The Only 8 Minutes You Need To Master Discipline Once And For All | Jocko Willink

Hello listeners, Motivarsity is excited to share that we have launched a new podcast called Morning Motivation by Motivarsity. If you are looking to start your day with positivity and the most uplifting motivational audio, this is the show for you. For today's episode of Motivation Daily by Motivarsity Podcast, we are sharing a recent episode from the Morning Motivation Podcast. If you like it, go follow the show. New episodes are being released every week. The link is in the description. Motivation is a feeling that comes and goes and it doesn't matter whether it's there or not. Discipline is infinitely more important. So no matter how you feel, get up and do what you're supposed to do. That's it. And that's discipline. That's not motivation. If you only did what you were supposed to do when you were motivated to do it, that's leaving it to chance. But if you're disciplined, you go to what you're supposed to do. That's the way it works. Do something that's hard and do it every day. That's one of the nice things about you Jitsu. You're going to get choked. You're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to get smashed. You're going to have to tap out. Your ego is going to get abused. Go do that. Go do that. Go for a run. Lift. Do just do hard stuff. And that's a good way to keep that, I guess, fresh. But it's fear. Is the same fear that we all build up for whatever that thing is, whether it's going on stage or whether it's jumping out of an airplane or whether it's taking risk with some kind of a business situation. Well, the more you sit there and think about it, the worse it's going to get in your own head. For the most part, you're going to run into challenges in life. And if you curl up into a ball and complain about it, that's not going to help you. And if you say, "Okay, cool. Good. Here's some adjustments I can make to move forward. That's going to be a better move than cowering." I enjoy doing these things. I enjoy working out. Do I enjoy working out every single day? And that's when it's like, "Oh yeah, but I know the results of the long run." And I think that's an important thing that I've talked about. And again, I've talked about this with my daughter. Or like, if you give up a little bit today, like you can't get it back. Like, if you skip a workout today, there's no possible way to get that back. When you let something go, it's gone. And Rome wasn't built in the day, but Rome didn't fall apart on the day either. It didn't fall apart because of one thing. It falls apart just a little bit at a time. And nobody gets fit overnight. Nobody gets fat overnight. Exactly. And so you can't submit. You can't submit. You have to get in there and keep it going. And I know the results of not doing the thing are not good. And I enjoy doing the thing. So in order to keep doing the thing, you got to do the thing. When all that fear that's in your head, all the what-ifs and the scenarios that you create inside your own mind that are way worse than anything that is actually going to happen, they all disappear when you go. So just take action and start moving forward. That is the moment that can last a million years is waiting to go. And I found, I'm pretty good at it now, where, oh, I'm like, oh, yeah, I know what that is. And I'm going. And that's it. And so it's just go. That's the answer. Action is an antidote to anxiety. Man, actions is an antidote to all kinds of problems. So I think I probably just experienced it enough and was cognizant enough to recognize that at some point, this feeling of caution and fear and all that stuff in the back of my head, yeah, I just need to give it all that just seems to go away when I move toward it. Yeah, it does go away. 100% goes away. I had this thing where somebody asked me about like how to actually execute in the moment and get your mind right when you have to perform. And I never really thought about this before and I actually thought through my whole life and what my attitude was. And if you need to perform, you need to be very, very humble. And like if I've got an event that I've got to do, I've got a mission that I've got to do, I've got a train, I've got to prepare, I've got a plan. All of that is driven from humility, right? I don't think I'm ready, so I'm going to prepare more, I'm going to rehearse more. I'm not thinking clearly about what the enemy will do, so I need to come up with a better plan. Like I'm going to be very humble and I'm going to therefore prepare very hard and very extensively. But at the moment I put my night vision goggles on and I load them down over my eyes. There's like a switch that goes off that I am 100% going to win. Going hunting, you're training all the time because you don't want to miss the shot, you've got to be humble, you know how hard it is, you're going to be out of breath, the pressure is going to be on. And so you've got to train, train, train, train, prepare, prepare, prepare. But when you get up there and you like knock your air onto your bow, you've just got to be like I'm going to slay this right now. I'm going to turn up with that attitude and I shot the whole course with one arrow, which is, look, is there luck involved? Yes, there's luck involved. But still it's like that attitude of hey I'm walking up, I've trained, but now I'm going to just go slay this thing. And all that performance anxiety is gone, you go up, get confident, yeah I'm going to punch this thing right through that target, no factor. And you do it. And I think that's a good thing to think about when it comes to execution. Like yes, be humble, be prepared, but when you knock that arrow or you put your night vision goggles on or you step into that meeting to do that presentation, you should be like I'm about to slay this right now. All that fear that's in your head, all the what ifs and the scenarios that you create inside your own mind that are way worse than anything that is actually going to happen, they all disappear when you go. So just take action and start moving forward and you're going to fail and you're going to fail and then you're going to win. And that's life. And just without those challenges, it's existence. Don't just exist. Go live. Eventually in action will cost you, but your default setting should be I'm going to do something. Just get up, move towards that challenge and go attack it. Go do something that's hard. Struggle sucks depends on how you frame it. If you want freedom in your life, you have to have discipline. Move towards that challenge, whatever that challenge is and you may be successful and you may not be successful, but you will be better. And the next challenge can be more prepared for. Because we're going to have wins, we're going to have losses, we're going to have successes, we're going to have failures, we're going to have good nights, we're going to have bad nights, we're going to have good relationships, we're going to have bad relations, we're going to have good ideas and bad ideas, we're going to make money, we're going to lose money, all these things are going to happen. And if you oscillate emotionally up and down drastically, it's going to be problematic. Embrace those emotions, but don't let those emotions embrace you. Keep pushing through things that suck. This is a very difficult thing to do because it hurts. I'm going to go forward, not going to quit, so I'm going to go forward, bring it on. I talked to people that went to seal training, that didn't make it. Most of the time, it's some reason. There's a medical reason, there's a family problem. There's very few people that look and you say, oh, I quit because it sucked. Which is what happens to the vast majority of people. The vast majority of people that don't make it through seal training, they didn't make it through because they quit. Your excuses will destroy you and take everything that you ever wanted from you if you left them. When your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on, then they can make you feel better, but they're not helping you. They're not helping you at all. This went wrong, this failed, didn't accomplish this, and it's not the fault of my boss, it's not the fault of my girlfriend, it's not the fault of my parents, it's not the fault of the weather, it's my fault. And I'm going to take ownership of it and I'm going to fix it. That's what excretion ownership is. Because when you look around at your life and you look around at your job and your financial situation and your relationship and your physical health, when you look at all those things and all the problems that you may have with those things, and you say the reason I have all those problems is because of me, that can hurt, that can sting. And a lot of times our ego rejects that and makes excuses and lies. And then we don't have to change anything and then nothing changes. The excuses all go away and people can actually confront the fact that this is all because of me, it hurts. but is also unbelievably empowering. Because the more discipline you have in your life, the more freedom you will end up with. So if you lack the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up being a slave to disease. If you lack the discipline to work hard, save your money, you will end up a slave to finances. If you lack the discipline to manage your time correctly, you will end up with no free time. If you have self-discipline, if you have the discipline to save your money and work hard and invest your money properly, if you have the discipline to manage your time correctly and not waste a bunch of time, if you have the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up with freedom. And you're going to start to progress in every aspect of your life. And you'll see that if you have that kind of discipline right now, you're going to end up with freedom. If you have discipline, you will attain freedom. Go try and accomplish something that's hard. You may win, you may lose, you may succeed, you may fail. I'll tell you what, you'll be better. And if you don't have that kind of discipline, and you don't work hard and you don't exercise and you don't apply yourself, you're going to end up shackled. So if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. You've got to start walking because the perspective is not going to change. You have to start moving forward. But standing there lost and not doing anything is just waiting to die, waiting to start the death. Don't let that happen. It's really important because as men, we don't, we get conflicting messages about emotion and how to express it and what that looks like. There's a lot of men struggling right now. Every human face is challenges and you don't know what they've been through. It's suppressing them isn't going to help. And nor is letting them run your life. Because you're sad, now you're going to make a bunch of bad decisions because you're sad. No, no, it doesn't, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You're sad. Okay. You get emotional sometimes. Okay. Got it. Now get control of your emotions and carry on with your life. And sometimes you're going to get hit with those waves. And that's okay. Oh, I'm having an emotional moment right now. There's something wrong with me. No, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. The other extreme is, oh, I'm letting my emotions run my life and I'm making a bunch of bad decisions. And my excuse is, well, you know, I lost from friends or I had this traumatic experience happen to me. That's why I'm doing, that's just an excuse. And it's a very easy excuse. Guess what? It's time to carry on. Remember, don't dwell. I'm in control. This is my life. If you are in the problem, you won't see the solution to the problem. Take a step back, detach from the chaos, detach from the mayhem, detach from your emotions, detach from your ego, and be able to assess the best way to execute that is the job of a leader. If you take any trait of a human being and you take it to an extreme, masculine or feminine or otherwise, you take it to an extreme. It's going to be a problem. Is it good to have no emotions whatsoever? No, that's called a sociopath. Is it good to let your emotions run your life and make your decisions based on your emotions? No, that's not good either. What do you want to be as a human? As a man? What do we balance? It's much easier to be extreme. It's much easier to say, oh, no emotions cool and turn them off. That's easier. Or a total emotion mayhem, that's easier. It's harder to find balance. It's harder to find balance in business, it's harder to find balance in life, it's hard to find balance. But you have to be balanced. Because what I want is for the team to win. So be balanced. You're going to be okay. [BLANK_AUDIO]