How to Build Self-Discipline and Overcome Procrastination
The Hyperfocused Entrepreneur
January 13, 2022
Read time: 15 minutes
I’ve been lying about something.
Something that used to cause me deep shame and embarrassment.
And while that “thing” doesn’t stir up those emotions in me anymore, I have (until now) told a lie whenever it comes up.
I’m going to share the story behind the lie, but before I do, I want you to know something:
This is THE most important lesson I have to teach.
That’s not hyperbole.
If you take this lesson to heart and learn from my mistake, you will have the ability to achieve literally anything you put your mind to.
And to make it stupid simple, at the end of this article I’m going to share with you two frameworks that are guaranteed to make you more successful in life:
- The 6-Part Framework for Developing Unbreakable Discipline
- How to Win the Battle Against Procrastination in 6-Steps
But first…
The Lie
A handful of hurtful people take to the comment section of my videos every day to say things like this:
It’s true, I’m missing a tooth.
For years, whenever people would ask what happened, I’d tell them I lost it while training mixed martial arts back in the day and that its just never bothered me enough to replace it.
(It’s true I fought MMA in my early 20s, but that’s not how I really lost the tooth.)
The truth is, I had the tooth removed when I was 27, about a year before my life hit rock bottom.
Here’s the bullet points if you don’t know that story:
- Fiance left me
- $80k in debt
- Living in a van
So here’s what happened:
I’ve always struggled to make short-term decisions that would benefit my long-term success.
For whatever reason, I just don’t see long-term consequences very clearly.
A large part of this is my ADHD…
But an even larger part is just hubris…or simply, the belief that nothing bad can happen to me ‘cause I’m a special butterfly.
One area I had no Discipline for in particular was Oral Hygiene.
Despite my Dad’s incessant prodding when I was younger, I could just never be bothered to care about little things like brushing or flossing.
Simply put… I lacked Discipline.
The consequence of NOT doing those things just seemed so far down the road.
A problem to be solved for another day.
Well, eventually that problem caught up to me, and on the day it needed to be solved, all that could be done when the dentist told me my tooth was dead was to have it removed.
I was ashamed and embarrassed.
Not just because of how it looked…
But because I knew I had NOBODY to blame but myself.
It can be hard to accept when we’re living in a hell of our own making. So much easier to point to external circumstances and to blame bad luck, the system, or the Man for our suffering.
The truth is, all of us are living in worlds of our own making.
And I was deeply ashamed of the world I had created for myself.
So ashamed that for a very long time I simply lied when people asked what happened to the tooth so they wouldn’t think less of me.
But I realized something the other day when I read that troll’s comment…
I realized, it no longer bothers me to admit the truth.
Because for a while now I’ve considered getting an implant, but always changed my mind at the last second because I’ve ALREADY paid the price for losing the tooth.
I don’t want to forget that lesson.
The lesson that the actions we do or do NOT take right now have massive consequences regardless of whether or not we can see them in the moment.
And so I leave it missing.
And I share this story with you in the hope that you can avoid having to learn this lesson the hard way like me.
The lesson is this:
“Easy Choices, Hard Life. Hard Choices, Easy Life.”
– Jerzy Gregorek
Here’s the paradox we all must solve for, and it’s one Socrates pointed out long ago…
The truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. Those who cannot, or will not, govern themselves, are condemned to find masters to govern over them.
This is the lesson I learned the hard way all those years ago when I lost my tooth…
If you cannot Discipline yourself, then the world will have to do it for you.
In this article, I’m going to share how to develop the Discipline necessary to always make the Hard Choices so you can rise to the occasion and achieve your full potential.
Then, we’re going to learn a 6-step process for applying that Discipline to overcome Procrastination.
But first…
We must understand the enemy we’re fighting.
The War Within – Understanding the Enemy
You vs. “You”
“You” are your own greatest enemy. But the question is… which “you”?
On the one hand, there’s the lazy you. The one that cares for nothing else in this world except surviving long enough to procreate.
Let’s call this the “Biological You”.
The Biological You is a powerful force in the universe (after-all, it’s managed to achieve its primary objective for the past 200,000 years).
So recognize, first of all, that you are up against a powerful foe who wants nothing more than to keep you zoned out on the couch gorging on Cheetos and binging Netflix.
It’s only goal: Survive.
But this is a problem for the other You… The Modern You.
See, the Modern You isn’t content to merely survive. If you’re reading this, you’ve more or less solved for that problem already.
You’re fed, clothed, and sheltered. It’s unlikely you spend much time (if any) genuinely afraid of death anymore.
Because you encounter relatively few existential threats anymore, it’s freed parts of your mind to fixate on goals beyond mere survival.
Now, you’re wrestling with the primary issue that plagues modern man…
How do you create a life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment?
For the Modern Man, it’s not enough to simply Survive… he must Thrive.
In my experience, the things that lead to a Thriving life are not easily accomplished. They require hard-work, energy, and sacrifice…
So, now that we’ve named the enemy, let’s next learn about the most powerful weapon this formidable foe wields (don’t worry, we’ll also talk about the secret weapon Modern You has that completely nullifies Biological Yous attempts to derail your progress towards your best self).
The Resistance
Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art, named the Biological Yous most powerful weapon… he called it… The Resistance.
He describes The Resistance as a universal force with one mission:
To keep things exactly as they are.
The Resistance achieves by any means necessary, but in particular, by:
- Rationalizing
- Inspiring Fear or Anxiety
- Emphasizing other distractions that require attention
- Raising the voice of the inner critic
- And many, many more….
You have experienced The Resistance if you’ve ever sat down to work and then bit hit with excuses like:
- I’m not feeling inspired…
- Maybe I’m just too tired…
- It’s not the right time to do this…
- I’m not ready. I need to do more planning/research…
- I’m actually a bit hungry and can’t really focus…
- I just need to use the bathroom real quick…
- I can still get this done tomorrow…
Most people succumb to these excuses and switch to an easier “low effort” task which simply gives the illusion of being productive.
But you’re not…
It’s like watering a fake plant.
You’re busy… but not effective.
In combating The Resistance, Modern You has two weapons.
Let’s start with the weapon most people reach for first:
Motivation
This is the weapon most of us default to in the beginning because it feels “good” and it’s easy.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why feeling motivated feels so damn good?
Well, it’s because the reward center of your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine whenever you’re fixated and moving towards a target.
Dopamine does a lot of things, but simply put: It makes you feel good.
It’s the Motivation Chemical.
Now, dopamine is great, but there’s a problem with relying on it as the foundation of our productive lives. Namely, it’s short lived AND we quickly acclimate to it.
**This hamster-wheel of adaptation is called The Hedonic Treadmill (which is a topic for another day).**
Here’s a video breaking down precisely why Motivation is a weak weapon in the fight against the Biological You.
Most people rely on Motivation in the battle against the Biological You…
They wait until they feel motivated to:
- Go to the gym
- Eat healthy
- Write that book
- Call a loved one
- Brush their teeth
For decades, I was one of these people… which is why I was losing the battle.
The tide didn’t start to turn in my favor until I reached for a better weapon. A weapon that, in truth, is always hard to wield.
But it’s also a weapon that the Biological You is helpless to stand against IF you can master it.
That weapon is Discipline, which is simply the ability to make yourself do things in the moment that you don’t necessarily want to do so that you can achieve something in the future that you really DO want.
I personally struggled with Discipline for YEARS until I mastered this system.
The War Within – Understanding the Enemy
1. Treat Every Decision As Though It’s Important
You’ve probably heard of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which simply says that humans must solve for certain fundamental needs (shelter, food, safety) before they can start wrestling with the bigger spiritual problems associated with self-actualization.
But Maslow had another framework which I’ve found vastly more helpful in my own life.
I call it The +1 Framework of Decision Making.
Here’s how it works:
Imagine your standing in the middle of a road that stretches in both directions to the horizon. In front of you there are signs spaced at equal intervals every mile or so that say +1. Behind you, stretching off into the opposite direction, the signs say -1.
These signs each represent a single decision, and with that decision you can either make the +1 decision that moves you forward in life, or you can make the -1 decision that moves you back.
Here’s the thing about this framework: Iit does not matter how important the decision is.
Each decision is an opportunity to either move forward or backwards one sign at a time. That’s it..
Now, of course there are certain decisions in life that are more important than others.
However, the beauty and power in this framework is that it builds the habit of thinking of every decision as being important.
Which it is…
Because at the end of the day, he who can be entrusted with the small things, can be entrusted with the big things.
If you treat every small decision, such as whether or not you should drink water or get that soda, whether you should go for a run or stay on the couch, whether you should fold your laundry now or just watch netflix, if you can win those small battles and consistently make the decisions that move you forward in life, then you will have incredible momentum which you can carry forward into the really big decisions in life.
The moral of the story…
Start small and treat every decision as though it were moving you towards or away from your greatness…because it is.
Quick Side Note:
Did you know we just launched the The Hyperfocus Masterclass?
This is everything I know about resisting distraction, overcoming procrastination, and eliminating needless busy work to develop laser-like focus.
These are the exact frameworks and systems that’ve helped me turn my ADHD into a super-power.
If that sounds like something you could benefit from, then click here and come join the community!
2. You Don’t Have To Love It… Do It Anyways
“Amateurs wait until they feel ready… Professionals just get up and go to work.”
Listen, when it comes to doing hard things, you will likely never feel ready.
The Biological You is fantastic at making you feel so unprepared, overwhelmed, and insecure that you just don’t take action.
The key word in that sentence is feel.
The universe does not care how you feel. It cares about what you do.
Which is good, because most of us never feel like doing the hard thing.
I encourage you to act in accordance with your thoughts, not your feelings.
The trick to achieving incredible results is to always take action in spite of how you feel.
3. Remove Temptations
I say this all the time, so you might be sick of hearing it by now, but:
Focus is the ability to resist distractions.
Now, of course, having discipline helps… But, you can actually get by on a whole lot less discipline than you’d think if you just spend some time intentionally designing your environment in a way that eliminates and reduces distractions from ever even appearing.
We did a deep-dive into designing your environment for maximum productivity in the Hyperfocus Masterclass.
I’ve opened up these 7-modules so you can check them out for free.
**To access the Environment Design modules, navigate to the Hyperfocus Masterclass and then scroll through the curriculum until you find the unlocked modules.**
4. Become the Master AND the Slave
I’ve always rebelled against external authority and accountability. I simply don’t like being told what to do.
This led me to bucking society’s expectations in my 20s and running off into the wilderness to become a professional rock climber.
But here was the problem: I also rebelled against my OWN authority.
That is, I couldn’t make myself do the things I told myself I needed to do!
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.” – Nietzche
I had to learn this lesson the hard way, but once I did, I took the steps necessary to ensure that the external world would never have to discipline me again because I was committed to disciplining myself first.
The strategy was two-fold.
First, to imagine that I am two people.
There is Current-Anthony and there is Future-Anthony.
Current-Anthony’s job is to tell Future-Anthony what to do and when to do it.
He does this by utilizing a tool called Timeblocking.
Simply put, I sit down every night before bed and I design the perfect next day for Future-Anthony, and then I schedule each task on the calendar.
From this place of emotional detachment (because Current-Anthony knows HE doesn’t have to do the work), I can lay out with logic what activities Future-Anthony should focus on to move us towards our collective greatness.
The power in this system is that Future-Anthony doesn’t have to expend any mental energy thinking about what he needs to do next, because often in the moment our thoughts are clouded by emotions.
Future-Anthony doesn’t worry about how he feels in the moment. He just looks at the calendar, sees what Past-Anthony assigned for him, and then he does the work.
This is how you live a life by design, not by default.
It’s that simple, but it’s also that powerful.
5. Identify Your Why
“The man with a strong enough Why can endure any How.” – Nietzche
I consider myself to be a pretty disciplined person these days… and yet, even I cannot muster discipline for an activity if I do not clearly understand WHY it’s important for me to do so.
Now, I admit, I’m a slow learner. I knew “intellectually” the consequences of not brushing my teeth would be that someday I’d lose a tooth and that would be problematic.
But I still had to learn that lesson the hard way.
Some of us just have to stick our hand in the fire to see what happens. So it goes.
These days, I’ve stuck my hand in enough fires to clearly understand “why” I shouldn’t do that anymore.
Avoiding this pain is actually pretty simple, all things considered, if you just take the time on the frontend to cultivate a deep emotional attachment to WHY you should do the hard thing.
For me, the deep why these days is linked to the fear I have of getting to the end of this life filled with regrets because I didn’t live up to my potential.
Your why is likely different, but no less important. So take the time to get crystal clear on WHY being disciplined is so damn important to you.
6. Develop a Daily Discipline Practice
Discipline is a muscle.
And just like every other muscle in your body, the way you strengthen it is by regularly stressing it.
Which you can do by developing a Daily Discipline Practice.
Here’s another module from the Hyperfocus Masterclass which explains exactly how to incorporate a Daily Discipline Practice into your life. You can check it out for free by clicking here.
Access them (and more exclusive content) by joining the Beyond the Apex community here (for free).
**To access the Daily Discipline Practice modules, navigate to the Hyperfocus Masterclass and then scroll through the curriculum until you find the unlocked modules.**
How to Win the Battle Against Procrastination in 6 Simple Steps
Listen, even though you’re now armed and ready with one of the most powerful weapons in the universe (Discipline), the truth is the Biological You is sneaky and has ways of getting you off track without even realizing it.
Discipline doesn’t do us any good if we aren’t even aware of when we need to use it.
The most common struggle I personally have (and I think it’s one many of you can relate with), is the battle against Procrastination.
Here’s my simple 6-step process for overcoming Procrastination:
1. Become Aware That You’re Delaying
Step one is obvious, you can’t solve a problem if you aren’t aware you have a problem.
Often we’ll get sucked down the rabbit-hole of social media or some other glitzy distraction and not even realize it.
The key is to build “pattern interrupts” into your day. Here’s one example that’s served me incredibly well over the years.
2. Reclaim Your Intention
Once you become aware that you’re distracted or procrastinating, you need to reclaim your intention.
Or, put another way, you have to, in that moment, reconnect with WHY you should do the thing you’re putting off.
3. Define the Objective
We can’t win the game if we don’t know the rules. So, the next step is to get clear about what you need to do in that next moment to start moving towards your goal.
What does it look like to win the game?
Very few people actually do this, but I think you’ll be surprised to discover just how powerful it is once you get clear on the objective.
4. Set a Tiny Goal
Massive action often leads to massive failure because we get overwhelmed and give up.
Instead, your only goal is to get a little bit of traction and translate that into forward momentum.
‘Cause remember this Law of Motion?
“An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.”
To do this, we start by setting a tiny goal.
What is the smallest bit of meaningful action you could take to get the ball rolling.
Set the goal, and then..
5. Start a Timer
Parkinson’s Law says that the scope of work will expand to fill the time allotted. Operating without clear deadlines is a great way to ensure a task never gets completed.
To really boost your productivity, stop giving yourself so much time to complete tasks.
Shortening the time window is a great way of increasing the output.
So instead of saying, “I will complete this by the end of the week.”
Say, “I will complete this by the end of the DAY.” Or even better… “By the end of the HOUR!”.
6. Just. Get. Started.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.” – Goethe
Momentum is the cure to Procrastination.
Doesn’t even have to be a lot of momentum.
Any little bit of forward motion is enough to put inertia (and Sir Isaac Newton) on your side.
Start small. Get traction. Don’t stop.
It’s that simple.
Good luck.
In the meantime,
Stay Hyperfocused, My Friends.
AV
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