The Self-Discipline & Willpower Myth

What is your perfect day?

Think about that for a second. What does a perfect day look like to you? When was the last time you had a perfect day? It seems like it should be such a simple question, but most people really struggle with that answer. If you ask most people what their perfect day looks like, they don’t usually say, ‘Well it begins with getting up and going to work!’ In fact, it’s the exact opposite! 93% of people would say that their perfect day means not having anything to do with work! They want to be as far away from work as possible!

The Sad Truth Behind Our Perfect Days

Have you ever asked someone ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ and they reply back ‘Well, it’s almost Friday!’ and you ask them, ‘Oh, do you have big plans for the weekend?’ and they say, ‘No, I just won’t have to go to work the next day!’ If you really think about it, that’s pretty sad. When was the last time you had a perfect day? When I ask that question of salespeople, they usually have to go back for weeks or sometimes months. In fact, most people will have fewer than 10 days out of an entire year that they will say was perfect. Less than 10 days! That’s just 2% of your entire year! Now THAT is really sad.

A recent survey found that 67% of salespeople in the US either hate or don’t like their jobs. Two thirds of them! And half of THEM were actively looking for other opportunities. No wonder they are having so few perfect days!

Control as the Key to Personal Freedom

When people describe their ‘Perfect Day,’ there is always one common denominator, and it is that they are in CONTROL. They were in control of their time, they were in control of what they did and whom they were with, and they were in TOTAL control of their mood and attitude. Having control of your life is the key component of the main drive of mankind. And the main drive of mankind is PERSONAL FREEDOM. It is having Emotional Freedom, Spiritual Freedom, Financial Freedom, Time Freedom, and Physical Freedom. If you sat down and described what made your perfect day, I guarantee it would be because you had the control to achieve your Personal Freedom.

The Surprising Simplicity of Achieving Personal Freedom

So why is obtaining this personal freedom so hard for most people? Why can’t 98% of the year be spent having your perfect days? Well, believe it or not, the answer is pretty simple, and it has nothing to do with whether or not you possess the willpower or self-discipline to make it happen. Most people think that I am a pretty disciplined guy. They say, “oh, it’s easy for you because you just have a lot of self-discipline” or ‘you just have a lot of willpower’ and almost dismiss it as some special gene or trait I uniquely possess, or that it just comes easy or natural to me.

Generating Self-Discipline and Motivation Daily

The fact is that I don’t think I do have a lot of self-discipline. That surprises a lot of people close to me because of what they see on the outside. But the fact is that I have to GENERATE self-discipline every single day, and self-discipline is generated by MOTIVATION. And here’s something else - People don’t have Motivation, motivation is also generated. Achieving your personal freedom begins with the MOTIVATION to change things, which then drives momentum, which is a code word for Willpower, which leads to ACTION, which then generates the effort you need on a daily basis to succeed. That’s the self-discipline. Achieving your personal freedom begins with little bits of effort every day, just small amounts, that lead to ACTION, which drives Momentum and generates MOTIVATION. Motivation isn’t a gene or special trait that we possess, it is generated.

The Critical Role of Goals in Achieving Personal Freedom

When I work with people who say they are not happy with their current professional or personal state and ask them what they are doing to change it, it usually comes down to them saying that they don’t have either the motivation or self-discipline to move from their current state to their desired state. So they want my help and the first thing I always ask them is to give me their personal and professional goals. Give me your 12-month, 90-day, 30 day, and weekly goals. And do you know what – less than 15% have them. About 85% of them do not have any clearly written goals for what they want to achieve personally or professionally. Well, no wonder they aren’t having more ideal days. No wonder they aren’t happy in their current professional state. No wonder they aren’t experiencing personal freedom! They are just wandering aimlessly day to day, hoping that one day they will have the motivation or willpower to change.

The Five Steps to Unleashing Your Motivation

You and I both know it doesn’t work that way. So motivation and self-discipline need to be GENERATED, and it needs to be done DAILY. Just because you have Motivation on Monday doesn’t mean it's going to be there on Wednesday. Have you ever started a week with the motivation to improve something in your life, and you are energized and excited and go to bed on Monday night with enthusiasm and a sense of accomplishment, only to have that disappear by Thursday? We’ve all had that happen, but here’s how you keep it from happening more than once a year.

The Three Pillars Supporting Motivation

First, there are 3 critical elements that support motivation and you can absolutely control each of them.

The first is AUTONOMY.

The only way you can sustain motivation is when you feel IN CHARGE. Researchers have found that an individual’s level of AUTONOMY one feels has a direct impact on the level of ENERGY with which someone pursues a goal. That is understandable – right? When you feel overwhelmed or out of control, it is much easier to give in to distractions, procrastinate, and eventually give up.

The second critical element of motivation is your self-worth and VALUE.

When you stay true to your beliefs and values, then MOTIVATION INCREASES. Sometimes that means not giving in to the temptations that prevent you from achieving what you want to accomplish. We all have our distractions and times when we are most vulnerable to procrastination or getting off track. Staying true to your values in those moments of decision can be greatly rewarding and sustain and grow motivation.

The third critical element of Motivation is COMPETENCE.

We know for a fact that the more time you devote to an activity, the more your skills improve, and thus your COMPETENCE increases. And guess what also increases with your competence? Your CONFIDENCE!! It is a continual cycle of growth between competence and confidence. As your confidence increases, then your approach to how take on new skills improves your competence. And these are a primary source of generating MOMENTUM because you can see the results its producing.

Five Proven Steps to Stay Motivated

So let me give you 5 steps that have been proven to help you stay motivated and accomplish literally anything you want to achieve in life.

Step 1: Real Goals for Real Change

Set a goal and make it real. If you are not setting goals and managing your life towards achieving them, then you will never be happy and have fulfillment. You will always be controlled by others. If the thought of setting goals seems a little overwhelming right now, then just set one personal goal and one professional goal. And don’t make them overly challenging, make them achievable. If you need to lose 20 pounds but you haven’t been successful doing it, then set a simple goal for the week like ‘No eating after 7 pm’. That is much more achievable than setting a goal to go to the gym every day when you haven’t been doing it for months or years.

Step 2: Visualization for Powerful Motivation

Number 2 is Visualization. For every goal you set, make a list of the reasons why YOU MUST achieve that goal and by when. You have to really visualize the benefits and ultimate outcome you will achieve by accomplishing that goal to make it real and sustain motivation.

As you plan your day and week, sometimes the tasks or activities you need to do to accomplish that goal are not going to be the most FUN things you can do, so you need to connect them with your list of MUSTS to generate that MOTIVATION to get them done.

Step 3: Breaking Down Goals into Achievable Targets

Number 3 – break down the activities you need to accomplish your goal into manageable targets. The foremost expert on motivation and personal development and achievement is Tony Robbins. Years ago, when I decided to make some major changes in my life, I felt overwhelmed, and luckily I found Tony, and he still preaches today what he told me back then.

Tony says that a major source of stress in our lives comes from feeling that we have an impossible number of things to do. If you take on a project and try to do everything at once, without any plan of attack, you are going to be overwhelmed and eventually give up and feel even worse than when you started.

Tony’s approach is something he calls ‘chunking’. Breaking the goal down into manageable and REALISTIC pieces and steps that you can chip away at and have a much higher chance of accomplishing.

Step 4: Preparing for the Highs and Lows

Be prepared for the expected and unexpected. What do I mean? First, we all have our times when we are most vulnerable to slipping up. Whether it be procrastinating on social media or time, we are most likely to eat worthless calories or whatever our favorite pastime is to pass the time and avoid doing what we know we SHOULD be doing. So be prepared for them and set something up in advance to deal with it.

For me, late afternoon is a time when I am vulnerable to eating junk. I can consume 800 worthless calories in under 3 minutes. And its not because I am hungry, it is just a habit at a point in my day when I am in between events or things I need to accomplish. So I have to prepare for that and have something healthier to eat and drink so I don’t succumb to reaching for the easiest and least desirable option.

Also, prepare for the unexpected. There are going to be things that will prevent you from getting things accomplished that you need. It is ALWAYS going to happen – so be prepared. At the end of the day examine WHY you didn’t get something accomplished that you set as a priority and do two things. Reposition getting it done on your timeline and understand what caused the distraction and try to eliminate it. Whether it be your own procrastination or letting someone else’s lack of direction and focus take away from yours – try to make changes to eliminate it.

Step 5: The Power of Accountability

Get ACCOUNTABILITY. If you know that you have trouble seeing things through and holding yourself accountable – then get someone to hold you accountable. Find a close friend whom you can be completely vulnerable with and share your goals, frustrations, fears, and successes with on a regular basis. Being held accountable by someone else is sometimes all that is needed to push you through that activity or task you are dreading because you don’t want to have to tell them you didn’t get it done.

In my personal coaching, I can tell you that holding people accountable to their goals is even more important than showing them ways to achieve them better and faster. We all need that level of accountability in our lives so if you are having trouble holding yourself accountable, then maybe make that your goal to do so. I promise it will be one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself.

Generating Motivation: The Key to Perfect Days

So the next time you aren’t feeling motivated, the next time you beat yourself up because you don’t have self-discipline and willpower, just remember that you have it within you at this very moment to generate the motivation and personal power you need.

If you make that your priority over emails and social media and Netflix or whatever, then you will dramatically increase the number of PERFECT DAYS in your life.