Unlocking Self-Discipline: Discover Your True Potential with This Powerful Guide
00:00:01 Welcome to VoiceOver Work, an audiobook sampler.
00:00:41 Unlocking Self-Discipline.
00:10:34 STEP 1 Examine your level of self-discipline
00:12:44 Serena Williams's self-discipline didn't just change her
00:20:54 A handful of healthy habits isn't going to turn you into a
different person
THE POWER OF DISCIPLINE: 7 steps to reach your goals without relying on
your motivation or willpower By: Daniel J. Martin
Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/4dec8YA
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Discipline-Without-Motivation-Willpower/dp/B0DXQTJRQ1
"Are you ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and unlock your
highest potential? In this episode, we delve into the power of
discipline and its impact on our lives. Join us as we explore why
discipline is crucial for personal growth, how it reveals your authentic
self, and serves as a life raft in turbulent times.
We'll guide you through practical steps to examine your level of
self-discipline and provide valuable insights from neurology. Discover
the link between self-discipline and identity formation, and learn about
essential tools for cultivating discipline in your daily life.
Transcript
Hello, listeners.
Speaker:Welcome to VoiceOver Work, an audiobook sampler.
Speaker:Where do you listen?
Speaker:Today is May 6, 2025, just a few days away from Mother's Day.
Speaker:Today's featured book is The Power of Discipline by Daniel J. Walter.
Speaker:This author really hits the nail on the head when he talks about how discipline is key to achieving our dreams.
Speaker:It's true, motivation alone won't cut it.
Speaker:Sometimes you need that extra push of self-discipline to keep going, especially when the going gets tough.
Speaker:His words are a great reminder that we can all choose to adopt a disciplined attitude and reap the benefits.
Speaker:Unlocking Self-Discipline.
Speaker:Discover your true potential with this powerful guide.
Speaker:Are you ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and unlock your highest potential?
Speaker:In this episode, we delve into the power of self-discipline and its impact on our lives.
Speaker:Join us as we explore why discipline is crucial for personal growth, how it reveals your authentic self, and serves as a life raft in turbulent times.
Speaker:Why discipline?
Speaker:Even though I don’t know you, I know something about you: you can do so much more.
Speaker:How do I know that?
Speaker:Well, it’s no secret: the vast majority of people are living beneath their potential.
Speaker:And if you’re reading this book, I’m sure you’re no exception.
Speaker:I sense that there is something in your life that’s not working.
Speaker:Maybe it’s an important objective that’s just out of reach, maybe you gave up on a dream and now you regret it, maybe you’re disappointed by the life you lead or you feel that someone is taking advantage of you because you don’t know how to take
Speaker:advantage of your resources and potential.
Speaker:Whatever it is, far from forgetting about it, I think it’s weighing heavier on your mind every day.
Speaker:Now, I want you to listen to me: you have the ability to achieve much more.
Speaker:Starting today.
Speaker:And I’m not talking about money or success (but those too!).
Speaker:I’m talking about true happiness.
Speaker:About being proud.
Speaker:About being amazed by achievements you never thought you could manage.
Speaker:This isn’t all smoke and mirrors here, it’s the actual truth: you can go so much further if you only discipline yourself.
Speaker:Why discipline?
Speaker:What about passion, or willpower?
Speaker:Well, they’re important too, just like intelligence and self-confidence, but if you truly want to be the master of your life, you need to learn to master your discipline.
Speaker:So, what is discipline?
Speaker:When we talk about discipline, we see a lot of skeptical eyebrows or even hackles raised.
Speaker:Discipline has so many negative connotations (submission, obedience, censorship, coercion, authoritarianism, punishment, loss of freedom…) that it’s no wonder we tend to skip it and find alternative ways of getting what we want.
Speaker:However, none of the above terms has anything to do with discipline understood as a tool for growth.
Speaker:The word “discipline” itself, derived from the Latin discipulus (disciple), has no relation to submission or punishment, but rather to learning: the root «disc-» corresponds to the Latin verb discere (to learn).
Speaker:Discipline has to do with growing, not with obeying.
Speaker:That is how businessman and educator Stephen Covey summed it up.
Speaker:The father-of-nine and author of the bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People said: “Most people equate discipline with an absence of freedom.
Speaker:In fact, the opposite is true.”
Speaker:44 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:18,440 Why?
Speaker:How can discipline be freedom if it forces us to do things we don’t want to?
Speaker:How can someone who denies themselves sugar be freer than someone who stuffs their face with donuts whenever they want?
Speaker:Discipline, when it is the fruit of a personal choice, is an attitude rather than an imposition.
Speaker:It is a mental tool that enables us to organize our everyday lives in order to progress toward our goals.
Speaker:The more aspects of our daily lives we can control and discipline, the more efficient we will be and the better we will be at making the right decisions.
Speaker:Good decisions lead us to successes that boost our independence and freedom, and as such, discipline is not submission but rather a source of liberty.
Speaker:Discipline shows you your true self
Speaker:53 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:31,800 Formally, we could define discipline as a training method in any field, which guides us, gives us strength and prepares us to reach goals or optimal levels of knowledge in that field.
Speaker:So, discipline in your mission to learn a new language will consist of efficiently dedicating your time and attention to studying that language so that you can gradually master it.
Speaker:It’s not a mystery.
Speaker:However, in my years of experience advocating for discipline, I’ve seen its greater benefit: one that’s much more elevated and powerful and which is not visible to most people at the beginning of the process.
Speaker:Discipline leads people to find their true selves in the most profound sense of the word.
Speaker:This happens because discipline is an extraordinary road to knowing yourself.
Speaker:Discovering your strengths and weaknesses, your limitations and fears, what drives you in life and what you cast aside because it doesn’t suit you: you will get to know all of this by practicing discipline.
Speaker:And I can tell you from professional experience that you’re going to like your true self.
Speaker:A disciplined person is highly aware of who they are and what their mission in this world is.
Speaker:An undisciplined person ends up living not just far beneath their potential, but far below who they truly are.
Speaker:A disciplined person is the captain of their ship; an undisciplined person is drifting with the current.
Speaker:Discipline as a life raft
Speaker:66 00:07:03,280 --> 00:07:20,880 Discipline is also a powerful weapon for lifting us out of the pits that many of us unfortunately fall into at some point in our lives, through failure, loss of loved ones, past trauma, depression, and so on.
Speaker:Those of us who work in psychology know this well, and often prescribe high doses of discipline as a remedy for problems that threaten to sink people: when life beats you down, discipline can get you out of bed in the morning.
Speaker:Not because it gives you your hope back or because it heals your wounds, but because it’s what you have to do in order to keep being you.
Speaker:Getting out of bed when there is nothing to fight for is a show of respect toward yourself.
Speaker:I know that right now, you may be thinking that discipline can’t change anything from your past or stop your boss from being so arrogant.
Speaker:But I’m sure you agree with this: being your own master empowers you to free yourself of the ghosts of your past and be more respected in the present.
Speaker:Finally, always bear this in mind: if you don’t discipline yourself so you can serve yourself, someone else will come along and discipline you so that you serve them instead.
Speaker:A person, a society, with an erratic and indulgent everyday life is easier to manipulate than someone who knows what they want and acts according to their own methods.
Speaker:If you feel that there is a part of you that is ruled by others (and I’m not talking about the reasonable obligations we all have in society, but about people taking advantage of your resources), discipline is your best weapon when it comes to setting boundaries.
Speaker:Discipline is the opposite of leaving your time up to destiny.
Speaker:And destiny is a romantic enough concept for movies and books, but highly ill-advised in real life.
Speaker:If everything I’ve said so far hasn’t convinced you of how powerful discipline can be, I invite you to try it out for yourself: keep reading, and if following the 7 steps I suggest doesn’t leave you more satisfied in your life, I’ll give you your money back.
Speaker:We all have objectives and dreams.
Speaker:We all want more fulfilled, productive and satisfactory lives.
Speaker:But we’re not always sure what path we need to take.
Speaker:The aim of this book is to discover that path together.
Speaker:Because I believe I can help you – I once found myself in the same situation you might be in right now.
Speaker:I invite you on a journey together toward a more fulfilling life.
Speaker:We will do this by choosing purposes and objectives that are worth having, and disciplining your actions so that they can lead you toward those objectives.
Speaker:We will look at how training your mind so that your impulses don’t overcome you.
Speaker:And we will look at how to use your time, make the most of it and not get beaten down by life.
Speaker:From the bottom of my heart, I hope you enjoy this exciting journey that may change your life.
Speaker:Daniel
Speaker:STEP 1
Speaker:91 00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:39,800 Examine your level of self-discipline
Speaker:93 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:41,760 “I know nothing about surpassing others.
Speaker:I only know how to outdo myself.”
Speaker:― Bushidō Code (the book of Samurai warriors)
Speaker:97 00:10:51,040 --> 00:11:01,640 In September 2022, after twenty-seven years as a professional tennis player, Serena Williams announced she was retiring from the sport.
Speaker:She had won every tournament possible and become the best female tennis player of all time, as well as a shining example of empowerment for women and girls all over the world.
Speaker:Add to that the fact that she is a committed, family-oriented woman with integrity and solidarity, a multimillionaire who says she loves being a mother, and few people would fail to see her as
Speaker:the embodiment of success.
Speaker:How did she make it?
Speaker:Or rather, how did she make herself?
Speaker:Without a doubt, her physical attributes helped a lot – but they were not the only factor.
Speaker:Her parents provided a lot of support in her childhood, but a devoted family is no guarantee of a child’s success.
Speaker:Her intelligence?
Speaker:Yes, it was important, but not enough on its own.
Speaker:No, the factor without which Serena Williams could not have achieved the absolute record of twenty-three individual Grand Slam victories plus another seventy-three titles on top – the only indispensable factor in making her who she is – was her self-discipline.
Speaker:Discipline made the impossible possible.
Speaker:Why do I say impossible?
Speaker:Because of the way things were when Williams first picked up a racket at three years old: what she would go on to achieve didn’t even exist yet.
Speaker:No one had ever done it, especially not a black woman who had grown up in a city with one of the highest rates of crime and poverty in the country.
Speaker:Serena Williams’s self-discipline didn’t just change her, it changed the world.
Speaker:It created space for someone who didn’t exist yet.
Speaker:The impossible became possible.
Speaker:Of course, when Williams started out, she wasn’t planning on any of that.
Speaker:She probably had no idea what her mind and body were capable of, and I doubt that she was imagining the 260 million dollars she’s worth today.
Speaker:Of everything that tennis was to bring her, the only part she knew was sweating through training, day after day.
Speaker:The example of Williams helps me to demonstrate this: discipline should be in our lives ahead of willpower, vocation or faith.
Speaker:I’m not saying these elements aren’t important – I’m saying they’re no use if we don’t align them with discipline.
Speaker:Your turn!
Speaker:It’s time to talk about you.
Speaker:I’m guessing you’re not Serena Williams, and that your accomplishments so far have been somewhat more modest.
Speaker:But in this chapter, we’re not evaluating your past achievements – we’re looking at the starting point for your future ones.
Speaker:In terms of self-discipline, do you know your starting point right now?
Speaker:I invite you to take the following twelve-question quiz.
Speaker:Don’t spend too much time on it; it’s better if you don’t think too hard about each answer:
Speaker:128 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:22,480 1.
Speaker:Do you know your main strengths and weaknesses?
Speaker:2.
Speaker:Do you change your mind easily?
Speaker:3.
Speaker:Are your thoughts, actions and wishes for the future related to each other?
Speaker:4.
Speaker:Do you spend more money than you should?
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Do you know if you’re healthy?
Speaker:(I’m not asking if you’re healthy or not, I’m asking if you’re aware of your current state of health).
Speaker:6.
Speaker:Do you tend to break the promises you make to yourself or others?
Speaker:7.
Speaker:Do you know your fitness level?
Speaker:(See question 5).
Speaker:8.
Speaker:Do you believe you deserve better?
Speaker:9.
Speaker:Do you know what your partner/friends/family value most about you?
Speaker:10.
Speaker:When someone achieves something, do you feel that it’s unfair?
Speaker:11.
Speaker:Do you know what you will be doing next Tuesday at 5pm?
Speaker:12.
Speaker:Do you find it hard to make decisions?
Speaker:If you answered “yes” to most of the odd-numbered questions, it looks like your level of self-discipline is sufficient to get started.
Speaker:If most of your “yeses” were on the even-numbered questions…well, that’s why you’re reading this book!
Speaker:Do you know yourself, or ignore yourself?
Speaker:Now, I invite you to check on your relationship with yourself.
Speaker:Do you know yourself well?
Speaker:Do you ignore your own needs, or are you overindulgent with yourself?
Speaker:If you want, use this quiz as a guide:
Speaker:162 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:25,200 1.
Speaker:Do you know your weaknesses?
Speaker:What is stronger than you?
Speaker:What do you have no control over?
Speaker:Junk food?
Speaker:Your football team losing?
Speaker:Videogames?
Speaker:Your boss?
Speaker:Housework?
Speaker:If you’re not sure, observe yourself in your daily life.
Speaker:Work out when your weaknesses overcome you and in what circumstances or emotional states you turn to them.
Speaker:Write it down so you can keep it in mind.
Speaker:2.
Speaker:Are you accounting for your limitations?
Speaker:Limitations are the real obstacles you’re starting out with, and they’re a dose of either reality or humility: if you want to master surfing but you live two thousand miles away from the beach, you have an obvious limitation.
Speaker:If you want to play piano but you’re missing two fingers, you’ll have to focus your technique in another way.
Speaker:If you want to start a business but you can’t afford the initial investment, you need to account for this limitation.
Speaker:3.
Speaker:Where are your temptations?
Speaker:Right now, I want you to look around your home, your phone, your place of work or neighborhood, and zoom in on the potential temptations around you.
Speaker:How far away from you are they?
Speaker:How easy is it for you to reach the weaknesses you noted down for the first question?
Speaker:What do you normally do to impede your access to them?
Speaker:If you’re constantly scrolling through apps that waste your time or money, delete them from your phone.
Speaker:If you go on websites that cause you problems, stop yourself from accessing them.
Speaker:Use a blocker, leave your phone in another room, turn it off: whatever you have to do.
Speaker:If you walk past a bookmaker’s or electronics store every day and it’s causing issues for you, take another route.
Speaker:4.
Speaker:Can you explain your goals and your plans for reaching them in one minute?
Speaker:We still haven’t talked about objectives, but I can tell you that once you have defined them, you will have to act accordingly.
Speaker:To do this, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the elevator pitch technique.
Speaker:The elevator pitch technique is used in the business sector to test whether an entrepreneur is clear on their project.
Speaker:It consists of “selling” the idea in the time it takes to take an elevator.
Speaker:If it doesn’t manage to sound authentic or convincing, then either the person is unclear on their project, or they don’t believe in it themselves.
Speaker:Can you, in one minute, convince me that your objectives are achievable with your current lifestyle?
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Do you have habits with feedback?
Speaker:Sleeping well, eating healthy, working out, taking care over your appearance and keeping house are transversal habits that will help you with your goals, especially when willpower fails you or something you’re leaning on falls for any reason: you can weather a storm better in a well-built, well-maintained house than in one that’s falling to pieces.
Speaker:In good weather, both houses might look okay – but when the wind picks up, only the one that’s ready for it will remain standing.
Speaker:6.
Speaker:Do you treat yourself well?
Speaker:Self-discipline doesn’t mean self-harm.
Speaker:Life is also about those little pleasures after a long, hard day.
Speaker:Of course, these pleasures shouldn’t interfere with your goals (if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t reward yourself with donuts), but you should treat yourself when you’ve worked hard.
Speaker:If you’re not in the habit of treating yourself, start now.
Speaker:You can list some little pleasures and, every morning, spend a few minutes enjoying them before your day begins.
Speaker:Anticipation is powerful and it will help to strengthen you.
Speaker:Maybe everything I’ve said so far sounds like hyper life-coach talk.
Speaker:A handful of healthy habits isn’t going to turn you into a different person, and going back to the example of Serena Williams, you’re not three years old and you can’t demand huge changes of your brain at this point in your life.
Speaker:We tend to believe that once we reach adulthood and have formed our characters, we can’t change no matter how disciplined we are.
Speaker:If you think that too, let science show you you’re wrong.
Speaker:What does neurology say about discipline?
Speaker:In recent decades, the relationship between discipline and brain function has been studied in great depth, with groundbreaking results.
Speaker:As you know, your brain is formed of various regions with different functions.
Speaker:At the front of your skull, behind your forehead, is your prefrontal cortex.
Speaker:This is the most modern zone from an evolutionary point of view and is responsible for executive functions.
Speaker:These are the things we do consciously and voluntarily after a complex cognitive process: making decisions, organizing daily tasks, adapting our social behavior to each situation, and so on.
Speaker:Executive functions guide our behaviors and enable our attention, planning and adaptation of actions as we go, thanks to information we obtained on previous occasions (what we call “working memory”) and in accordance with the goals we set ourselves.
Speaker:How does self-discipline affect all those executive functions?
Speaker:Self-discipline trains your mind to carry them out more efficiently when the time comes.
Speaker:It’s a toolkit you have at your disposal.
Speaker:Research using brain imaging shows a clear correlation between levels of self-discipline and brain activity: when you perform any executive function, the more self-discipline you have, the better the activity in your prefrontal cortex, which means your brain is handling more options for tackling the task.
Speaker:Let’s look at an example.
Speaker:In the face of temptation (like your phone vibrating with a new message while you’re driving), your brain quickly starts working to provide a response.
Speaker:A disciplined prefrontal cortex will have more information on past situations and will conclude that it’s not worth taking your attention off the road to look at the message: consequently, you as a driver will ignore that temptation without much effort.
Speaker:In a person with less self-discipline, the way they act has no guideline, so their brain won’t know whether to respond to the temptation or not: consequently, the driver will hesitate and probably pick up their phone while driving, because it’s easier to give in to temptation than to resist it.
Speaker:Self-discipline helps you stay focused.
Speaker:Even in the face of unknown stimuli, a disciplined brain has more clues on how to act than one forced to constantly improvise.
Speaker:In other words: a disciplined brain has a better hand of cards to play.
Speaker:Self-discipline and identity
Speaker:233 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:33,560 Self-discipline doesn’t just guide you when it comes to everyday tasks – it helps you to be who you are.
Speaker:We are not born with self-discipline; it’s a skill we learn and memorize when we are young, until it becomes a part of us.
Speaker:If you were to suddenly erase that learning from your mind, your character would change and you would stop being you.
Speaker:You have probably heard of the famous case of the US railway worker Phineas Gage, who on September 13 1848 suffered a serious accident at work that destroyed part of his frontal lobe.
Speaker:Apparently, while he made a full recovery – he could walk, eat, talk, and so on – those close to him said “he was never the same again”.
Speaker:Phineas, a pleasant and formal man, became an impulsive, rude, and chaotic blasphemer.
Speaker:This shows that all his training on how to behave had been erased from his hard drive.
Speaker:Given that being responsible and formal defined Phineas, when he stopped being responsible and formal, he stopped being Phineas.
Speaker:Following this logic, if discipline is part of what we’re like, can discipline turn us into someone we’re not yet but who we would like to be?
Speaker:The answer is most definitely yes.
Speaker:This was demonstrated by a study into neuroplasticity: the brain always has the capacity to improve its neural organization.
Speaker:In fact, it is known that the brain is capable of continuing to generate neurons and neural connections until we are more than eighty years old.
Speaker:Until recently, in the same way that you “got” the pair of legs that you got (slim, long, strong, and so on), you also “got” a frontal lobe with the limits and capacities that you got.
Speaker:This was unless you had a terrible accident like Phineas did, a neurodegenerative disease, or something else with a similar impact which meant you couldn’t change your executive efficiency no matter how hard you tried, much less improve it.
Speaker:However, we now know that executive functions can be trained and improved on a voluntary basis at any life stage.
Speaker:That means that our intelligence and personality are not set in stone: we have power over them.
Speaker:It's true that your personal and genetic history mold your frontal lobe in one way or another, but neither your DNA nor your past have the last word: you do.
Speaker:Self-discipline starter kit
Speaker:252 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:33,160 Before moving on to the next chapter, I would like to know if you already have a self-discipline starter kit in your daily life.
Speaker:I’m talking about the set of habits you should already have: something like what you typically get with a car.
Speaker:So, what are these habits?
Speaker:There is no official list, so let me tell you the ten that I consider essential:
Speaker:257 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,200 1.
Speaker:Get up early in the morning and always at the same time, whether or not you have somewhere to be.
Speaker:2.
Speaker:Spend between six and eight hours a day on your main productive activity, whether that’s work, study or raising your children while they’re little.
Speaker:3.
Speaker:Exercise regularly.
Speaker:4.
Speaker:Get enough sleep.
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Eat a balanced diet.
Speaker:6.
Speaker:Practice self-care, both at a health level and in terms of personal appearance and caring for your home.
Speaker:7.
Speaker:Cultivate and maintain healthy social relationships, both within and outside of your family.
Speaker:8.
Speaker:Be a responsible and respectful citizen toward your community and those around you.
Speaker:9.
Speaker:Have free time and enjoy it.
Speaker:10.
Speaker:Have goals.
Speaker:This baseline will help you much more than you think: these habits feedback on themselves and prepare your brain to welcome other habits that are more difficult to sustain over time and for which you will require more perseverance.
Speaker:Discipline is a tool that will help you perform your executive functions more efficiently.
Speaker:To discipline yourself, you must know yourself.
Speaker:What are your strengths and weaknesses, your limitations, your goals, your plans, your habits, your relationship with yourself?
Speaker:Treat yourself fairly.
Speaker:Self-discipline is synonymous with growth, not punishment.
Speaker:Studies into neuroplasticity have shown that we can change voluntarily at any stage of life through self-discipline.
Speaker:We hope you found this episode insightful and motivating as we explored the power of discipline.
