5 Stupid (But Effective) Things I Do to Build Discipline

I remember the first time I realized I was disgusted with laziness.

I was talking with a good friend of mine. I don’t know why, but he mentioned how sometimes, when he is lying on his couch at home, he feels thirsty but cannot bother getting up, so he just waits until he eventually forgets that he is thirsty.

When he told me that, I felt an immense amount of disgust come over me.

Luckily, the very next moment, I realized I wasn’t disgusted with my friend.

I was disgusted with human laziness in general. And most of all, I was disgusted with the laziness that I knew was inside me.

I know that disgust seems like too strong of an emotion. But I'm just laying it out as it is.

Ever since I was a kid, I was considered disciplined by the people around me. And that was the reputation that's been following me for most of my life up to this point, except for a couple of rather problematic and destructive years.

This reputation extended into the social world, where, even though I write about a number of different topics, a lot of people view me as "the disciplined guy."

Maybe some of you reading this will be asking, "What is discipline?" or "What does it mean to be disciplined?" so let’s get that out of the way.

I don’t claim to have the one true definition of what discipline is. But the way I see it, and what those who called me disciplined saw in me, it’s doing the thing that needs to be done even when you don’t want to do it, when it’s not easy, fun, and may even be boring or painful.

However, I never considered myself extremely disciplined. Sure, it seems that I was always more disciplined than most people, but it’s not like the bar is set too high when you look around.

One thing that I always had working for me was my strong sense of inner dialogue. I was pretty much always able to recognize if I’m giving myself excuses; if I’m avoiding doing something because it’s boring, difficult, or painful—and not because I have a valid reason not to do it.

I suppose that different people have this sense of inner dialogue developed to a different extent, but if you want to say that you actually don’t know when you are making excuses and when you have a valid reason not to do something, I don’t believe you. That would be just another excuse.

So, with this power of inner dialogue and this feeling of disgust towards laziness and inner weakness, I decided to become more intentional about being a disciplined person.

If you are someone who is all about gentle self-love and tapping yourself on the back when you are letting your inner weakness take over, and you don’t want to accept that sometimes what you need is tough self-love, the rest of this essay isn't for you.

But if you want to keep reading, here are five stupid but effective things I do to build discipline.

One final thing before I begin: I believe that discipline is not something that you develop once and for all. It's something you have to practice every single day, every chance you get. That’s why these aren’t five things I did to build discipline; these are examples of the things I do on a daily basis.

1. Cutting cucumbers

Let’s say I’m preparing lunch. Everything is ready. I’ve also prepared a salad consisting of three or four different vegetables. I see that I also have cucumber, which I didn’t put in the salad. Should I use them too?

No, the salad is already too big. I have more than enough vegetables in there. That’s what I say to myself. What I'm actually thinking is, "I prepared all of this food and just want to sit down and eat. I cannot bother peeling the cucumbers and cutting them up."

The reality is that the salad is big enough. I really don’t need the cucumbers. But I’m going to take them, peel them, and cut them just because I tried to give myself such a pathetic excuse to avoid a 2-minute activity.

2. Buying bananas

Almost the same thing as the previous example, just a step further. I’ve done this hundreds of times in my life.

I’m preparing my protein oatmeal. I have five different types of fruit inside. But I forgot that I was out of bananas. It is an understatement to say that I don’t need them.

But in that one second when I ask myself if I should go out to buy bananas, I notice that my initial thought is, "I cannot bother getting dressed, going downstairs, entering the store, and going back. It’s too much work."

It is true that I don't really need the bananas. But I cannot allow myself to see going downstairs to the store that is literally next to the entrance to my building as "too much work" in any possible context.

I have two legs, so I go to buy bananas that I don’t need.

3. Carrying the weights

I’m doing a workout in the "gym" in my building. I want to do a density set of deficit push-ups using dumbbells. I grab the 30 lb dumbbells, the heaviest ones in this gym, out of habit.

But then I remember that, after push-ups, I want to do some accessory work for the rear delts, and I’m going to use 20lb dumbbells for that. Why not take the 20lb ones and use them for the push-ups instead of carrying the 30s from the rack and then back to the rack?

Well, since I’m able to think of walking 3 meters with 30 lb dumbbells as some kind of hard work, by now you get the idea that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Even if it’s not necessary and is the less practical option.

If the idea not to do it came as a result of my inner weakness, then I’m definitely going to do it.

4. Climbing on the rooftop

Some of you might’ve seen my "morning routine" video, where I talk about running up 9 flights of stairs every morning to go out on my rooftop.

The video caused a lot of confusion because the way I explained my routine is meant to be a parody of productivity gurus, but the actual routine is true.

So yes, I do run up 9 flights of stairs every morning. And I do use only nasal breathing while doing it. And I do run only on my toes.

So you can guess I don’t really feel like doing that every single morning.

There are days when I’m literally sprinting upstairs, but there are also days when I feel like starting my day more slowly.

And, for the last couple of months, there has been quite a lot of rain where I live.

So, some mornings, I would wake up to a fully clouded sky and heavy rain. That pretty much takes away the reason for me to go up to the rooftop, since the main purpose is for me to get some sunlight on the skin and through the eyes.

However, the problem is not the weather.

The problem is the sense of relief I feel when I see the rain. "Oh, nice. I don't really have to run up today."

A sense of relief that the weather is terrible just because that means I can avoid running upstairs?

You best believe I run upstairs even if I'm going to go down right away because it's raining.

5. Doing my least favorite workout

This is actually the only one of these things that I mentioned on my instagram page before. Whenever I’m not sure what to do for my training, whether because I don’t have the time for the workout from my program or because I’m not following a program at that moment, I have a simple solution:

I go through my collection of workouts and do the thing that I least want to do.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean it's the most physically difficult thing.

At this point in my fitness journey, I genuinely love the pain of physical training. But the goal here is to test my discipline, that is, doing something I don't feel like doing.

There can be a workout or an exercise that is objectively more difficult, but I simply find it more enjoyable. On the other hand, there is another option that is maybe not as difficult, or it’s equally difficult, but I dread doing it. So I choose the latter.

One thing important to note is that, if you are struggling with consistency and it’s about getting yourself to do the work, I always advise choosing something that you enjoy.

But, as someone for whom doing the daily workout is not even a question, I stick to this rule of doing what I least want to do.

Conclusion

You might’ve noticed something in common with all these examples.

I am doing things that are not necessary and are often impractical.

But at the beginning, I said that discipline is about doing the thing that needs to be done.

How am I then practicing discipline by doing these things?

True, none of these things that I mentioned need to be done. At least not for the sake of themselves.

But if the strongest, or often the only, argument against doing something is actually my inner weakness trying to take over, then that thing becomes something that needs to be done.

Then, when there are things that really need to be done, you already have plenty of experience of defeating your inner weakness, which is going to try sabotaging you.

And for anyone worrying that this approach is too extreme and that "you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself," don’t worry.

You will never kill your inner weakness once and for all. It will always be there.

Slapping it around a couple of times a day will only do you good.

Thank you for reading.

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