The Highway to Willpower is SURROUNDED by Exits of Temptation

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How serious are you?

Your willingness to block access to distractions is often correlated with your desire to achieve a goal.

The highway to willpower is surrounded by exits of temptation

A few tips towards developing discipline:

1: Ask yourself why you ‘need’ it.  Is it a want or a need.  Be honest with yourself.  What part of you will be unfulfilled if you do not become more disciplined?  Entertainment and small dopamine hits are only a reach away (on your phone).  Let’s be real….  The best way to conserve your willpower is to put it away, make it inconvenient to access.

Conserve willpower by avoiding temptations / distractions

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, welcome to chasing energy episode number 32. I'm your host. Daniel Lucas. Today's episode is about discipline. Now this topic was. Uh, came about for the specific episode, because I was driving my son in my car and we had some time to talk and I mentioned the podcast to him and said, you know, I'm not really sure what to talk about. If you were listening to my podcast, what would you want to talk about? 

And he thought about for a second. And he looked up to me and said how to develop discipline. Now I have a bit of a rip reputation for discipline within our family. And I'll get to that. But today's message is that the highway to willpower is surrounded by exits of temptation. The highway. To willpower. 

It's surrounded by exits of temptation. Now I wrote that in my journal, when I was thinking about this [00:01:00] topic. Metaphor stick a lot better. In my case. But. When you are disciplined when you are driven, when you are going towards something. You are on a highway. Not always a straight one, not always one without traffic trams, not without construction. 

But you are on a highway. 

Exits everywhere are going to be the things in your life. As John Lennon said, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Those billboards are the things that happen. And in a lot of cases, there are things that we have created. And we need to take ownership and responsibility for it. Now, what does that mean? For example? 

One of the main things that is going to keep you today. From putting enough time into the goal that you need to accomplish. It's checking your smartphone. And before you think that I don't struggle with it. I struggle with it. Every single stinking day. And in fact. [00:02:00] I have been actually looking at vacations. 

That where I could turn that phone off and be completely disconnected in nature because I am unable to do it on my own. In my regular day to day, I get bored and I check it. And it's a problem. I have rules that I put in place that, that kind of blocked me from having access to it. I try to make a rule. 

On the days where I'm focused on a goal. Uh, usually on a couple of weekdays where I say the first hour of the day, you don't turn your phone. Even today. And when it came to recording this mini-sode I was thinking about going for a run instead, and I was like, I can even leverage that's how clever I am. 

At avoiding goals. I had written a goal to release this episode today. And I came up with this reasoning while I was getting dressed this morning. I actually, I need to get out and get a run in. It might bring this afternoon. And so I'm so creative that I can even use [00:03:00] exercises. Mine is my out for getting some of these other goals, like recording this done. 

So when you're on that highway, what I want you to do is start looking at those billboards and saying, what is it? That's on that billboard that's causing you to turn your neck. And or two to get off the highway. Now I'm picking on the smartphone. It's a very obvious choice. It's all of us are just one click from getting some type of dopamine hit on our feed. 

You and I, we waited in line somewhere. The first thing we do is pull out our phone. It's it is a big distraction, but. Are we going to get rid of it? Of course not. But what we do need to do is put rules in place as far as when we can access it. Now I'll give you another classic example. It's no coincidence that my son was talking about developing discipline. Cause I tend to be very disciplined around things like. 

TV time and things like that. So a rule of my house is I don't watch any TV till after dinner. [00:04:00] 

And I know that's a bit strict. I'm not saying that's for everybody, but what I am saying is I know this about me. I will never get anything creative or productive done after I have watched television. And. When I watch, that's pretty much a stamp that I am done being productive for the day. And I know that about myself. And when I used to kid by myself, I would say, oh, let me watch an episode of this. And then I'll work on that thing tonight for an hour. 

Bull crap not going to happen. Uh, Enough times have passed that I've realized it just isn't going to happen. So what I do is I just simply say, if you pick up that remote, you're done for the day. Being honest with myself. This is the billboard that is a big, bright screaming billboard. When I grabbed my television remote. 

That being honest and saying you are getting off the exit today. There will be no more progress. It's actually kind of enlightening and liberating to admit that. And [00:05:00] once you know that about yourself, Then, you know, this is not going to carry me towards that goal now. I am not sitting here telling you not to watch TV. If anything, I'm just saying pick the right time. 

To say, this is, this is the appropriate time to do it, but, but what you do have to do is you have to be real. With yourself. When you pick up your phone. And you look at that screen. There's going to be a part of you that goes, I need to do this for my work, or I have to stay in touch with my friends or I have to be a good, you know, social Stuart. 

Be real with yourself and be selfish in the sense that when you have to say, this is a goal that I'm trying to accomplish. And if you're listening to this podcast, there is something about you that has a goal in your head. I have no idea why you would listen to podcasts. If you're not a driven or wanting to be a very driven person. 

And when you think about those goals, How do we get there? I it's not an overnight thing. It's going to be [00:06:00] you chisel at it day after day, and the mind gets deeper and deeper. Think of Shawshank redemption. Can I, can you think of a better example in terms of movies where someone shows how to accomplish a goal? 

He digs in that tunnel. For, I think it's like 20 years he's digging and putting that dirt in his pocket. Big put dirt in his pocket. That's how real goals are done. We, when you open your Twitter feed or Instagram and you see these people that are, that are enjoying success or pretending like they're enjoying success in a lot of cases. 

Um, Think about this. You have to sit there and chisel and chisel and chisel, and that's the sustainable type of goal. Well, the only way you're going to get there is by saying. I have to be real about the distractions. So today what I want you to think about, and this is what I have, I posted to social media last night. 

Which was that [00:07:00] your willingness to block access to distractions is often correlated with your desire to achieve a goal. Now, this is sort of an extent on what I just said about the highway to willpower, surrounded by exits of temptation. Your willingness to block access to distractions is often correlated. 

With your desire to achieve a goal. So. Let's put that into practice. You're on your highway towards your goal. The more willing you are to say, I am not going to pull over to an exit for the next 50 miles, no matter what restaurant or, or amenity is on that exit. The more willing you are to say I do. I put the TV remote in a shoe box, the top of my closet during the weekdays, because I have to get this project done. 

And I don't need any distractions. The more willing you are. To say I do not turn on my smartphone. Until this time of day after my workout is done or I'm at the gym, I don't turn my smartphone and dome [00:08:00] on my way to the gym, or I turn my smartphone off at eight o'clock into do not disturb because I don't want to be distracted and sucked into a social media type feed. 

Is the more willing you are to put those rules in place with yourself. The further you're going to get on that highway. And regardless of what your goal is, you've got to be real about what's pulling you away from it. If you don't have anything pulling you away from your goals. By all means. Ignore this advice. 

But what I think of. Is your classic. Uh, Oscar de LA Hoya and some of these boxers and some of these marathon runners, do you know what they do when they're going into a prime race or a prime fight? They separate themselves from basically all the temptations of society. The Kenyan runners that sleep in bunk beds and they just get up and train and get up and train. They run twice a day. They take an hour nap like an hour, 30 minute to an hour nap every afternoon. [00:09:00] 

And they just do very boring regimented day to day life because they won't be tempted to do all those other things. Why. You need to conserve that willpower to put it into your performance. And Oscar de LA Hoya, you know, The classic example of just going out into a place where you're not distracted by your family, by your friends, by all those things and saying for the next 30 days, 60 days, whatever, I am only going to think about and train for this match because by taking that temptation and putting it away from you. 

You're doing yourself a huge service because you're able to allocate your willpower more effectively. That is, that is how you enable yourself to be a more disciplined person. I wish it were a knob. I wish it was a pill like the movie with Bradley Cooper. You just take it. And all of a sudden you have this super disciplined, super focused. 

But it starts by saying I have to, I can't have access [00:10:00] to these things. I mean, Woody Allen. He still writes these movies on a typewriter. Every day. Day after day. Do you think that's any coincidence that after 50 years, this guy's still pumping out great scripts on a antiquated technology or whatever? 

And, uh, There's there's several authors who still write in pen and paper. I think it has a lot to do with, they go to the process that has the least amount of draw in terms of distraction, Stephen King, when he writes, he has a process that he does every single day, including weekends. To get ready to produce words. He puts his mind in a certain way. 

Developing that routine and removing those distractions, those billboards along the way, that's going to be a key part of how you get to your goal. So, what did you shoot in for today? What are your goals? If you want to tag me, um, at DP, Lucas, we have a website under construction. I would love to hear what your goal is by [00:11:00] saying your goal publicly. You are generally more likely to accomplish it. I've read a lot of studies, some aside on the other side of it, of this, but for the most part, by announcing a goal to other people, you tend to sort of believe it more and back it more. 

So that's, that's the lesson for today on developing discipline. What are the distractions? That are calling you away from that today. And Steven Pressfield would say, um, what is the resistance doing to keep you from what your calling in life is? How has it, how has it tempting you to say this is, this is where you need to be today. 

Think about that. I'd love to hear more about your journey. Please give me some feedback on these. Minisodes a review would be fantastic. I hope you have a great day. Thank you for joining tasting energy.