Highlight: How To Actually Become Disciplined WITHOUT Willpower… The Leading Behaviour Expert

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

How do I fix my discipline if I'm an ill-disciplined person?

Chase Hughes (0:05)

Understanding what discipline is, is the most critical element. And I define this differently than most people. So I define discipline as your ability to prioritize the needs of your future self ahead of your own, present self. And that's it. That's all that discipline is. I'm prioritizing the needs of future me. You're trying to think of an exception.

Steven Bartlett (0:32)

No, I was thinking of two scenarios. The scenario one is I go home tonight, right? Because I go to sleep, I get to bed early. And there's this other thing I'm thinking about doing after this, which is going to the gym. And I'm like, as you're saying, I was thinking both help future me. So I was like, which one is discipline?

Chase Hughes (0:50)

I think they would both be discipline.

Steven Bartlett (0:52)

Okay.

Chase Hughes (0:52)

So the moment that we start understanding that, if I could just make decisions that are prioritizing future me, then we go back to where am I getting my dopamine from? And I want past tense me to be a source of dopamine for present tense me. Because most of us look back with regret. I shouldn't have drank that much, I shouldn't have mouthed off at the family reunion, whatever it is, I shouldn't have overslept.

If I can start looking backwards with gratitude, that's the fastest way to make discipline dopamine generating. So the tricks are to start small. So when I go to bed at night, I will pop open the little Keurig coffee thing and stick the thing in there, put a cup under there, everything's ready to go. So when I wake up in the morning, I just go bam and everything's ready. I'll get my clothes out, everything kind of lined up, ready to put on for the next day. So I'm lowering the threshold of how much attention I'm spending. So I'm going to set my life up in every single way that I possibly can, as if I were a butler for future me. So when I wake up in the morning, all this stuff set out, my laundry's laid out, my checklist for what I need to do for the day, all the stuff I've got to get on a plane is all laid out by the back door. I can grab it and jump in the car. Everything that I could possibly do to make my future self go, oh man, that's awesome, and look backwards with gratitude, I'm going to do it. I'll take a $100 bill or maybe a few $100 bills every spring or summer, and I'll stick them in a jacket pocket that I'm not going to use until the winter, and I'll forget about it. In the winter, I'm looking and now I become a source of dopamine. Past tense me is becoming a source of dopamine for present tense me. That forces me to look in the future, along with printing that old me photo and putting it all over the house. But everything that I can possibly do to make myself look backwards with gratitude is what I'm going to start doing. But you have to start small. It's like just going overboard is going to be crazy. And even writing a little post-it note to yourself, and sticking it in a jacket or maybe a dress shoe that you're not going to wear for a few months, it means so much to find that. And it's from you. It's not from a loved one. You did it. So, you're looking backwards with like, wow, that's amazing. So, you're now getting in love and sending gratitude backwards, which automatically means that what's going forwards is concern and care. The moment I'm always looking back with gratitude, the concern is always going forward in the future. And the concern for present goes away. And I'm going to push that concern to the right, out in the future.

Steven Bartlett (3:49)

People struggle even with the small things, right? Like getting, because it's funny because I watched a video last night about a lady that went to YouTube and started her like journey of weight loss and whatever. And she was very, I think she was 400 pounds or something. And she was trying to get down.

And in the video, you watch, some people will know who I'm referring to. Over the space of a year or two years, she actually just gains weight. So she gets to, I think 500 pounds or something. And as I was watching it, you're watching someone who's saying, I want to change my life, but then is coming on every day and saying, I've just gained three pounds, I've just gained another three pounds. And there's almost this like visible dissonance that you're observing between this person saying they want to change their life, but clearly the actions that they're then taking are like different to that. And many people can relate to that feeling of, I want to be this person. I mean, we're coming up to like, for anyone that doesn't know, we're recording this in December. So New Year's resolutions are around the corner. Everyone's going to say to themselves who they want to become, but it's easier said than done. I think what, seven, eight, eight percent, nine percent of New Year's resolutions will stick?