Do you want to live a disciplined life and create the future you dream of? Do you want to lead a disciplined life but do not know what steps must be taken? You are disciplined but is the balance of life somehow broken, and you feel empty inside? Want to use discipline to reach your destiny?
If the answers to these questions are what you are looking for, your search ends here, as we will discuss the book “Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control” by Ryan Holiday.
To master anything, one must first master one’s feelings, thoughts, and actions. With boundaries and controls, we can reach our full potential and avoid jeopardizing what we have achieved. In today’s time, it is essential to have self-control because people go astray very quickly and make bad decisions for themselves without controlling themselves. Or they take such wrong steps which bring inaccurate results in their life.
To avoid this, the author of Discipline is Destiny teaches the power of self-discipline and balance throughout the book. You cannot be successful without discipline in life. And if you learn to use the power of self-control by being disciplined, you can quickly become successful in your life.
To understand the book better, we are going to discuss this book separately in 5 chapters. So let’s start.
Chapter 1: Self-discipline leads to greatness
A long time ago, Hercules, a great hero in Greek mythology, was travelling in the hills – when he came to a crossroads; on the way, he met a goddess who blessed him with a luxurious life.
She said that he would achieve everything his heart desired and never feel a moment of fear, pain or sorrow. On the other hand, another goddess gave him a blessing, which was less illustrious than the first. The goddess also blessed him with the Hercules awards – but only if he worked for it himself.
The goddess said the journey of this path would be long and require hard work, consistency, and sacrifice. But this journey will make you the person you want to be. It’s precisely the situation we all face: between a slightly challenging path toward a goal and a way with short-term satisfaction. One has to choose one of them.
In such a situation, people often choose the easy route to reach their goals.
In such a situation, the author recommends adopting these four qualities:
- Courage
- Temperance
- Justice
- Wisdom
The Roman king and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius called these components the “foundation of goodness.“
He believed everything is good in life, born from our hard work and practice and adopting these qualities. Ryan Holiday says that, through this, we can all work to improve discipline in our daily lives, and by mastering it, we can achieve peace of mind.
Chapter 2: Self-discipline gives you freedom
Before achieving freedom or independence, think about what freedom means to you. The meaning of freedom is related to satisfaction – if you are not satisfied because of your work, life, or job, then you do not feel free. So if you are tired of living in your career or surrounding environment? So spend time in another environment for some time.
If you are dissatisfied with your work? So change job. If you want to eat a pizza? Order it. Do you have any idea? Share it.
You only have the solution to every problem; you must step forward. In most parts of today’s world, people can access almost anything with the snap of a finger. Yet, even with all the freedom, many of us are unhappy. They don’t even understand what they are doing wrong. This is because freedom comes with self-discipline, which is vital for you.
Unless we have the quality of self-discipline, things like technology, privilege, and success will keep us entangled despite making us feel free. In other words, resources without self-control lead to distraction.
Let’s understand this a little more thoroughly. We all have a lower and a higher self. That is, whatever we do, the voice comes from within. By doing good work, we feel good from the inside, and by doing wrong work, we start feeling bad. These inner voices constantly keep our focus on the purpose of life. It is a choice between a target and a targetless path.
Some people give up by choosing the targetless path; on the other hand, many keep trying to achieve their whole way. It is essential to maintain a balance between these two.
Self-discipline is keeping your lower self under control and strengthening your higher self. It includes working hard, practising good habits, facing challenges, and setting limits to keep everything in balance. Overall, these life principles are guided by principles, restraint and determination.
Courage is indeed needed to build self-discipline. But it is also true that you will automatically become a courageous person by adopting a lifestyle of self-discipline. And more importantly, this habit will make you outstanding in your field, whether you perform well in your area today or not, but with consistent discipline practice, acting like the best will become a habit.
Now, keeping this in mind, make changes where changes are needed and start doing the necessary work for the goal in your life. In this way, you will maintain your self-discipline.
Chapter 3: Control your body
Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest baseball players of that time. He made many international records with 23 grand slams and 495 home runs. And he kept his name for more than five years. In childhood, he was overweight and used not to be fit.
In such a situation, the question must be coming to your mind how such a person can become a great athlete. The answer is straightforward, and he did tough training for years with discipline on time compared to other average players.
He consistently followed a simple workout and diet plan according to his game to make himself physically fit and strong. Being self-disciplined about your body means building up your patience and investing in your health in the long run so that you can be healthier in the long run.
This increases the ability to reduce laziness and depression, and you will start becoming capable of facing difficult circumstances.
There are many small changes that you can make to your physical fitness so that you can win your health before winning the game of your life.
1. Do sweaty and tiring activities:
For this, you can do running, weightlifting, playing basketball, long walk, marathon, or any other outdoor sport. You can choose any of these activities per your wish, but remember that the action should be physically challenging, tiring, and uncomfortable.
You can improve your control by taking yourself out of comfort by doing awkward things. Seeing some people’s lifestyles, you feel that success means living comfortably, or it does not mean struggling. But in reality, it is not so. You should choose difficult things instead of easy and weak ones for success. By being hard on yourself, you can make yourself stronger.
That’s why you train yourself. If you can work hard while being satisfied with less and less comfortable things, you will eventually become wealthier and more powerful.
2. Sleep Early:
After completing your day’s work, sleeping early has two benefits. One is that you will get enough sleep, and by sleeping early, you can give your body enough time to rest and prepare for the next day.
Be honest with yourself. See if you perform better. Are you giving your 100% or not? When you get your full sleep of 7-8 hours, you will have more inspiration and energy and be able to make good decisions.
The second advantage is that by sleeping early, you can make your morning a miracle – meaning you can wake up early in the morning and do meditation, exercise, etc., in a calm environment, connect with yourself from the inside, and become strong from the inside.
So sleep early today, wake up early in the morning, and prepare to make your day energetic.
Lou Gehrig followed this discipline for 17 years. Like him, when you start doing such work continuously, you can become 100% successful.
3. Make Everything Simple
Many people are smart or talented but find it challenging to live a meaningful life. To avoid this situation and live a meaningful life, consider these tasks your daily priorities and complete them with focus.
Even if you are tired, busy, or don’t need to, do it anyway; you can start in a small way. To begin with, go for 10 minutes jogging in the morning. If you are writing a book, write only one sentence about it.
Once you start working consistently, you can complete that work faster after some time. And by doing this, your 10-minute run can turn into half an hour in a few months, and today’s habit of writing one sentence every day can turn into one page. And in the same way, the speed can be increased in every work. Life is simple in reality, but nothing is easy or difficult.
You can quickly achieve a problematic goal by doing a simple activity daily. Still, by avoiding that small activity, you can only achieve a small goal, which may seem challenging. Remember that you are also making your willpower bigger while becoming physically strong.
Chapter 4: Build your physical self-discipline to calm the mind
When you practice being self-disciplined physically, you strengthen your mind to function fully. It sounds simple enough, but it is more complicated too. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has said that the function of the brain largely depends on the health of the body.
If you are weak at the physical level, then your mind will also work sluggishly. That’s why keeping yourself physically strong and controlling your mind is necessary. For this, control what you listen to and do.
The next step is to teach your mind to create balance. See how you feel, think, and react in times of confusion because our life is affected by the decisions taken in such situations. An ideal quote related to this is: Keep calm and carry on.
There is a brief moment between every situation and your response. You can either use it to think, organize your thoughts, and gather more information.” another way you can handle it without making an effort is by getting angry and blaming yourself or someone else.
Remember, bad conditions cannot be fixed through negative responses; by doing so, they can be worse. So improve that little moment of patience before you react.
Ask yourself if your feelings are genuine or if another option exists to fix the situation. Don’t let fear or anger take over your mind.
Another aspect of disciplining your mind is to train yourself to focus. You can use Beethoven’s method for this, on what you want, or keep listening to music related to the work you want to focus on as background music by playing it at low volume.
If you wish to hone your focusing skills, you can read the summary of “The Power of Focus” on this website in short words.
Be a little selfish and when things are out of your control, focus on the controllable things and practice using them to try to improve the situation and ignoring the uncontrollable things. This will help you to stay motivated.
Apart from this, try to avoid reaching perfection in the beginning. Doing so can make you feel unnecessarily guilty or lose confidence in your abilities. So instead of striving for Perfection every time, aim to perform at your best.
And when you achieve less than your target, do not give up and keep trying. Remember that we make standards of working towards them with full inspiration, not because we can use them as an excuse to leave our target. Defeat is not forever. And this is an opportunity to move forward.
As the philosopher, Socrates said, “We cannot always be who we are.” What this means is that everyone can improve. That’s when your confidence becomes a strength. If you believe you can move forward, you can do so. Even if you do not think so, you cannot do it according to your belief. So keep moving forward with the confidence to move forward.
Chapter 5: Align your body, mind, and soul
In Olden times, charioteers and kings were good models for learning about control. A charioteer had to do several things to win a race: Running as fast as possible while controlling your horse. Keeping a firm grip on your horse’s reins requires mental focus.
He was getting over rough terrain without letting himself or his horse down. The danger of death was always in front of them, so it was necessary to remain calm in the face of danger.
The whole time the crowd around was cheering and shouting. Imagine how much physical, mental, and spiritual engagement is needed to perform at the best level in stressful situations. An excellent example of this was the Roman Emperor Antoninus Aurelius.
He ruled the Romans for 23 years and never put himself or his family before his people. He never tried to avoid his duties; he only worked. That’s why even today, in Rome, he was considered a kind and brave king who kept the balance of an enormous empire.
Balance was one of the reasons why Antoninus became so successful. However, being self-disciplined alone only matters if it is balanced with kindness, compassion, and love. The journey of control is complex and challenging.
Sometimes, people will accept your choice; sometimes, they will not understand and disagree entirely. But as you progress to truth, you will become kinder and more willing to help others.
You will realize that everyone is doing their own thing. You are not here to judge. You are there to accept them, make them happy, and inspire them to improve. The story of philosopher Cleanthes is an excellent example of this.
Cleanthes was walking on the beach one morning he saw a man who was blaming himself for some mistake; Cleanthes stopped and said to the man, “There is a difference between you and you through wrongdoing; you are good inside, leave that work and become good.
Start living like a self-disciplined person from today itself. Avoid every work that leads to that wrong work and starts doing good things. We all expect too much from ourselves to push our limits and perform well, so often, we don’t accept excuses that hold us back.
But you can still blame yourself when you mess up. Should hurt or hate. People who do this have given up. Think about your friend; if you find yourself in this situation, would you tell them what they did wrong? Have you taken action? Or take better steps to improve the situation.
Take the second approach. Also, have you understood them? I must have tried to know that this is not the world’s end. In the same way, you also become your friend. Inspire yourself, love yourself, support yourself to move forward in times of trouble, and at the same time, decide your destiny.
Each one of us can become self-disciplined. Remember that self-discipline is related to controlling your actions, thoughts, and feelings and using them towards your goal. Doing this lets you become more productive and stay happy and healthy for a long time.
If you get spread, you will bounce back again. You can learn to perform at your best and face life’s challenges. After realizing this, pick yourself up again when you fall, and continue your journey with purpose and strength.
Now use all the methods mentioned in the book to live self-disciplined lives. Start with small steps, do something with small challenges for you or that you find difficult. Try to do this work continuously; with time, you can feel better changes inside you and become more productive in your life.
Conclusion
Let’s repeat the lessons once:
- Whichever path you choose, stick to discipline till you reach your destination.
- Keeping that in mind, make changes and start doing the necessary work to achieve what you want.
- Pay attention to building your physical health.
- To calm your mind, try to be disciplined in every situation.
- Find out what you did to perform at your best so that you have confidence in your abilities to face the challenges.
From this book, we learned about the way to be disciplined. By being punished physically, mentally, and spiritually, you can become successful by being more productive in your life. Now take steps to be disciplined and start with small steps.
Eventually, these steps will bring significant changes in your life. I hope you have understood this book very well, and to become productive and successful in your life, you will take care of all the essential things mentioned in the book.
Discipline Is Destiny Book Review
As someone who has read many self-help books, I can say that “Discipline is Destiny” stands out. The author, Vinod Sharma, has a unique perspective on self-discipline, drawing on his experiences as a successful businessman and entrepreneur to offer practical advice and insights on developing a solid work ethic.
One of the things I appreciated most about this book was Sharma’s emphasis on consistency. He acknowledges that developing self-discipline is difficult and requires a sustained effort over time. But he also provides readers with practical strategies and tools for staying on track, such as setting clear goals, creating a daily routine, and practising mindfulness.
I highly recommend “Discipline is Destiny” to anyone looking to improve their work ethic, achieve personal goals, or live a more fulfilling life. The writing is clear and concise, and Sharma’s insights are relatable and actionable. So if you’re looking for a book to help you unlock your full potential, then “Discipline is Destiny” is worth checking out.
Contents
Tellent is nothing without hardwork and self decipiline
Day 3 completed
Discipline is a key factor in building character and personal growth