My first month of working out was terrible. I mostly skipped days and didn’t work out.

But nonetheless I was able to proactively dedicate myself to working out at least once in a week.

That simple commitment of working out at least once, snowballed into twice and thrice a week. After 2 months I was working out for 4 days a week and not skipping.

Life becomes better when you stay consistent. The people who never make progress lack discipline and consistency.

Growth comes at a later time and with a longer time frame. If you think about it, learning anything new is hard at first. But as time goes on, you get used to it, you get good at it.

Like chess for example. If you know nothing about chess and want to learn it. You’ll most likely learn how each chess piece moves first, what the rules are and what the exceptions are.

At this stage you are a beginner. All you know is how to play, not how to win.

After learning how chess works - you learn strategies, you learn certain techniques and you learn how to win.

Everything goes for the same stuff.

First you learn nothing about it, then you get exposed to it, you understand stuff, then learn strategies and learn how to do it properly.

It’s like building a house.

• Foundation first

• Then the supporting pillars

• Then the floors

• Then the furnishing

(I don’t know how houses are built step by step but you get my point)

Being aware why your life sucks starts from being consistent

Before I started making any real progress I didn’t know why my life sucked. I mean life was just bleak. It was empty and felt like I was under a massive hole that I couldn’t get out of.

It felt like I was a candle about to get put out anytime by something I didn’t know. But that all changed from the day I started being consistent.

The reason why a lot of people are stuck at making progress - is because they want easy results.

But good results come from long periods of effort and execution. It takes a long time to actually feel something is worth it. It takes a massive amount of effort before you can see a return on investment.

I spent 1 year growing my twitter account but failed.

I spent another year working on my first newsletter and it didn’t work out.

That’s why consistency is hard. It takes a lot of effort and energy to get results that will come later (and not immediately) that makes people quit because most people are suckers for quick results.

That’s why there’s so many losers and very few winners.

That’s why few people get good results while many get mediocre ones.

Discipline is like a machine, it needs maintenance, rest and fixes

I know you’ve heard of this quote a thousand times already. But that’s not what I want to share with you about.

You see discipline, works like a machine. If you don’t maintain or improve it’s part- it dies and becomes broken.

Your body works the same way.

Your mind works the same way.

If you don’t train your body to get used to working out, you will get a soft and frail body that can’t lift anything.

If you don’t train your mind to persevere when something you do is boring and repetitive - it’s easy to quit and lose all your progress.

The mind is malleable. You can train your mind how to create discipline, how much stress, boredom and repetitive work you can tolerate.

Going to the gym for years can get boring. Doing the same work every day for 30 years gets boring.

Doing what doesn’t excite you is boring.

The sweet spot is finding things that you will genuinely enjoy. But that rarely comes to building discipline.

You will not enjoy working out especially if you’re fat. At first - you will hate it. But when results kick in - that’s where it starts to get addicting.

Because the satisfaction you get from your hard earned efforts and results is ecstasy.

It’s similar to a feeling of enlightenment.

Truly addictive and ecstatic.

That’s why most newbie gym goers quit while experience lifters lift for a lifetime.

Because it’s hard to stick at the start. It’s hard to get through the beginner phase when you don’t know anything about it.

It was hard for me as well. Before I worked out seriously - I’ve been working out on and off for years. I would work on 1-2x/wk this month and completely skip the next month then workout 2-3x/wk then stop altogether.

It’s a universal experience. So don’t get disheartened and quit altogether when you go through a similar experience (it’s normal).

If you don’t know what to do here’s a specific action plan: Do this for 2 weeks

1. Lower the bar

The motto here is: “Make it so easy you can’t skip”

If you hate working out. Only workout for 5 minutes a day and 3x/wk.

This advice is for people who do not workout but want to build discipline and lose weight.

Because I myself was fat and struggled to stay consistent working out. I recommend doing 5 minute warm up follow along videos as starters.

This video here I followed for years when I was fat. It looks simple but to people who don’t workout, this is can give you a good workout (yes most people are that unhealthy, myself included years ago)

(This comment gave me energy to keep doing this warm up routine for years, it’s from the Youtube video)

2. Set a non-negotiable minimum

Even 10 minutes counts. Get a timer and just start doing something.

When I sucked at staying consistent on drawing. I would get my phone and start 5 minute timers just drawing boxes.

I like to make progress on art so I spent most of my mornings starting to draw. I still do 5 minute sketches of boxes.

Just try it.

All of this compounds. If you complain this didn’t work - that’s most likely because you didn’t even try.

(Add my sketchbook pics here)

3. Track your days

It’s alright if you mess up. But don’t quit when you break the streak. The streak is evidence that you can actually do more than you thought you could.

Don’t get obsessed about the days. Just keep a simple tracker that you did X for today (show my tracker)

Put a date on the side and the habits above with a line.

Like this (show my tracker)

4. Focus on showing up, not results

Just remember that results come later than you think. It will take longer than you expect. So I suggest you completely shut down expectations you have and just get to work, It helped me a lot.

When I worked out I stopped looking at mirrors. It didn’t help me.

For some it motivates, but for me look until months later.

5. Forgive quickly, continue immediately

Miss one day, never miss two. Most people don’t get back on track because they can’t forgive themselves after missing a day or two.

Life happens and a lot of stuff will get in the way. Just get back on track and try again. What matters most is - you show up.

Reflect weekly

What got easier, what didn’t. Keep a journal about your progress. It makes you more committed and more likely to stay consistent because caring about what you can improve shows that you are serious about becoming better.

That’s it.

See you next time

-Noat

PS: In the future I will be making a full discipline guide detailing how I increased my productivity, energy and how biology affects your discipline levels. Look out for it. I’ll also be throwing out bonuses.

If you’re interested about that, reply below what is your biggest discipline problem and I’ll consider adding it.

For now check out this sources:

If you want to get to the next level check out:

• Live Intentionally: 90 Day Self-Improvement Program Program By Harsh Strongman. Over 10k+ sold. Get rid of your bad habits and addiction fast and build discipline in 90 days. A 90 day project which aims to help you control your urges, become more disciplined and replace bad habits with productive habits. I've specifically used the tactics described in the e-book in the past to help me work 12 hours everyday. 10k sold and over 400+ 5 star verified ratings.

• The Illimitable Men Audiobook (26.5 Hours of Narration) Learn how to become a top tier man that commands respect, understands women and never gets used by other people again. In this Audiobook you will learn how to play social games and win. “If you hate yourself or do not value yourself, it’s because you’ve not given yourself a reason to value yourself. We don’t just disrespect others who are low value, we disrespect ourselves for it too” a quote from the audiobook.