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

by Ryan Holiday

“I come from a part of the world where people did work rather than just talk about it,” she said. “And so if you feel that you just can’t write, or you’re too tired, or this, that, and the other, just stop thinking about it and go and work.”

Always and forever, the reward is the work. It is a joy itself. It is torture and also heaven—sweaty, wonderful salvation.

Decide who you want to be, the Stoics command us, and then do that work. Will we be recognized for it? Maybe, but that will be extra.

A leader must sweat the small stuff but also must know what stuff matters only to small people.

Presentation counts . . . and so do other people’s feelings. It’s not everything, but you ignore it at your peril.

how to play the game of appearances without being distracted or consumed by appearance.

We look sharp to stay sharp, to be sharp . . . because we are sharp.

Success breeds softness. It also breeds fear: We become addicted to our creature comforts. And then we become afraid of losing them.

And so the best of us become the best by undergoing the same challenges, by forcing our bodies to change and adapt.

The most surefire way to make yourself more fragile, to cut your career short, is to be undisciplined about rest and recovery, to push yourself too hard, too fast, to overtrain and to pursue the false economy of overwork. Manage the load.

You want to think clearly tomorrow? You want to handle the small things right? You want to have the energy to hustle? Go to sleep. Not just because your health depends on it, but because it is an act of character from which all our other decisions and actions descend.

Fortitudine vincimus. By endurance we conquer.

Instead of wanting things to be easy, you should be prepared for them to be hard.

This is a trait that far too many of us are lacking. We think we can make up for it with brilliance or creativity, but what we really need is commitment.

Almost all great leaders, great athletes, great philosophers, have been tough. They’ve been able to endure. That’s what it takes: sacrifices. Pushing through frustrations. Pushing through criticisms and loneliness. Pushing through pain.

nobody wins by throwing in the towel.

The fact is, the body keeps score. The decisions we make today and always are being recorded, daily, silently and not so silently, in who we are, what we look like, how we feel.

The neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has explained it in terms of a body budget: Our brain regulates our body, but if we are physically bankrupt, the brain cannot possibly do its job.

No one who is a slave to their urges or to sloth, no one without strength or a good schedule, can create a great life. Certainly they will be too consumed with themselves to be of much good for anyone else. Those who tell themselves they are free to do anything will, inevitably, be chained to something. Discipline is how we free ourselves. It is the key that unlocks the chains. It is how we save ourselves. We choose the hard way . . . because in the long run, it’s actually the only way.

What man is happy? He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind, and a docile nature. Thales

True self-control means moderation not just in what we do, but also how we think, how we feel, how we comport ourselves in a world of chaos and confusion.

Her poise and equanimity kept us from ever seeing how hard she worked.

Discipline isn’t just endurance and strength. It’s also finding the best, most economical way of doing something.

A true master isn’t just dominating their profession, they’re also doing it with ease . . . while everyone else is still huffing and puffing.

Discipline is a far rarer commodity at the top than brilliance. Temperament may be less charismatic, but it survives. It stabilizes.

A weak mind must be constantly entertained and stimulated. A strong mind can occupy itself and, more important, be still and vigilant in moments that demand it.

Self-discipline is not keeping things exactly as they are with an iron grip. It’s not resistance to any and everything. Nor would much discipline be required in a world that always stayed the same. Temperance is also the ability to adjust, to make good of any situation, to find the opportunity to grow and improve in any situation. And to be able to do this with equanimity and poise, even initiative and joy. Because what other choice do we have?

The idea that you don’t get to do everything you want, that some things are nonnegotiable, that the flip side of privilege is duty, and that power must be complemented by restraint—not everyone gets that.

And yet she also reminded the British press that there is a difference between accountability and cruelty. “Scrutiny can be just as effective,” she said, “if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humor, and understanding.”

No one lasts very long if they are afraid of change, and few are able to change if they are afraid of feedback or making mistakes.

We have to understand: Greatness is not just what one does, but also what one refuses to do. It’s how one bears the constraints of their world or their profession, it’s what we’re able to do within limitations—creatively, consciously, calmly.

He had the initial reactions we all do, but he tried to put every situation up for a kind of review, searching for a better light to explain and understand it.

The pause is everything.

This aligns with two types of mental processing we do, which psychologists call thinking fast, and thinking slow. Fast is often the lower self. Gut instinct is the lower self

Slow is the higher self. Slow is the rational, philosophical, principled self. Really thinking about things, really thinking about who you want to be

A leader can’t make decisions on impulse. They must lead from somewhere more rational, more controlled than that. That’s not to say they won’t ever be tempted, that they won’t have impulses. It’s that they are disciplined enough not to act on them. Not until they’ve been put up to the test, put under or in front of the light.

“The number of people who stand ready to consume one’s time to no purpose,” he said, “is almost countless.”

“Anyone who has not groomed his life in general towards some definite end cannot possibly arrange his individual actions properly,” the writer Michel de Montaigne reminded himself.

What am I doing? What are my priorities? What is the most important contribution I make—to my work, to my family, to the world? Then comes the discipline to ignore just about everything else.

The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time.

Everything we say yes to means saying no to something else. No one can be two places at once.

No one made you hop on the conference call. No one forced you to attend this event or accept that award. There’s no law that says you have to reply to every email, return every call, have an opinion on every bit of news.

To try to do everything is to ensure you’ll achieve nothing.

The self-disciplined part of us, on the other hand, says, like the Queen’s motto, “Better not.”

Say no. Own it. Be polite when you can, but own it.

Because it’s your life. And because it is your power. By seizing it, you become powerful. More powerful in fact, than some of the most powerful people in the world who happen to be slaves to their calendars and ambitions and appetites.

No one can achieve their main thing without the discipline to make it the main thing.

In a world of distraction, focusing is a superpower.

Epictetus reminds us that when you say, I’ll get serious about this tomorrow or, I’ll focus on it later, “what you’re really saying is, ‘Today I’ll be shameless, immature, and base; others will have the power to distress me.’

But as Aristotle reminds us, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”