How do you develop discipline when starting out?

It's hard for a person who has been living as though there were no consequences for their actions to suddenly become disciplined.

Here is how to do develop discipline before life teaches you the hard way.

Thread.

When you set a task ahead of you, there are two things that can happen.

You either complete the task, or you don't.

Its either that task gets done and a chain of events is put in motion because of it, or it doesn't and a different chain of events is put in motion.

The world doesn't care about your REASONS.

The reason most people fail in life is because they are always thinking short term.

Everything in life is compound interest.

- Wealth is accumulated.
- Love gets better when given time.
- You don't grow a family in one day.

- Your mind won't become calm because you did meditation once.
- You won't get ripped because you were at the gym once.
- Because you read one book means nothing, you won't suddenly become a better thinker because of it.

You have to accumulate in each area for it to matter.

But the problem is that we are conditioned to think short term, and find it difficult to switch to long term thinking.

You procrastinate because you don't see the immediate consequences for your action/inaction, because there are no immediate consequences.

Society feeds us lies of:

- Love at first sight.
- Body building *hacks* (get ripped in 2 weeks lololol).
- Get rich quick schemes.

Because of these you end up developing the mindset that everything has immediate rewards/consequences.

So if you do/don't do something and you don't get an immediate reward/consequence you start to think that there isn't a reward/consequence for it at all.

This is deadly.

You keep hearing that your life is a result of what you did following all the way five years back,

and that your life in the next five years will be a result of what you do today.

Five years is a long time to keep track of.

You probably won't be able to remember all the choices you make.

So how do you ensure you get things done?

Create immediate gratification and consequences.

By doing so you remind yourself that your actions do have consequences.

You just do it quicker than life would.

You also do yourself good because life does not teach its lessons nicely, or calmly, or painlessly.

It will grind you to the ground.

If you start messing up, punish yourself before you have to deal with the bigger consequences later on.

If you get things done like you should, give yourself a little treat before the main event.

You don't do this because without doing so what you do is meaningless,

you do it to keep a little reminder at the back of your head that your actions have repercussions.

You don't have to do this for all your life, with time you won't even have to.

Once you start seeing the results of actions you took years ago, and how much the results have accumulated you'll have no need for immediate reminders.

But for now you need immediate reminders so you don't end up on the wrong side of the future results.

This is especially important for young people.

Older folks have had their moments of regret and joy for the things they did/didn't do years back.

Don't be the one to regret your actions/lack of actions.

Don't use your life for the experiment.

Create your own is short term reminders.

How do you create short term reminders:

- Punishment
- Reward

If you don't do what you should, you must take away some pleasure/comfort in your life (temporarily).

If you do what you should, you can keep the comfort (you don't get to add another pleasure).

If you don't go to the gym, you don't get to go out on the weekend, sit down.

If you don't finish writing that essay, you don't get to go on social media, put it down.

If you don't cook good food, you don't get to eat at McDonald's, stay hungry.

Nobody likes being deprived of basic comfort.

In your pursuit to keep your normal activities going, you end up taking better decisions and doing what you ought to.

This isn't necessarily good, and is definitely not something that will sustain you all your life.

However, it keeps you for the period before your subconscious understands that for each action, there exists a reward or punishment that comes from compounding.

Once your subconscious understands this, you no longer need to do this.

But you should.

The severity of the punishment should always be proportionate to what's at stake.

Compound interest is all.

Get the now done, so the later will be great.