5: A Small Dose of Discipline Develops into a Life-Long Habit.

Free Course: The One Thing 5: A Small Dose of Discipline Develops into a Life-Long Habit.

Welcome to Lesson 5! Here’s what we’ve covered so far in this free course on The One Thing:

1. The One Thing + The Focusing Question

2. The Success Habit

3. Use the 80/20 Principle + Create a Success List

4. Identify What’s Most Important + Give it Your Undivided Attention

Here’s what we’re looking at in this lesson…

A Small Dose of Discipline Develops into a Life-Long Habit.

“In any discussion about success, the words “discipline” and “habit” ultimately intersect. Though separate in meaning, they powerfully connect to form the foundation for achievement — regularly working at something until it regularly works for you. When you discipline yourself, you’re essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough and it becomes routine — in other words, a HABIT.”

— Gary Keller, The One Thing

When you see people who seem like they’re super DISCIPLINED, what you’re really observing is people who’ve conditioned a handful of HABITS into their lives. So, how do you turn a discipline into a habit? It can be hard at first, but after a certain point, it becomes easy.

Let me explain…

Think about a rocket ship launching into space.

When it first takes off, it requires TONS of upfront energy and fuel in order to get off the ground.

But as soon as the rocket breaks past the Earth’s atmosphere and the rocket booster detaches, all of the weight that was holding it back practically disappears…

THAT’S how habits work.

You put in lots of hard work and discipline upfront, so you can put your habit on autopilot later.

When you discipline yourself, you’re basically training yourself to behave in a specific way.

These specific behavior(s) are what we call routines.

If you stay disciplined with your routine for long enough, it eventually turns into a habit.

It’s about regularly working at something until it regularly works for you.

Actionable insights

So here’s the trick if you want to create a habit: you’ll need to use your willpower/discipline juice in the beginning stages, which is hard. But if you discipline yourself to keep at it, eventually it will become easy and automatic—at which point you’ll know it’s become a habit.

According to research, it takes, on average, 66 days to develop a discipline into a habit. This number might vary for you depending on your situation, but remember that it’s not something you can do overnight. But it is possible. And once you turn a discipline into a habit, you become better at it AND it becomes easier to execute.