Cannot thank you enough for this divine timing. As I drove feeling defeated, berating myself for not trying harder today, this was the message I needed.
You have to find the joy in the work, because it's all the work. You have to have full clarity on your dream life, work backwards from that. What would that future version of you do? Begin to implement those habits now.
Find joy in the small progress you make each day and forget about the outcome. It sounds counterintuitive, but the outcome, the force and push for the result will weigh many of you down.
Sometimes what kills self-discipline is the feeling that you're making too little progress or working on the wrong thing. Having a quick but solid feedback mechanism (in the form of a metric, person, or AI) can help you refine your self-experimentation. You know where you stand and can gain confidence about your process, not progress.
In the link below I share a mindset and metric that can help you with that: comeback speed. How fast you get back on track after you drift from your habits.
The framework I share in the site helps you increase your comeback speed, so you can gain confidence about your process.
Strategic dissonance is a great concept. Aligns with Anthony Robbins NAC which also plays on pain/pleasure (not surprisingly, they are the biggest motivators.) Especially pain.
Connection between goals - habits - identity is critical as well.
Great read. I wrote a piece last year on cultivating effortless discipline. I realized that it was "easy" for me to show up for training because I had clarity of vision.
Quote from my article: "When you have clarity of vision, discipline flows naturally. It’s not about forcing yourself; the vision pulls you forward."
You’re pointing at something I’ve been developing for a while. A framework I call Adaptable Discipline.
It started with a simple question:
What happens when discipline breaks?
Even with clarity, life interrupts. You lose rhythm. The plan collapses. Most systems go quiet at that point, and you’re left sitting in the shame of drifting off.
That moment — the one after the fall, when you’re unsure how to restart — is where most systems fail.
That became my focus.
Not just how to return, but how fast. I call that comeback speed.
Discipline, the way I see it, isn’t about holding things together. It’s about building trust in your ability to realign.
And that trust comes from creating systems designed around how we’re actually wired.
If this resonates, I recently put together a site that explains the framework:
I spent two decades in this cycle of self-experimentation and cultivating curiosity.
It served me well.
When I became a widowed Dad to three young kids, I lost my ability to do anything but survive.
But having spent so much time operating from a place of always moving towards growth, it gave me a foundation to build a ladder to climb out of the well of grief.
Even when no one was there to throw me down supplies to build it.
Cannot thank you enough for this divine timing. As I drove feeling defeated, berating myself for not trying harder today, this was the message I needed.
I’ve been there a million times. Totally normal. I’m glad Dan’s piece helped you. It’s such a heavy place to be.
You have to find the joy in the work, because it's all the work. You have to have full clarity on your dream life, work backwards from that. What would that future version of you do? Begin to implement those habits now.
Find joy in the small progress you make each day and forget about the outcome. It sounds counterintuitive, but the outcome, the force and push for the result will weigh many of you down.
Sometimes what kills self-discipline is the feeling that you're making too little progress or working on the wrong thing. Having a quick but solid feedback mechanism (in the form of a metric, person, or AI) can help you refine your self-experimentation. You know where you stand and can gain confidence about your process, not progress.
In the link below I share a mindset and metric that can help you with that: comeback speed. How fast you get back on track after you drift from your habits.
The framework I share in the site helps you increase your comeback speed, so you can gain confidence about your process.
🌐 www.adaptable-discipline.com
I’ve never thought about that - sometimes imagining a future with no action is the only thing that can convince us that change is needed. Brilliant!
We are the run towards our dreams or run away from our pain. So long as we are running
I felt the same way when I "tried" playing video games again because my boyfriend thought I should have some fun time.
I was bored really fast, and at the same time stressed from achieving goals in the game.
Definitely not my type of fun time anymore.
My favorite newsletter.
Strategic dissonance is a great concept. Aligns with Anthony Robbins NAC which also plays on pain/pleasure (not surprisingly, they are the biggest motivators.) Especially pain.
Connection between goals - habits - identity is critical as well.
Great read. I wrote a piece last year on cultivating effortless discipline. I realized that it was "easy" for me to show up for training because I had clarity of vision.
Quote from my article: "When you have clarity of vision, discipline flows naturally. It’s not about forcing yourself; the vision pulls you forward."
You’re pointing at something I’ve been developing for a while. A framework I call Adaptable Discipline.
It started with a simple question:
What happens when discipline breaks?
Even with clarity, life interrupts. You lose rhythm. The plan collapses. Most systems go quiet at that point, and you’re left sitting in the shame of drifting off.
That moment — the one after the fall, when you’re unsure how to restart — is where most systems fail.
That became my focus.
Not just how to return, but how fast. I call that comeback speed.
Discipline, the way I see it, isn’t about holding things together. It’s about building trust in your ability to realign.
And that trust comes from creating systems designed around how we’re actually wired.
If this resonates, I recently put together a site that explains the framework:
🌐 www.adaptable-discipline.com
You can also see how it plays out in real life — I’ve been writing about the process in my newsletter:
👉 www.self-disciplined.com
Thank you 🙏🏻 I felt this one 🪷
This is a nice encapsulation of some things that I’ve only started to figure over almost 40 years.
Interesting to note that the title could just as easily have been “self-discipline is impossible, actually.”
I am in awe. This read brought me so much peace and dopamine. It feels like a protocol I'd like to try to change a few things
It takes time to develop, but I agree.
Once you have a powerful vision pulling you, and a clear anti-vision repelling you, all your habits change effortlessly.
Smoking weed, eating sugar, and all the classic dopamine spikers vanished from my life when I stepped into purpose.
My life shattered when my wife died.
I spent two decades in this cycle of self-experimentation and cultivating curiosity.
It served me well.
When I became a widowed Dad to three young kids, I lost my ability to do anything but survive.
But having spent so much time operating from a place of always moving towards growth, it gave me a foundation to build a ladder to climb out of the well of grief.
Even when no one was there to throw me down supplies to build it.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
This is one of the most useful reframes on discipline I’ve read.
Especially the idea that “discipline is discovered, not built.”
That maps exactly to what we see in longevity too—when health becomes part of identity, action stops feeling like effort.
People don’t stick with protocols they have to force.
But when a tactic aligns with their values, their vision, and their pain—it becomes the obvious next step.
The shift isn’t “how do I stay motivated?” It’s “who am I becoming that makes this feel natural?”
A great read as always! I’ve been looking at discipline from a Multiverse Point of View.
If I do an action or I don’t, it creates a split in the Multiverse.
A version of me who did it and got on one path.
A Version of me who didn’t and got put on another.
Which one of the paths, gets me closer to my vision.