პChapter 1-Fundamentals of Self-Discipline

-I do them to test my boundaries and discover how far my self-control goes.

1) Healthy automated behavior, habits- recognize craving, desires as a detour that will take you away
from your long-term goal. Discipline starts with habits. It takes 66 days on average to make a new
behavior. Habit consists of 3 parts-cue, action, reward. For example, craving for chocolate- do the whole
process, get it, but eat apple instead of it, first it will be hardest.

2) One change in your daily routine can cause numerous changes. Exercising, food journaling(for loosing
weight, eating healthy). Meditation, waking up earlier, trying new things every day, outside of comfort
zone, saving money, expressing gratitude, write down 3 things. Amount of willpower you have is
depended on your believes about it.

Chapter 2-What is your why?

1) Your reason why to say instant gratifications is long-term goals. You must have a strong why and
remind yourself when facing temptations. But your goal should be specific and emotional, for instance,
wrong-I should loose weight, correct-I want to loose 30p to look hot in my fav red dress. Think about
your why in small details, when facing temptations slow down and think about why, don’t make instant
decision. Visualizing process in details is more effective than imagining the goal.You also train your mind
to prepare yourself for challenges you will meet while the process.

2) Be selective- Students tend to procrastinate more on tasks regarded as unpleasant. So focus on tasks
you find pleasant. You should not make yourself miserable. You also should ask how your new goals fit
in your future life. Take a moment to think, craving is an impulse, if you start thinking you will become
more conscious.

3) Constantly monitor yourself- bad habits are hard to overcome, bc they happen too quickly. It’s easy to
get distracted in today’s world, focus on present moment, meditation is good, also limit your time on
social media.

Chapter -3 Dopamine, your enemy and your friend.

1) It’s is realized each time you are presented with a cue, that it associated with reward, It produces that
craving, which if not met will decrease the dopamine, when you satisfy your urge, it’s not even
happiness, it’s just relief from the anxiety of not getting it. Self awareness is important, less available the
reward is, more chances you will have. Avoid triggers. Acknowledge the craving, let that feeling to
wander through your body and then switch to your strong why. Don’t get obsessed with the thought of
letting it go.

2) Use dopamine for forming a healthy habit, associate an action with reward, listening to music while
running. Pomodoro technique- getting break. Novelty(new) and variation.

Chapter 4- Five practical ways to train your self-descipline

1) Meditation 2) Cold showers-first 2 minutes are the hardest 3)fasting 4) Control small things and
monitor yourself-make straight posture, start with small, then increase 5) Go beyond the first feeling of
fatigue- first feeling of fatigue is an emotion, you should go past the first feeling in order to increase self-
discipline. It’s only your mind, that limits you achive more.
Page 1|4
Chapter 5-Self discipline or its lack of is contagious!

Society, environment, family influence our personality, self-discipline. So surround yourself with
positive and high energy people. But this can be done otherwise- surround yourself with lot’s of success
oriented people online, you may not know them personally like your do your friends, but still their
motivation is contagious. You also can find your own ROLE MODEL-focus on his personality, mind,
values, ask what he would do, how disappointed he would be if he saw your fail and so on. Find partner.
Ignore haters.

Chapter 6-Seven traps that challenge your Self-Discipline

1) People value immediate gains over future rewards, moreover, they consider their future selves as
strangers, why would you do something for a stranger right? Instead of thinking about the reasons why
you should choose instant gratification, THINK ABOUT FUTURE REWARD FIRST! Don’t loose that future
vision. Think about healthy body, strong mind, confidence. First internal motivation, then external
motivation.

2) People who imagine themselves successful tend to be more disciplined. Think about the best version
of yourself, then imagine the worst type of person you never want to become. It’s not about visualising,
but bringing your future you closer to the current day to encourage your to take care of your future. If
you will be complaining or coming up with excuses then you need more powerful why.

3) False hope syndrome- refers to behavior of setting unrealistic expectations about the speed, amount
and consequences of the changes you’ll make in your life. It’s is a vicious of cycle, if you fall for this make
frequent attempts to change themselves yet fail each time, cause they set impossible goals, which gives
them a powerful boost of hope that makes them feel good, it’s typical instant gratification-You haven’t
achieved anything, but you feel like you’re on the top of the world. Another reason why you do this
might be the fact that you are overexcited about reaching them. Then they will face the harsh reality,
delusion will quickly turn to resignation, which leads to breaking their resolutions and then they are back
to square one. BE FUCKING REALISTIC! Accumulated experience won’t give you motivation then, it will
hurt your confidence and self-discipline.!

4) Decision fatigue-Making several choices leads to reduced self-control. Don’t make decisions, Obama
wearing same cloth, so that he doesn’t worry about it. Decision fatigue also leads to decision avoidance.
Simplification, reduce the number of trivial decisions you make, clothes. If you want to make a right
decision, do it after the break, not before it.

5) Stress- it depletes willpower, less emotions control, at such moments brain searches for a solution to
make you feel better, usually it’s looking for easy way of reward, so you turn to the very thing you want
to avoid. Ways of reducing stress: 1) exercises 2) Reading a Book 3) Go for a walk 4) meditate 5)
Message 6) Spend time with friends and family 7) Listen to music.

6) Dunning-Kruger effect- a cognitive bias, in which unskilled people overestimate their abilities, while
highly skilled individuals underestimate them. You must improve your skills to know if you really
overestimate them. People also overestimate their ability to control impulses like: hunger, drug craving,
sexual arousal-restraint bias, at such situation you are more prone to over expose yourself to
temptations. Hot cold empathy gap- People who are in cold state and aren’t hungry, tend to
underestimate the power of impulses when in hot state they are hungry. These biases can affect your
Page 2|4
self-control, so in order to avoid them you must assume your self-control skills aren’t as good as you
think, you will be more careful.

7) Status Quo Bias- preference to keep things as they are, any change is perceived as a loss, as a result
making positive changes in your life can be much harder, simply because you will perceive them as
losses, even if current state is no longer optimal for you. There are several biases that are related to this
one:

Loss aversion- tendency to prefer avoiding loss to acquiring gains. Endowment effect-tendency to
ascribe more value to things because you own them. Practical example: Mission-go on diet; Lot’s of
unhealthy food in house. Status quo bias- you will keep it at home, then restraint bias you’ll be more
likely to it eat. Loss aversion-You would not get rid of food, because you spent money on them.

Strategies to fight Status quo bias: 1) remind yourself of your goals and ask if the SQ serves these
objectives. 2) Ask yourself whether you would pick the SQ if it wasn’t already the current state-would
you still want to have junk food in house if it was free of it? 3) Coming up with several alternatives to SQ-
instead of seeing things in black and white, you can donate food for example. 4) Hard time choosing
between alternatives-don’t resort to easy choice of not doing anything, pass a coin if you still won’t have
any idea of what to do.

Chapter 7- seven additional tricks to stay disciplined

1) Punishment for breaking promise-giving money, doing something you hate.

2) Achieve small wins, small wins encourages you to keep going.

3) Limit and avoid specific things, for example limiting wife.

4) Make choices before they become emotional-prevention is the best medicine, so is planning for your
temptations. Identify triggers and avoid them. So you prevent cravings instead of fighting against them.

5) Schedule indulgences- Create a cheat day, eat as much as you want, anything you want once a week,
otherwise diet.

6) Tie up your habits- Associate brushing your teeth with a short meditation after that. Combining two
habits.

7) Just keep going- you don’t need to have it perfect, just do it. If you have hard time to meditate, tell
yourself you will meditate only 2 minutes.

To sum up: Your self-discipline relies heavily on your motivation and habits, you need to have a powerful
reason to suffer, struggle and keep going. Set goals and be realistic, say no to instant gratifications.
Simplify everything, get rid of garbage.

Create your own Ideal person, character, describe it.

1) boredom as a trigger.

2) winner mindset even after defeat.

Page 3|4
3) Think of your energy as a source of investment.

Page 4|4