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Self Discipline: How to Cultivate Life's Most Important Habit

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What Really Sets The World's Top Achievers Apart From Ordinary People Have you ever watched someone perform at the highest level, whether it's fitness, business, writing, meditation, or something else and How do they do it? Is it their worth ethic? Is it their intelligence? Is it some hidden information about diet, finances, relationships, or life achievement? No - it's discipline. It's the power to take tiny, daily habits, and turn them into powerful daily rituals that catapult a person into higher levels of success. Inside Self How to Cultivate Life's Most Important, habit, you'll learn a new way of developing the tiny, daily disciplines to help you get fit, and live better. You'll learn why developing discipline isn't about pushing harder, or doing more, and why it's about doing less. You'll realize And finally, you'll come to know the sweet sense of satisfaction that comes from having a bulletproof system that works, and the self-confidence that comes from knowing that you will reach your goals. It's only a matter of time. Inside Self How to Cultivate Life's Most Important Habit, you'll A. How you can harness the power of "nudges" to keep yourself on track - no matter how many times you've failed before B. The daily rituals of the world's top achievers (and how to come up with your own rituals that make discipline easy) C. The myths of the 3 personal strategies that the fittest and most successful achievers use on a daily basis D. How to achieve more of your fitness, wellness, and life goals in the next 60 days than you did all last year - without traditional goal setting E. The 5 habits that set successful weight loss "maintainers" versus "relapsers" apart - backed by science If you've been spoon-fed the idea that you just "need to be more disciplined" in order to lose weight, get fit, and achieve your goals, you may want to reconsider. Self How to Cultivate Life's Most Important Habit is a different way to think about cultivating the discipline that will help you set and achieve any goal.

91 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 4, 2017

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89 people want to read

About the author

Alexander Heyne

13 books42 followers

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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
8 reviews
February 22, 2017
Good points: talking about how not to relapse into bad habits; that it’s important to look at all problems in your life and try to solve them, if you want to succeed at being healthier, fitter, and that you need to focus more on how often can you do something, rather then on the amount (better do 5 min exercise every day, than 2 hours once a month).

What is missing: Not taking into account other things that influences our life: according to Alexandrer it’s enough to stay focused on your goals and daily habits. He talks about how people stop following their diet plan or good habits, but that is usually results of someone having problems in their life. So how does one stay disciplined when you suddenly got ill, lost your job, your best friend moved to another country, etc.?
According to Alexander you should use the so called ‘nudges’.
He says that nudges are supposedly ‘proven’ things to help when everything is working against you. But doesn’t mention when or how it was proved.
Also he has no clear distinction between ‘nudges’ and habits. Basically nudges are a habit of reminding yourself of your aim. What’s even more peculiar, Alexander mostly uses written reminders, though the study he himself mentions says that a human factor (person calling you, etc.) has much greater effect.
Also doesn’t take into account that some people might not like the idea of different journals, sticky notes.
More like ‘nudges’ are great, here is just one example, and now go and figure out how to do them yourself. Kind of hard to see how constant reviewing of goals on all sorts of paper and digital version is going to keep a person on track, if something bad is happening in life. It would be good if he had tried to find some other nudges to demonstrate their effect. Because otherwise they should actually be called “reminders”.
Also Heyne has a lot of phrases like “And if you just keep on going “ – but how? Talking about how consistency is very important, but goes very little into detail what to do to actually stay on track.
Details:
Though Heyne made notes of some of the research he used for this book, there were two left out. The first is Dr.Kelly Turner who apparently conduct a research of patients with cancer and their interaction with doctors. But there is no name of her paper, nor what was the year of this study.
The second one is apparently an anonymous group of people that studied nudges.
“One of group of researchers called those habits nudges”. After that comes an explanation of a study where tested strategies to get people to workout consistently over a long period of time. And again no reference, no concrete data about the study…
On a personal account I also found two things that seemed kind of weird to me.
The first one is - mentioning a close friends death in February 2016 through suicide and then just dismissing it. I really don’t get what was the purpose of putting it into the book. Does Heyne wish to tell the reader that though a close friend died his nudges helped him stay on track? But he doesn’t say it explicitly. And even if that was what he meant to convey, it doesn’t prove much. People are different, have different mindsets – some can deal with bad things on emotional level better than others.
Secondly I found the use of Michael Jordan story as a comparison kind of out of place. (Chapter: the “New” Discipline Mindset. #1: Knowledge vs. Action)
Alexander Hayne promptly asks “why aren’t there thousands like him?” implying that all it took Jordan to become what he is – was mere continuous exercise. Not taking into account that these factors such as his state of health, his specific physiology and other factors that also play a role in success of any person. The thing is – there probably are lots of people who spend a lot of time training, but only one or two become really successful basketball players.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for D Lynn.
20 reviews
March 21, 2018
Excellent book don' t let the covetr fool you

I bought this book because it was about discipline, but I had put off reading it because of the cover. It looked too silly, but I read it today. This a author has excellent ideas to realize your goals and is very knowledgeable.
1 review
November 18, 2020
Maybe helpful for some but not me

This book was fascinating in that the author kept professing to have amazing insights but to me they just weren’t there, nothing really resonated. I don’t think a guy who is too skinny and trying to gain muscles can genuinely relate to people trying to lose weight. His assertion that people just need to fix a bigger issue in their lives (bad job, relationship etc) to solve their diet/fitness concerns didn’t apply to me: I have done these things, have a very happy life, and my issues with my diet persist. His analogy of the woman who only had bulimia because she didn’t like practising medicine was overly simplistic and probably dangerous. Moreover, his assumption that all readers would have a friend or even multiple friends with the time or interest in calling you each week to have accountability discussions blew my mind: not a single one of my friends would be interested in that kind of self absorbed conversation about meeting weight goals. That said, I did enjoy some of the research on people successfully maintaining their weight loss.
Profile Image for Theresa.
93 reviews
February 1, 2021
Quick read

I’ve watched his YouTube videos. Alex gives simple easy habits and recommendations that you can follow or not. I like how he doesn’t give you the same things you heard in the past. He understands that one size doesn’t fit all. I like that he gives you the right to quit. It might be the wrong habit for you. I also like that he tells you to listen to yourself. Who knows you better, but you? We spend so much of our energy listening to other people who doesn’t know us.
155 reviews1 follower
February 12, 2021
I'm a huge fan of what he's talking about here. I think the book is perhaps mis-named though: it's less about "discipline" (the word even shows up not very often in the book); it's more about a complete re-perspectiving on habits and goals and actually how to make real concrete long-term life changing adjustments in your life (which "discipline" is often associated).
Any rate: really love the content, presentation, and conciseness :)
21 reviews
September 21, 2017
Good actionable advice

Enjoyed the book. Succinct and makes it clear what the things that you should apply to your life are so you can make instant changes for long-term improvement.
1 review
March 17, 2020
Short, concise and helpful.

I enjoyed reading the authors tips and techniques on how to master ones life - mNy books talk about goals but he breaks it down on how to get there. Written simply and with graphs/charts which I always enjoy!
Profile Image for Maria.
Author 10 books15 followers
September 2, 2022
I really liked the way Heyne takes the pressure off the reader. It feels like watching one of his videos.

(I would have loved it if the book had had some copyediting before it was published. It really threw me off at times)
5 reviews
April 27, 2018
Wasn't impressed. Found it very shallow in new ideas to 'Cultivate' self discipline.
Profile Image for Anisley Rodriguez.
25 reviews
October 15, 2018
Great mini-book

The best part is that this book teachings not only apply to your health but also to life in general. I honestly loved it and it was a super easy read.
3 reviews
April 26, 2019
Excellent effective advice

Alternative ways to look at achieving your goals. Real, achievable and effective strategy suggestions. Great book. Buy it! You won't regret it.
3,072 reviews17 followers
February 7, 2017
Seems so easy when Alex Heyne lays it out for you!!!

We all “know” how to eat well and exercise – but do we do it? We are told by the author that 40% of doctors are overweight; they certainly know!! Alex takes us to the “messy middle”. To the discipline of small steps. Taking into consideration your work/family/relationship/health situation; and what you feel will work for you.

For example if you cut out one soda per day – at 200 calories that will only be 1.6 pounds per month. But after a year that is 19 pounds!! Alex gives us useful tools and techniques for “sticking with it”. Great, quick read!!

**I am voluntarily leaving my honest review of this book**
Profile Image for Dorothy: ebookofashes Boyd.
77 reviews21 followers
June 9, 2021
Miss link

I was saving this book and I am happy that I did. I read some of the other books. This book help me what I was miss. It a nice short book very 👍good information.
Profile Image for Mihnea Simian.
12 reviews2 followers
February 17, 2017
I came across this book as a recommendation on a homepage website. I saw it was short and costed just 1-2 bucks, so I took the pill.
To me it was like a confirmation I'm doing OK with my personal strategies, a good reminder on how to stay calm and get on track with long term goals. A good proportion of good sense advice and motivation, no cheesy stuff. I liked it.

Just a side note: Alex, detox is marketing bs. There is no such thing as toxines, as the doctors put it. Maybe you know that too, but I wouldn't use that example in a book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews

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