipline can lead to burnout if you dislike the work. To sustain self-discipline, he suggests creating positive associations with the work by incorporating enjoyable activities into a ritual before, during, and after work. Repeating this routine can create positive mental associations, making it easier to self-discipline. For example, open curtains before work, light a candle during, and reward yourself with a nice dinner after.

Change Your Neuro-Associations to Boost Self-Discipline

Tony Robbins, in his book “Awaken the Giant Within,” emphasizes the importance of rewiring negative associations, or what he calls “negative neuro-associations,” to practice self-discipline effectively. Negative associations with necessary activities like work can hinder productivity.

While Walter focuses on building positive associations to replace negative ones, Robbins suggests taking additional steps to completely undo old negative associations and replace them with new positive ones.

To change negative associations with a behavior, Tony Robbins suggests taking these steps:

  1. Identify the behavior you want to change and what’s blocking you.
  2. Create a sense of urgency to change by realizing how the negative association is holding you back.
  3. Disrupt the negative pattern of thinking by doing something unexpected when the negative association arises.
  4. Create a positive pattern to replace the old one and reinforce it by making it a routine.