How to Become More Disciplined
SUMMARY
It’s so easy for Real Estate Agents to become undisciplined. Learning how to develop and maintain strong self-discipline is indispensable to becoming a high achiever
Discipline is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. So don’t start by trying to become the ultimate master of discipline in one day. Begin with small steps and build on your successes.
Here is a simple 4-step process to build your personal discipline fast:
- Do one good thing you don’t feel like doing.
- Celebrate it.
- Journal it.
- Repeat 5X.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hi there, it’s Kevin Wards with YesMasters Real Estate Success training helping you get more Yes’s and more successes in your business and in your life.
One of the biggest challenges that I hear from Real Estate Agents is that they want to do better, they want to do more and they tend to procrastinate. Maybe you tend to be distracted a lot of the time. You realize, you look around and you go you know what? I need to be more disciplined. I need to be more focused when I am working, I need to avoid distractions better, I need to stop just drifting along with the day. Really if I could just get more done, if I could just not get distracted. I feel like I am ADHD. I am just attention deficit. My attention is all over the place and I can’t stay focused and have the discipline to do what I need to do.
The reality is the Real Estate industry is a perfect place for you to become undisciplined. The reason is a lot of people who get into real estate, they either come in out of a job background where you had a job before, you had a boss before, where you had accountability, you had a schedule, you had a time clock, you were punching the clock, you were working for somebody else and you knew if you weren’t disciplined you were going to get called on it.
Now you own your own business. As a real estate agent you are self employed. You are your own boss. If your employee isn’t working and you are self employed, that would be you, your boss is also not disciplined, that would be you again then you are in trouble. Your business is in trouble, because the boss isn’t working, the employee isn’t working and so it’s like oh no what is the fall back. The fallback is failure because there is no discipline, there is no productivity and the result is never going to be good.
The question I want to talk about today is how can I learn to be more disciplined. It’s really an easy process if you just embrace it and then understand that it is a process of building blocks, of taking small steps and learning how to build the muscle of discipline. The first thing to think about is discipline is like a muscle. It really is. It’s an emotional muscle. That is that the more you exercise it, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. When you see somebody who is so disciplined, they are regimented, they are focused when they need to be focused and they know how to get a lot of stuff done fast, it’s because they developed the habit of discipline which is like developing a muscle. They are very strong at making a commitment and staying focused on that pathway and finishing it.
They know how to make a commitment, they know how to start fast and finish strong. When they are good at that it’s like wow, that is so admirable because it’s powerful, because it’s effective. How do I build it? I’m going to share with you today a four step process on how you can learn to be more disciplined and over time it gets easier and easier and easier. In fact immediately it will start getting easier. There is no magic. It’s a simple process that you have to be willing to do but it doesn’t have to be hard. I’m going to show you how to break it down and make it not hard.
The first step is today, the first step today if you want to get more disciplined, this is the number one step that you got to do that just gets you started and that is this. Do one good thing today that you don’t feel like doing. In other words there is something I know I need to do right now, I know I need to do it today. I’ve been putting it off I just don’t feel like doing it and because you know it’s the right thing to do you just don’t feel like doing it, do it anyway. I don’t feel like doing it, I’m going to do it.
Here is what happens. When I do that, that is in and of itself an act of discipline. It is when I cause myself, I lead myself to do something that is right. It wasn’t automatic, it wasn’t something I wanted to do but it was something I needed to do. I felt like-, I knew that once I did it I would be glad I did it. It’s one thing I didn’t feel like it and so what happens is I let my will make my determine rather than my emotion making the determination. The difference between being disciplined and undisciplined is a person who is undisciplined only does what they feel like doing. I person who is disciplined does the right thing. They do what they have committed to rather than what they feel like.
The moment that you do one thing, just one. One good thing that you didn’t feel like doing you win, you are victorious because you now have broken through your own procrastination. You have broken through your own complacency. You have broken through that emotional barrier that says I don’t want to do this and you did it anyway. The moment that you do that is something in your brain clicks. That is that it felt good because when you do it after you’ve done it you feel a sense of victory. It’s like yeah, I did it. I didn’t want to do it. I’ve been procrastinating. If you are a real estate agent and your goal is I want to start prospecting at 8:30 every morning and you really don’t start getting around to it at 9:15, maybe 9:30 or maybe never and all of a sudden I’m just going to start on time. Today you start at 8:30, or 8:15-, you start right when you are supposed to and inside you go like yes. Your mind now feels the victory because you did the right thing and doing the right thing is very powerful.
The second step is the moment you do it, the moment you do the one thing you didn’t feel like doing you have to do number 2 and that is you have to acknowledge yourself. You have got to celebrate the victory. Yes I did it. (grr) I’m awesome. Celebrate it. What happens is emotionally we are like it was no big deal. I just started when I was supposed to. Let’s say that your discipline is I’m going to wake up when my alarm goes off the first time rather than the fourth time I push the snooze button. The alarm goes off and it’s like okay I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to get up, I’m getting up. Bam you jump out of bed, yes. Okay I got up ugh, but you got to celebrate it.
The moment you celebrate it what it is doing is it is sending a very strong message to your subconscious brain, this is a good thing. Your subconscious brain goes when I do this action I get rewarded with a feeling of well being, a feeling of accomplishment. You have got to acknowledge your win and just the decision to take action and do one good thing you don’t feel like it is something worthy of celebration. Don’t steal the victory from yourself and go that was nothing, I should of been doing this for months or I will probably tomorrow go back to my old bad habit.
Don’t do that because you are stealing the victory. Instead celebrate the victory. Reinforce it, because then your subconscious mind goes wow that was nice, I think I’ll do more of that. Your brain likes the way it feels when you get a victory and so your subconscious mind seeks out more victories. Number two you have to celebrate it.
The third step is to reinforce that and that is that before you end the day that day is you have to journal it. You are memorializing the victory. Does that make sense? It’s like yes, I won the victory. Let’s say that you are running a race and you ran the 100 meter dash and you won. Yes you celebrate it, now how do you memorialize it? Now there is the medal ceremony where now you get to go stand up on the medal podium and you get the medal. That is what happens when you journal it, is I am now memorializing it. You are giving yourself literally a trophy, you are recognizing and acknowledging the victory was real, it was legit, and you are again reinforcing in your brain, you are reprogramming your thinking that when I do something even though I don’t feel like it before the fact, after I do it I feel awesome. Your brain literally, you are programming your brain to get addicted to a feeling that comes after the decision rather than before the decision. It’s so powerful, I hope that make sense.
The fourth step is once you’ve started this process now is you just learn to repeat that over and over again and you repeat it. I put in repeat 5 times. If you do this one thing 5 days in a row and you repeat it 5 times it changes your, now you’ve reprogrammed. What if you do it with 5 different things in a day. What is happening is I’m doing several things. I’m creating what I call habits of discipline.
That is the habit of being disciplined of saying you are going to do something and then doing it. Even when I don’t feel like it, I did it anyway and then I’m going like yes I feel so good. Every day one of the things I teach my coaching members is I have you every single day journal at least 5 wins that you had that day. What are 5 victories that you had that day. A lot of times it’s nothing more than the fact that you made a decision and took action based on a commitment you had made which was simply this. Whether you felt like it or not that because you did it it was a victory and that you celebrate the victory and that you simply repeat it.
What happens is, is when you repeat the victory, the first day I do something I don’t feel like doing. I didn’t hit the snooze on my alarm, I got up instead. That was great but I really didn’t … Does that all of a sudden-, Now I’m a super disciplined person? No, it’s one little step. It’s kind of like exercising. Lifting a dumbbell, lifting a barbell. The first time I may not be strong enough to just lift the bar and I’m just doing it and I’m strong, but when you do it over and over and you repeat it over and over now you are stronger and it’s like now you can add weight to the dumbbell. Now I did it a couple more times and so now I get a little more stronger and I can make a bigger commitment and I can add more weight and I’m adding more weights to the barbell but I’m getting stronger until Sunday comes and the day comes where you bring on the heavy weights baby. I am a heavy weight disciplinarian to myself.
You are strong enough to where-, I can kick my own butt. I always tell people that if you want to win in life you got to be a butt kicker and the first butt you have to learn to kick is your own. This is how you do it. Do something you don’t feel like doing and instead of beating yourself up for not doing something you should be doing you celebrate doing something that you should do. When you do it, you celebrate it, you journal it and you repeat it and every time you do it boom you get stronger. You get stronger, you build the discipline, you change your life, you change your future and you win.
If you like this video make sure that you hit like on it, give it a thumbs up, share, subscribe, make any comments, if you have any questions let me know, I look forward to talking to you real soon. Win. Build this muscle. It will make all the difference in the world.