How to Develop SuperHuman Discipline
3 min read.
Aren't disciplined people super annoying?
If you're one of those people, I actually envy you!
We all know someone with superhuman discipline.
While everyone else eats cake, they eat carrots and celery.
The truth is, we all want to be that person and in this post you're going to find out how you can be.
The Big Secret
The "disciplined" really aren't much different than you and me, they just know how to channel their discipline to create habits.
When you first decide to make a behavior change, it can be really hard and require a lot of discipline to stay committed but over time it gets easier.
Most people think it gets easier because you get more disciplined but that's not actually true.
It's because that behavior has started to become a habit and habits require less discipline.
The graph below shows the relationship between discipline and the time it takes to form a habit.
You'll notice that at first discipline starts off high but over time it decreases until it flat lines but never quite hits zero.
That's because every action takes some level of discipline to complete. You're never going to unconsciously suit up in your gym clothes and go lift weights.
The flat line is the point where it takes the least amount of discipline possible to sustain that behavior and it's the point which you'll have formed a habit.
In the graph it points to Day 66 as the time it takes to form a habit.
While that's an average and it could take more or less time, it's a good target to shoot for when developing a new habit.
This is the secret that the disciplined understand.
They know that they have to "sprint" for about 66 days at which point habit will take over and very little discipline is required to maintain it.
The #1 Mistake People Make
Most people make a huge laundry list of behavior changes they want to make each year in the form of New Years Resolutions.
On January 1, they start on 10 new behaviors at once and according to statistics only 10% of people stick with it.
The reason why is that there isn't enough discipline to sustain all those new behaviors.
Don't spread your discipline too thin. If you do, you can kiss your chances of successfully developing a healthy new habit goodbye.
Focus on one new behavior at a time. In this case slow and steady does win the race.
Use Tools to Make It Easier
The purpose of a tool is to do something more efficiently and make our lives easier.
I tell people all the time, on the surface HydroSwell looks like a nutrition company but we're really a habit development company and our products are just tools to help people develop healthy habits.
For example, we created our refreshing hydration + protein drink mix, ProLoco, as a tool to help people ditch junk drinks like soda, energy drinks, etc.
If you have a bad habit of drinking soda or other unhealthy drinks, you might try to quit cold turkey but it requires a lot of discipline.
On the other hand, you could replace the soda with ProLoco, which is a tasty and truly healthy alternative.
Doing this is effective because it requires a lot less discipline than quitting cold turkey.
People have effectively been using this method for a long time now. A common example is using nicotine infused chewing gum to help people quit smoking.
Work Smarter AND Harder
I'm not a fan of the phrase "Work Smarter Not Harder" because it undermines how hard behavior change is. It requires a lot of hard work.
I'm also not a fan of the idea that it's all about putting your nose to the grindstone and being disciplined.
It's about working smarter and harder.
When you understand the relationship between discipline and habits, use tools to make behavior change easier, and work hard, you'll have a great chance of success!
Turns out that the disciplined people in our lives understand how to channel their discipline just long enough to create habits, one by one, until they've accumulated so many great habits that from the outside looking in, they seem to be superhuman!
Now you know how to do the same!
Remember, you're just One Habit Away from Living Swell aka. Living Your Dreams!
P.S. To learn more about ProLoco, our refreshing hydration drink infused with protein CLICK HERE!
