Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

Doing the right thing almost always takes courage, just as discipline is impossible without the wisdom to know what is worth choosing.

Freedom, as Eisenhower famously said, is actually only the “opportunity for self-discipline.”

We must keep ourselves in check or risk ruin. Or imbalance. Or dysfunction. Or dependency.

everybody benefits from self-discipline and self-control. Life is not fair. Gifts are not handed out evenly. And the reality of this inequity is that those of us coming from a disadvantage have to be even more disciplined to have a chance.

We must master ourselves unless we’d prefer to be mastered by someone or something else.

The ability . . . . . . to work hard . . . to say no . . . to practice good habits and set boundaries . . . to train and to prepare . . . to ignore temptations and provocations . . . to keep your emotions in check . . . to endure painful difficulties.

Temperance is not deprivation but command of oneself physically, mentally, spiritually—demanding the best of oneself, even when no one is looking, even when allowed less. It takes courage to live this way—not just because it’s hard, but because it sets you apart.

He came to find that the best way to lead was not by force or fiat, but through persuasion, through compromise, through patience, by controlling his temper, and, most of all, by example.

No, it is an illusion. Under closer inspection: No one has a harder time than the lazy. No one experiences more pain than the glutton. No success is shorter lived than the reckless or endlessly ambitious.

We do the work, today and always, because it’s what we’re here for.

When you love the work, you don’t cheat it or the demands it asks of you.

“age of alibis”—everyone was ready with an excuse.

Anything that interfered with that ambition was poison to him.”

Gehrig wore his fame lightly, an observer once noted, but took the obligations of it seriously.

“When a man can control his life, his physical needs, his lower self,” Muhammad Ali would later say, “he elevates himself.”

“never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense”—now,

we have to be our own manager, our own master. We’re responsible for our own conditioning. We have to monitor our own intake, decide our own standards.

Fortitude and self-control in all things—except our determination and toughness.

Wake up. Show up. Be present. Give it everything you’ve got.

Be up and doing. While you’re fresh. While you can. Grab that hour before daylight. Grab that hour before traffic. Grab it while no one is looking, while everyone else is still asleep.

Think of how lucky you are. Be glad to be awake (because it’s better than the alternative, which we’ll all greet one day). Feel the joy of being able to do what you love. Cherish the time. But most of all, use it.

The pleasure of excess is always fleeting. Which is why self-discipline is not a rejection of pleasure but a way to embrace it. Treating our body well, moderating our desires, working hard, exercising, hustling—this is not a punishment. This is simply the work for which pleasure is the reward.

You can choose the means, but the method is a must: You must be active. Get your daily win. Treat the body rigorously, as Seneca tells us, so that it may not be disobedient to the mind. Because as you’re building muscle, you’re also building willpower.

It’s not the sex or the likes or the drink. It’s the need. And it’s this need that is the source of suffering.

You’re not going to like where this road ends, he was saying. And it always seems to end in the same place.

By being a little hard on ourselves, it makes it harder for others to be hard on us. By being strict with ourselves, we take away others’ power over us.

He didn’t want to owe anyone. Real wealth, he understood, was autonomy.

The less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are. It’s that simple.

If we want to think well and work well, it doesn’t start with the mind. It starts with walking around and cleaning up.

The space where great work is done is holy. We must respect it. Because a person comfortable with a messy workspace will become comfortable with sloppy work. A person who doesn’t eliminate noise will miss the messages from the muses. A person who puts up with needless friction will eventually be worn down.

As the novelist Gustave Flaubert commands: Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

What he’s talking about is showing up. The incredible, underrated power of clocking in every day, putting your ass in the seat, and the luck this seems to inevitably produce.

Once something is done, you can build on it. Once you get started, momentum can grow. When you show up, you can get lucky.

Consistency is a superpower. Day-to-day willpower is incredibly rare.

But that’s the point: We’re fit to tackle the big problems only if we do the little things right first. No strategy will succeed—however brilliant—if it ignores logistics.

“It is the loose-ends,” she lamented, “with which men hang themselves.”

By ignoring the little things, we make ourselves vulnerable.

greatness is in the details. Details require self-discipline.

Because the little things were ignored, because discipline lapsed, everything was lost. Save yourself. Save the world. Get the little things right.

If you’re not a person who hustles, who are you? Where does that leave the people counting on you?

We get tired. We get scared. We know it’s going to be hard. We get entitled and vain. We don’t see the point. We don’t want to look foolish. We have to push through that. You may lose battles, Napoleon said, but never lose a minute to sloth.

let’s push ourselves to be better, to get after it. Hustle because we care. Because we care about the game. Because we care about the cause.

our path also requires disciplined pacing.

festina lente. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control.

There is no greatness without practice. Lots of practice. Repetitive practice.

Exhausting, bone-crunching, soul-crushing practice. And yet what emerges from this practice is the opposite of those three feelings. Energy. Strength. Confidence.

Only you know what it will look like to train in your art like a samurai, an Olympic athlete, a master in pursuit of excellence. Only you will know what you need to practice from morning until night, what to repeat ten thousand times.

It won’t be easy, but in that burden is also freedom and confidence.

Joyce Carol Oates worked and taught. Taught and worked.