 There is a very common mistake I see most people make on the road to improve their life and I am no expert But I've been there and when I say there's a big mistake. It's really simple We think that by looking at this new tactic this video this person's advice this book That is going to provide the missing piece the silver bullet that fixes everything But in reality there is only one trait that above all is by far the most important habit You need to cultivate to be successful in whatever it is you want And that habit is discipline. Now in this video Let's talk about three of the principles I've used to become way more disciplined Especially about the things that I don't really want to do, but I know will help me live and improve my life What's up guys Alex Hine author of the book master the day now I've actually included in the description some of the exercises that are in my book master the day and also a Yearly goal-setting planning worksheet. That's the yearly envisioning document I talk about in a lot of my videos if you click the link below in the description You'll be able to download it for free. You'll also get a email every few days on my goal-setting advice So it's the first link in the description. All right guys The very first principle the most important principle in discipline above all is that you do what is aligned with your goals Not how you feel emotionally. All right, that may mean the gym You said that today you're going to go to the gym for 30 minutes But it's a rainy day. You live in Portland or Pacific Northwest You just had a crappy night's sleep. There's all the stress going on Doesn't matter get your ass in the gym. You said you were going to go to the gym. You go to the gym That's discipline doing what's right. Not what's easy doing what you said you would even when you don't even want to That's discipline. That's responsibility What if it's the difficult thing could be asking a personnel, you know, you choose the easiest decision tonight You're like, uh, I'm not gonna ask her out. She's she's really attractive. She's surrounding with all her friends I don't know what to say, but blah blah blah Discipline means you got to be free. You got to make the right decision Which is the decision that I said was I'm gonna go up and talk to women because I want a girlfriend and I want to Stop being single. That's the discipline approach. This discipline could be I said I'm gonna work in my homework for one hour when I get home and then I can play But you know, I'm kind of hungry and there's a good show on and my friends texting me and is the youtuber just uploaded a video No, the discipline approach is you said you would do this now you do it You don't do what you feel like doing which is rest or having the snack or texting your friend back You do the difficult thing you said you would to improve your life now consider this it may be easy to be like Oh Alex, you know these YouTube videos you love. They're fun It's it would be so much easier if I was doing that, but guess what there's not one day where I want to get up Script my videos shoot them cue them up to the editor and or do some of the edits myself There's not one day not one day have it been like yes I'm so ready to invest all this energy into scripting and shooting. I like the planning I like the ideas. I like while I'm talking on camera, but I don't want to do this half the time I love the feeling of it having been done. I love going back through my old work and being like that was a really good video But it's the discipline that gets me through the day to actually do this every single Tuesday The second principle is to do what's right and not what's easy Now the right decision is very often the brave decision because it's the thing that scares you that you don't want to do I was talking with this girl recently about in the last year a girl that I was in grade school with I hadn't seen in years and we were just kind of shooting this shit. She told me that she There was this one guy we went to school with we were like eight years old ten years old and she's like, oh, yeah You know, I used to have such a crush on this guy bubble for years and years and years now What's funny is my exact friend the guy He had been he was so in love with this girl in all of grade school ten years But he never had the guts to ask her out because he had all these beliefs about what if she rejects me She's way more attractive than me. She's more popular than me and he never asked her out and here we are 15 years later 20 years later and she said that she had a crush on him too the whole time and he would have gotten what he wanted His goal if he just had the guts to go up and talk to her maybe risk an awkward moment Maybe risk something weird going on but at the end of the day She liked him too and I feel like this is such a good metaphor for life Because there's so many things we want to do that we're not sure how the outcome is gonna go so we don't even ask We don't even try Like how many authors succeed? I'm not gonna write a book. They never succeed. There's no money in books Like what if if I ask her out if I ask him out, what if I look dumb in front of all these people? What if I want to go to grad school? It's expensive, but that's my passion my mom says I'm dumb for doing that She wants me to be a doctor All these what if these beliefs that render us impotent they just like shut it down Immediately and so the disciplined approach to life usually is being brave It is taking the risk and betting on yourself betting on your dream the thing that really excites you and inspires you and not Listening to society that also is disciplined because you deal with fear every single day The fear is always crapping up and you have to push it aside and plow forward The third habit that will really help you is to actually force yourself up between 10 and 30 minutes earlier every day before you normally Do or force yourself up kind of early on the weekend now the thing about this is Waking yourself up early when you're tired is such a difficult. It's a monumental task, but it's so good for developing discipline because Your body's like I sure as hell don't want to get up But your mind is like this is what I said I was gonna do for my goal I'm gonna get up 30 minutes earlier and review my goals and meditate and work out or on the weekend Maybe I can just set my head straight for what I'm gonna do Maybe a little bit of work fun stuff Relaxation all in one, but I'm gonna set the intention for the day and just by doing that You're gonna learn that there is a specific moment The moment is the in-between that I talked about my other video the three second rule One of my most popular videos on the channel is the moment when you realize I Said I was gonna get up, but I said I was gonna go to the gym But the show I said I was gonna do my homework now or edit the video or write in my book or ask the person out or text my friend Mac, but That split second that three second rule is the in-between moment where the mind and the body or the heart are in Conflict the mind said you said you would do this and your body is like yeah, but nah And so you're faced with a proposition where you have to make the brave the right the discipline decision and not the easy one So that's why I want to leave it for you here today Discipline more than anything is when you said you would do something you do it doesn't matter if you hate it now It doesn't matter if you don't want to do it doesn't matter if you feel sick It doesn't matter if you feel tired the disciplined approach is doing it because you said you would it's a very Character-based approach to living life and I know there's a whole bunch other Questions and options and all these things that come up. What if I'm tired? What if I'm really sick just focus on doing the thing you said you would Instead of doing what you feel like right now because there are many things that can change your life that you may not feel Like doing right now, so think about that now again One of the ways to develop discipline is starting by writing out your goals and being disciplined about reviewing them See what I did there the first link in the description gives you a download to my free yearly envisioning It's like a goal-setting worksheet or planner And you'll also get an email every three days on how to set and achieve your most wild goals So you can check out the first link in the description and of course my last two videos right there and write