#016: The Secret To Growth Is Discipline
Develop intentional habits and you will benefit from positive compounding effects
It is tempting to envy people who have achieved something you’d wish for yourself.
However, such a snapshot view blanks the fact that getting to the top requires hard discipline.
Unfortunately, we often don’t realize that discipline is nothing else than exercising a habit regularly and long enough.
Once you realize this “secret” you know that you can become successful at anything you want.
Experiencing personal growth is equivalent to saying that you are on the way to becoming successful at something.
The closest thing to guaranteed success is fast learning.
Therefore, personal growth requires you to learn within the space you want to grow.
Learning requires discipline.
The simplest way to become disciplined at something is to develop an intentional habit.
To illustrate this relation, let’s consider the following examples:
Building up wealth:
This usually does not happen overnight. People who have successfully achieved it typically have been very disciplined at work (e.g. successful startup founders) or at investing.
Becoming a successful sports person:
Even the most gifted sports people only become successful due to tremendously disciplined training over an extended period of time (usually several decades starting at a very young age).
Learning a new language:
We all know that this is only possible through regular and disciplined studying. There are no short cuts. The potential upside is enormous.
Imagine you spend 1 hour per day studying Chinese as a new language. After 2 to 4 years you can speak fluently basic Chinese which allows you to communicate with 1 Billion people more than somebody who did not do that effort. That’s a massive compounding effect!
Becoming skilled at playing a video game:
You get better the more often you play.
Growing an audience on Youtube or Instagram:
It requires a steady and very disciplined effort (and lots of work) to grow engaging followers or subscribers. This is not to be confused with creating one post that accidentally goes viral.
Learning equals discipline equals habits.
All of the above (and many more) examples require discipline.
But what are the underlying habits involved?
Don’t think too far.
The underlying habits are things like
- Getting up every day at a certain (probably early) time of the day;
- Spending X amount of hours per day on something every single day or every single week or every single month.
The magic behind those habits? The discipline to follow them even if you are not in the mood.
Not every habit leads to growth.
Walking your dog every single day at 5:30 am does not lead to personal growth.
Neither does drinking a cup of coffee every single day after waking up.
So what are the habits that naturally lead to growth?
A growth habit implies the more often you do it the better you get at doing it.
It is easier to develop a growth habit if it involves a passion of yours.
And since the compounding effect becomes enormous only after time you probably need to be passionate about your habit.
Otherwise you might give up before compounding kicks in.
A good example therefor is the behavior of young kids.
Almost everything they do is a growth habit such as every toy they enjoy playing with or activity they perform.
The more they play the better they get at it.
Until they’re tired of it and stop.
That moment they stop growing in that space. (Often by then they’ve outgrown the toy or activity.)
Develop your growth habit.
Do you have habits? Sure you have.
Do you have growth habits?
If not, maybe it is a good moment to think about developing one.
What would you like to become good at where you also can develop a passion for it?
Think about it: if you want to grow you must develop a growth habit.
Or don’t you want to grow?
Nobody becomes strong without spending time building up the muscle.
Key takeaways
- Growing means learning.
- In order to learn you must develop a growth habit.
- Think about a growth habit you want to develop and start growing.
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