Hey, want to know a secret? 🤫
There's a pretty direct correlation between self-discipline and success.
Shocking, I know. 🤷
But while everyone says they “get it”…
The truth is very few people actually live it. 🤏
For me, one of the most important aspects of self-discipline…
Is that it implies sometimes sacrificing short-term pleasure…
In order to achieve long-term benefits. 📈
Here's a specific example:
One time, a friend of mine rented a beach house in Carlsbad for the week…
And on one of the nights, Laura and I went over to hang with him after putting Eden to bed (we had a babysitter of course).
It ended up being a bunch of fun…
Then another buddy, who I hadn't hung out with for a few years, showed up…
And my friend had some of his friends from L.A. staying at his rental house too…
Including a couple of girls, who my wife really hit it off with.
Meanwhile, the beer, tequila, and White Claws were flowing…
And everyone was having a blast, myself included.
So as 10:15 pm came around, I didn't really want to leave…
But I knew I needed to.
Why?
Multiple reasons.
- I had a plan and a to-do list for the next day. I knew that if I stayed and kept drinking, I wouldn't accomplish any of those things. That would then make me feel crappy, and the pain of not achieving those things would be greater than the pleasure I was feeling in the moment.
- This is related to #1 – but I had multiple important calls the next. I had a podcast at 11 am, then a consulting call at 3 pm with someone who paid me a good amount of money for an hour of my time. If I'm scatterbrained and hungover – it's not just a disservice to myself but a disservice to others.
- I knew that diving too deeply into short-term pleasure of the night would deprive me of pleasure the following day. The weather was BEAUTIFUL there. In a few minutes, I'm going to go do a walk along the ocean. Then I'm going to be playing with my daughter, going on the trampoline with her, and enjoying those moments. If I stayed out until 3 or 4 am drinking – none of that stuff would happen. I'd just be dragging ass the whole day and wouldn't be enjoying these amazing aspects of my life.
- Going back to the point of this blog post, I realized that every time I practice discipline, I win. I grow more confident in myself, the person I am, and what I can accomplish in this world.
To be clear:
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a super fun night out. Or staying out late drinking. Or doing whatever.
As I told my wife Laura while we were leaving…
“If this were a Saturday night and our daughter was staying at grandma's, then I'd have been all about hanging for several more hours and knocking back several more adult beverages.”
In the case of that night though, my whole plan was to go and visit for an hour-and-half or so…
So that's what I did.
A lot of people make plans…
But then the moment their plan becomes inconvenient, they throw it out the window…
And say, “Well, I'm just going to make an exception because of _________.”
The thing is though, when you're always making exceptions…
They become the norm…
And like I said at the beginning…
You just don't see very many highly successful people who allow themselves to be blown off course regularly.
Successful people chart their course and then continue to sail towards it…
And they regularly consult their compass to ensure they aren't drifting too far off track.
I've become the same way…
And I attribute this simple thing to a lot of my success in life so far.
So yeah, just wanted to share.
– SPG
P.S. This is probably why the first time I heard of Craig Ballantyne and found out that he calls himself “The World's Most Disciplined Man,” I was immediately drawn to him. If you don't know Craig, you should check out the stuff he teaches. He's all about this discipline stuff, and how it can set you free.
P.P.S. Just in case you didn’t know, episodes of the Road to a Billion live call-in show that I do gets uploaded to YouTube. You can watch the replay of one of the episodes here.
P.P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.
