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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
The Power of Discipline summary
Daniel Walter
How to Use Self Control and Mental Toughness to Achieve Your Goals
14 mins
Table of Contents
The Power of Discipline
summarized in 6 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 6
Self-discipline
Your first step to success is knowing what your goals are and what you want to accomplish. Take a moment to think about what you want to achieve and then what you’ll need to do to achieve that. You’re going to need to put in some real effort if you really want to achieve those goals, right?
To stay on track and push yourself forward, what you need is great self-discipline. That self-discipline requires you to take full responsibility for your actions and persevere against any obstacles that might come your way.
Actually, having great self-discipline will help you to be successful in every area of your life – from helping you build better relationships to increasing your work productivity, and even to managing your finances.
Conversely, if you’re lacking self-discipline, you’re more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, have difficulty understanding what you need to be successful, and be unable to control your desires.
Self-disciplined people are more confident in themselves, too. They believe that they can achieve their goals. After all, if you lack confidence, how can you expect to accomplish anything?
So let’s look at how can you go about strengthening your self-discipline.
The part of your brain known as the prefrontal cortex is responsible for your cognitive behavior including cognitive flexibility, adaptability, memory, impulse control, and social behavior. This also includes self-disciplinary functions like prioritizing tasks, setting goals, and filtering distractions.
Studies have shown that activity levels in your prefrontal cortex are higher when you’re making beneficial long-term decisions rather than ones which would provide you with instant gratification. This is particularly interesting because, effectively, it means that self-discipline is an acquired skill.
When you focus on the cognitive functions we mentioned you exercise this part of your brain and strengthen your self-disciplinary skills. When you make better decisions and continue to do so, your self-discipline strengthens. But when you continually make poor decisions it diminishes.
It’s also possible there’s something else holding you back. We’ll find out what in the next section.
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What is The Power of Discipline about?
The Power of Discipline (2020) explores the biological tendencies within our brains that determine our ability to control our self-discipline. It shows us how we can refine these tendencies in order to develop improved self-disciplinary habits and reach our goals.
Who should read The Power of Discipline?
- Anyone lacking some self-discipline in their lives
- Those who need to ditch their bad habits
- Goal-setters looking for advice on how to be an achiever
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