Most people today believe, (and maybe even you do, too) that in order to be REALLY successful (and I mean an absolute gamechanger in the world today), that you need absolutely insane amounts of discipline.
Only that’s not true at all.
It’s definitely true that for SOME people, discipline is their only hope, and their only way to win, and they really do win. But it’s also true there are people in the world that nobody would ever consider disciplined, that are multi-millionaires.
The truth is that the word discipline is often misused and misunderstood. WAY TOO MANY of us use ‘the D word’ as an excuse.
I used my ‘lack of discipline’ excuse for not quitting smoking for MANY years, until I actually did it.
I’m sure you’ve probably even told yourself that false narrative that you REALLY WISH you COULD do something, if only you had the discipline, but you don’t.
But the real truth is…. You don’t need to be Kobe Bryant level disciplined, wake up at 4am, do 4 workouts a day to be great.
Kobe needed to do that.
He did it for himself.
But you don’t need Kobe level discipline to win at all.
Discipline is not my forte. Not at all.
I literally almost CAN’T do ANYTHING I don’t want to do.
Discipline is not my Thing
But that didn’t hold me back from being a world class pro athlete (as a pro skater).
It also didn’t prevent me from building my own corporation from $36.00 in change on my bedroom floor into a $300K per year business, and being successful CEO for 8 years.
And it certainly hasn’t held me back from having a great career as a sales professional, capable of going to work for any company anywhere, selling any product at all, and being successful there, either.
All if these areas that I’ve won in, in ways I could only have dreamed of growing up poor as hell, I did without discipline.
The truth of the matter is that you don’t NEED discipline at all to succeed.
Not the discipline that’s impossible to do, that you must force yourself against your own will.
Not the discipline to do all the uncomfortable things you really hate, until you learn to love it after 10 years of suffering, pain, and grueling self-torture.
You’re probably wondering why the hell I’d go against everyone else’s popular advice and say hell no…
You Don’t Need Discipline to Win
You don’t need discipline any more than anyone else in the world does.
The fact is that everybody is born with more than enough discipline to absolutely CRUSH IT in life, if they choose to do so.
Yes, everybody, including you, has an equal amount of discipline.
Even the biggest loser you’ve ever met or seen in your life, ever.
Even that person you know that loves food, always over-eats, and has never been able to lose weight.
Yes, even that guy you know that loses every job he ever gets within 6 months, because he’s just an asshole, LOVES to argue over anything at all, and just can’t keep his mouth shut.
Yes, even that person you just pictured in your mind.
The bums on the street, the unemployable, the drug addicts, thieves, liars, degenerates, everyone at the local bar. That asshole of a relative nobody can stand at the family reunion for longer than 20 minutes at a time….
…even THEM.
The real truth is that absolutely NOBODY is MORE disciplined than anyone else. Kobe Bryant wasn’t more disciplined than you are.
EVERYONE has an equal amount of discipline, and more than enough to be successful.
It’s not that you DON’T have the thing people call discipline.
It’s that you’re working on the WRONG KINDS of disciplined action.
The Wrong Kind of Discipline
If you think drug addicts, alcoholics, assholes, or complete losers aren’t disciplined… …THINK AGAIN.
One of the many benefits of my childhood was growing up in a broke-as-a-joke household.
My dad was an alcoholic, and he smoked. He had a SOLID job as an electrician. He worked at the same firm for over 20 years and was part of the furniture there. He was disciplined to show up to work every day without fail.
Growing up, my family was SO broke, my Mom had to get handouts from the local government to buy my school uniforms, including trainers and P.E. uniforms. We always had an old car, lived in government housing for poor people, and I couldn’t afford to go anywhere, or do anything unless my bike could take me there, and it was free.
Yet, my father could afford to drink in a bar 6 days a week before and after dinner and smoked 20 cigarettes a day!
He was a dedicated, devoted, and highly disciplined alcoholic and smoker.
He was a disciplined hard worker, held down a good job, and showed nothing but true dedication and commitment to his family (the family he had at the bar, not the one that he lived with).
Over 80% of society are disciplined to get up out of bed every morning and go to a job they absolutely hate.
He stuck to a strict budget, and always made sure that he had more than enough money budgeted for cigarettes and alcohol.
He paid the rent, bills, and made sure his family had barely enough to get by, eat, etc.
My father was HIGHLY disciplined, extremely so, but for ALL THE WRONG THINGS.
Drug Addict Level Discipline
It’s not easy being a drug addict. Hell no. Drug addicts are some of the most dedicated, committed, disciplined people ever.
They use discipline and skills to get money each day for drugs, feed the habit, keep a roof over their head, maybe eat a little, sometime sleep when they need to.
Disciplined drug addicts in any major city learn the ins and outs of the unemployment, social security and benefits systems.
Essentially, being a drug addict or alcoholic takes dedication, devotion, and discipline to stay that way.
The Discipline to Stay in Place
Most people that say they’re ‘stuck in life’ are in fact extremely disciplined to support the lives they have. As a result, they stay exactly where they are.
They say they’re stuck, when it’s their discipline holding them there.
These people have developed highly disciplined daily, weekly, monthly, and annual habits, to support that lifestyle.
Over 80% of society are disciplined to get up out of bed every morning and go to a job they absolutely hate.
There are people that are highly disciplined to make sure they get their 3-4 hours a day of Netflix in.
They’re highly disciplined and trained to pull their phone out of their pockets and every opportunity possible and scroll social media. In fact, they’re so disciplined with their smart phone use, they almost can’t walk anywhere, even cross a busy street without looking at their phone for some reason.
Being really into doom scrolling on TikTok or Instagram takes a disciplined, focused effort to constantly do it.
Everybody is disciplined to get up at around the same time every day, get to work on time, eat, drink, go home, watch TV, and do everything they normally do.
We’re all disciplined to wear clothes every day. We don’t say it’s too hard. It costs a ton of money to buy clothes, wash them, clean them. But we don’t see that as disciplined action, we just get up and get dressed before leaving the house and don’t ever question it.
So, what’s so different about that kind of discipline, and the discipline needed to be successful?
NOTHING AT ALL.
Everybody is Already Disciplined
The truth is, EVERYBODY IS DISCIPLINED.
If you do anything at all the same way each day, from getting out of bed in the morning, putting on clothes, getting to work, going home, cooking and eating food, watching TV, just about ANYTHING you regularly do, that is ALL disciplined behavior.
So, if discipline is something you don’t need it at all, and you already have it… success is not a matter of getting more, or becoming more, or being dependent on, discipline at all.
So, what is it you need to be successful, instead of needing more discipline?
Let’s look at where your discipline lies…
If Everyone’s Discipline is the Same, why do Only Some Succeed?
Some people succeed, while others fail. And I don’t mean success in a superficial sense. I mean in every sense of the word, no matter what success looks like for you.
If success to you is winning the national hot dog eating contest, owning 150 dogs, or growing an international community of wallpaper lovers… …maybe you don’t care about your health and wellness or having a clean and tidy house, that’s fine. How you define your success is your decision.
But, there’s always one definition of success, that works for me, for every type of success imaginable.
My Definition of Success
My definition of success is; the ability to start in one place in life, aim to be in another, and get there no matter what.
It’s THAT simple. You look into the future, decide which direction your life needs to go in, and you do it.
People that succeed frequently get from A to B, no matter what A or B looks like.
So, to me the first step is, you need to figure out what YOUR version of success looks like.
What are YOU Disciplined to Do?
We know that absolutely everyone is disciplined. This means you must also be disciplined.
If you’re not succeeding, or not where you want to be in life, this means your disciplines are not aligned with your vision for your own success. Maybe you’re guilty of being disciplined to stay in place. Are you treading water? Swimming only to stay in place?
Are the actions you do to stay fit cancelled out by the amount of alcohol your disciplined to drink, TV you’re disciplined to watch, or the snacks you’ve disciplined yourself to eat at the weekends?
Over the next week, observe what you do.
Either write it down, or even just keep a mental note of how you spend your time, what you do, and what that disciplined action might have as an effect on your life.
Ask yourself, what are you disciplined to do, that goes against what you WISH you were disciplined to do?
Where are you working against yourself, but don’t really want to?
What are your negative disciplines?
Define YOUR Success
Success might look like different things to you, in different areas of your life, and that’s fine.
It’s a great thing to be aiming at multiple different goals if those things are aligned, and not contradictory.
You can’t be concerned about losing 200lbs in weight, when you also want to keep your sweet tooth and sugar addiction, while watching 3hrs of TV, and eating an entire cake every day.
So, in as simple as a way possible, define what success would look like for you. Grab pen and paper, or a note on your smart phone, and write out a list of things that you consider success to be, when you achieve it.
Do not do this as if you’re setting a goal. You do not need to be specific or give it a timeline for achievement. This is not the same as goal setting, this is writing a quick definition of where you are going to be when you succeed at this particular thing. You’re not putting a timeline on it, or a specific amount, you’re just going to define it in the way that makes sense to you.
My version of financial success is this:
I will be financially successful when I have $1Million in a bank account, in cash. Not net worth, not any other vanity metric. $1million in cash only.
It’s okay to have multiple definitions of success for different areas of your life, but run through this exercise with one, for now.
Define Who YOU Are
Now that you know where you need to be (to be successful) … it’s time to get honest with yourself about who you are. Not in a mean way, and not in comparison to your written definition of success, either.
I want you to completely forget about your definition of success right now, and simply figure out who you really are.
Knowing yourself really well can give you clues about how certain things in your life go sometimes. They can also tell you why trying something another way, might work out better for you than the ways you’ve been trying them.
To do this, find yourself a quiet space. It can be anywhere, outside, inside, just give yourself a good space to think without interruption.
Pull out a note pad / open a new note on your phone, and at the top of the page, write this question:
What is my Truth and Authenticity?
Start writing down statements that are true and authentic to you, about yourself and your life, as they come to you. And drop the bullshit. No pretending here.
The things that make you, you… might be dark, ugly, wonderful, loving, or just plain boring.
This doesn’t matter.
You need to figure out who you ARE, not the version other people see.
These things can be positive, negative, anything in between. Just an honest perspective of who you are.
I’m not going to lie, this exercise took a me a few days to do. I keep adding new things to it, but I’ve learned a lot about myself.
As an example, here are a few of mine:
- As a kid, I felt downtrodden
- I still get angry at the world, because the world seems unfair to me
- Any opportunity I’ve ever found, I’ve gone all in trying to win
- I’ve ALWAYS tried my best, within the realms of my own understanding
- I’ve always been attracted to the alternative lifestyle, music, clothes, vs the mainstream
- I get disappointed with people, how unreliable and inconsistent they are
- I’m very transparent, an open book, and sometimes overshare
You’re writing these things down, because being your truthful authentic self, is really all you can do.
This exercise can be done in 10 minutes, but I would consider keeping it as a working document. As things come to you, add them to the list. The more this is on your mind, these things will suddenly come to you out of nowhere, and you’ll know what they are.
So now, you should have a clear definition of success for yourself, and a good idea of your true authentic self.
Now, let’s compare these notes for a second.
Compare What You Want to Who You Are
Look at your version of success and compare it to your true authentic self.
Now, you can start to connect the dots between the type of success that you want, and the type of person you are.
You will be able to see a little bit of perspective as to why you want the things you do, what they mean to you specifically.
For me, here’s what that looks like:
- I want a million dollars in the bank, because I want to be rich. I don’t care about being famous, I just want to have enough money to do whatever I want. To travel, to live freely, help people I care about, not be struggling through life.
- I don’t want to rely on other people. I want to be independent. A one-person business would be best for me. I have all the skills, knowledge, and resources I need to launch that right now, with ZERO capital.
- I’m not always an extrovert, or an introvert at all. I’m an ambivert. Once I find a circle of people I can trust, I go all in. I’m very loyal and trusting once I overcome my first fears. Then, I became a huge personality within that circle. It’s important to me to not feel alone, but build a network of people I can trust, so we can dominate together. It’s hard to find these like-minded people, but social media has billions of like-minded people to network with.
- I’m self-reliant and have an amazing unstoppable work ethic. So, once I find the thing I’m going to do, there’s no stopping me, because I go all in.
- I love things that are different. Alternative solutions to modern day problems. Thinking outside the box is what I do best.
- I’m an outlier, that’s where I thrive. I must seek out other outliers with the same goals that I have, so we can help each other win.
- My biggest weakness is going to be self-doubt, analysis paralysis, the infection of perfection, or my expectations being too high. I always want everything to work perfectly, but patience is the better game.
As you read these personal statements of your own, what you’re looking for here are ways in which you can find the type of success you’re looking for.
Ask yourself;
- Is there anything you wrote about your authentic self, that might be misaligned / conflict with your version of what success is?
- Is this thing about you going to potentially prevent you from success, or does something need to be changed about your world view?
- Is there a gap in your knowledge? What skill do you need to learn, to increase your possibility of success?
It can be as simple as seeing why something about yourself is a strength or a weakness, and what can be tweaked to better align these things.
Can you see just how insightful these personal statements are?
Being self-aware and aligning your truth and authenticity with your version of success, unlocks a whole ton of things.
Next up, let’s work on your belief a little…
Believe You’re Capable
I suffered from imposter syndrome, analysis paralysis, the infection of perfection, and gave up on multiple businesses, because I completely lost my belief in my capability of success.
I had this HORRIBLE seed thought, that because I hadn’t built this exact type of one person business BEFORE and didn’t have a lot of followers on social media, that nobody had any reason to believe or follow anything I said.
What I should’ve known (because it’s absolutely true), is that I needed to be 1-2 steps ahead of somebody else, in order to help them. Being a polymath I’m an expert in many things, and also have built an impressive skill stack, that allows me to offer amazing solutions.
I decided to start a web design / graphic design freelance business. I also specialized in Local SEO. My websites were designed with Local SEO built in and guaranteed to list on page 1 of Google Maps within 60 days or less.
Not only do I definitely know about these things, I have 25 years’ experience. I also worked at a digital marketing firm in sales and sold these products every single day.
I believed in my capability here and charged 2-3 times more than any other web designers, because I’m an expert.
If you want to succeed, and grow, you need to believe you’re capable of doing so.
Some of these things can be instant, others may take a while to learn, but all you need to be is 1-2 steps ahead of anyone else, and you’re more than capable of showing people how to do something.
You don’t need to win the Tour de France, to teach someone how to ride a bike.
What are You Capable of?
You weren’t born knowing how to walk. First you learned to turn your head.
Then you rolled over.
You learned to lift your head up off the floor.
Next came crawling, and you learned how to sit upright.
After that, you learned to stand holding onto things. Eventually you took your first step.
But, read through the steps taken above again, to learn to walk. None of those steps were insignificant. They all mattered. You believed you could turn your head first. That’s what you could be capable of.
To take your first steps toward success, all you need is to get from A (where you are now) to step one, whatever that looks like. There could be a lot of ‘steps’ along the way, all you need to know is that you’re capable of taking the first step.
Can you walk for 2 minutes? You’re capable of working out.
Can you lift a 5lb weight one time? What about 2 times? You’re capable.
Are you capable of going to the gym and even just sitting around there for a few minutes each day? What about going to sit in the sauna for 5 minutes?
Do you have 5 minutes while your coffee is brewing to do 5 pushups? You’re capable of finding time.
Write down a short list of all the things you need to do, that you’re capable of doing, 100% consistently, as a next step, without ANY doubt in your mind. Next to it, write the action needed to get it going)
For Tricklowe.com, my One Person Business list could look like this:
- Design Logo & Branding = 1hr of design / building each day
- Design a website for personal brand = 1hr of web design / building each day
- Write a newsletter once a week = 1hr of writing each day
- Build a Social Media audience slowly on X, Threads, and LinkedIn, using repurposed content from the weekly newsletter = 1hr scheduling posts / networking & engaging each day
When I looked at this list above, I knew I was perfectly capable of doing all these things alongside my job and family duties, so now I have NO EXCUSE but to build it.
I just needed to start, not quit, and learn along the way.
I know you’re capable of taking the very first step towards your success, and then the next one, but none of that matters.
YOU need to know that you are.
If you doubt your capability, this will be hard for you. So, set yourself next steps you know you absolutely CAN do.
You know you don’t need discipline, because you ALREADY have plenty of discipline, so what’s next?
Better Habits / Consistency / Short Term Decisions
You now know where you want to be, who you are, and what your capable of doing without question.
What’s next is to get better at making short term decisions.
What I mean by this is, you need to be able to make the RIGHT decision, when you need to.
We already know you’re just as disciplined as anyone else, but so far, you’ve been unable to execute well. It’s time to change your short term decision making to automatically making the right choice for your wins.
If you can build consistent daily habits, you wouldn’t ever need discipline at all, would you?
You’d do the right things automatically, because you have the habit locked in.
When it comes to the moment you need to work out, you need to do it without negotiating with your mind.
You need to act consistently, so it becomes a habit.
The Good Things: Make it Easy
When it comes to doing the right things… …the things you know you really want to do, you’ve got to make it as easy as possible for you to do them.
Here’s an example of how you can make things easy;
I am NOT a morning person at all.
I never used to be able to get out of bed when my first alarm went off in the morning. I always needed second, and third alarms, and still sometimes managed to snooze-cruise all the way through all of them, and still got up late. I was late for work as a work-from-home sales executive!!
One day, I did the simplest thing ever, that made it impossible for me to not get out of bed when my alarm went off…
I put my phone charger, and my phone on the other side of the room. Far enough away that I have to physically get up out of bed completely and walk across the room to turn that first alarm off.
Getting up is a TON easier when I’m forced to do it to turn off the alarm.
Now I get up at 4:15am every day, make coffee, work out, then have usually about 45 minutes to an hour before I officially start work at 6am.
I use that time for learning, mindset work, or just getting my mind sped up and ready for the work day.
Without my phone away from the bed, none of these good habits would be possible.
The Bad Things: Make it Hard
If there are things you know you shouldn’t do, but you do them anyway. Make it harder for those things to happen.
Don’t want to eat as much candy / ice cream / bad snack foods?
Get rid of them from your house.
Replace the unhealthy things like candy with healthier things like nuts, raisins, fruit, or jerky.
If you usually snack when you sit to watch a certain show, put the healthier snacks next to where you sit.
Wanna stop watching TV / playing video games? Put the TV away in a closet and tell yourself you can only watch it if you want to pull it out of the closet first. You’d definitely watch less TV if you had to do that.
Better still, instead of where the TV is, put your guitar / piano in the middle of the room, and do that instead.
Hell, tell yourself you can only watch TV on a walking pad / treadmill. That way you can watch your shows and walk at the same time.
Habit Stacking
One simple, highly effective way to build a new successful habit is to stack a habit next to, or alongside, a habit you already have.
As you already have habits formed, sometimes stacking another action right at the same time as the habit already formed, can help solidify it.
One example I have is doing push-ups. Years ago, I couldn’t really do them. Doing 10 push-ups was really difficult for me. I decided to change that, and considered that every morning, when I make coffee, I have to wait for the coffee maker to brew a cup. Instead of just sitting, scrolling on my phone, I would do as many pushups as I could. If I had time, I could then scroll.
As of now, I usually do around 20-25 pushups a day, every morning while my coffee is brewing, 5-6 days a week. My triceps look awesome as a result. At one point, I was doing pushups, sit ups and squats every morning, and I still kinda falter on that, but I always at least do those pushups.
It’s completely habitual, and I feel weird if I don’t do them. Even if I don’t do them for a day or two, it’s so habitual now, I naturally just go back to doing them, and so most days, I always do those 20 or so pushups.
Not disciplined at all, it’s just a hard-wired habit now. A habit I’d feel weird not doing.
Best Book on Building Great Habits
Writing here about how to build consistent habits, would take an entire book or two. Instead, I’ll refer you to the best book ever written on habit forming….
The above is not an affiliate link, I earn nothing from recommending it, it’s simply the best ever book about habit formation, and I read it at least once a year.
Read Atomic Habits if you haven’t already, it will change your life.
Summary
In today’s newsletter I showed you how you don’t need discipline to succeed.
I talked about how people use not having any discipline as an excuse not to achieve certain things in their life and how ironically, that itself is a disciplined thought process. Many stop themselves from succeeding, using this excuse, and have disciplined themselves to fail.
Everybody is born with the same amount of discipline and has more than enough to succeed. They just choose the wrong disciplines and invest in the wrong things in life.
I addressed how anyone can succeed. But, it’s really important to know exactly what success means to you.
Understand yourself, know that you’re capable of doing it, and make a plan that invests in that result that will work for you.
Invest in your personal success every single day, and form it into a habit, so you do it automatically without even trying.
When your success habitual, it becomes a part of your personality.
You become a successful person, disciplined on the right areas, and unstoppable.
I sincerely hope this newsletter finds you well, at a moment in your life when you need it, and it helps you grow.
Please email me with any questions, success stories, feedback, I’d love to hear from you.
What’s Next?
In next week’s newsletter, I’m going to be talking about different types of bank accounts you have in life, and personal investment in yourself.
Whilst personal finances are important, and something you need to invest in, I’ll be looking at it in a much more holistic approach, so you can invest in every area of life you want to improve.
I’ll be taking a look at physical, emotional, relationships, business, and social bank accounts, amongst many more.
Chances are, if you’re lacking in any area of your life, that’s a bank account you’ve been neglecting.
More about that next week.
For now, do the exercises laid out in this newsletter.
- Define what success would be to you.
- Define your truth and authenticity so you know a little more about who you are today.
- Recognize where your negative disciplines might be, and how committed you are to them.
- Compare what you want, to who you are. Decide what changes might need to happen.
- Know that you’re capable to make those change, and believe it
- Work on changing your short term decisions, to build automatic habits, so discipline isn’t ever needed in your life at all, and your discipline is automatic.
I really appreciate you reading my blog, thanks! If you like what you’re reading here, you should subscribe to my weekly ‘Life by Design’ newsletter where I share insights, tips, and thoughts on building a one-person business.