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This morning I may have let my frustration show just a tad when a client shared with me – in the same sentence:

A) She’s put on 4 kilos since Jan.

B) She ate an entire box of biscuits yesterday.

C) It’s ok because today she’s only going to consume 500 calories.

Now my exasperation may have been in part to today being my first day ever of intermittent fasting (!) I’ll share my thoughts on that with you when I’ve decided what they are…

Anyway, back to my client and how it affects YOU, it’s frustratingly obvious to me that this action plan is going to set my client up for continued binge eating and continued weight gain.

To cut to the chase – in today’s show I’m focusing on: How to build your discipline muscle. We touched on discipline way back in show 016, however today is perhaps even a prequel to that show.

Today I want to focus on 3 steps to take to ensure you’re spending your daily discipline quota in the most high value way possible. The way that is most supportive of achieving your goals.

The problem with discipline is NOT that you don’t have enough of it. It’s certainly also NOT that you can’t get better at the discipline game. It’s that,

One: You think you have more of it then you do.

Two: You constantly test it in low value ways.

To assume you can keep biscuits in your home and not eat them is assuming you have a whole bucket load more discipline than I do… even if those yumbo bickies stay hiding at the back of the pantry today and tonight and even tomorrow… even if they are not your very-most-super-fav-Toffee-pops-or-Timtams… There is still a super likely chance that at some point they will be demolished.

The often overlooked double dipped in dark chockie factor is that even if you prove me wrong and don’t devour those things… just the mere fact that they are there, they are within your reach and day after day you must decide not to eat them… this is constantly testing your precious discipline and eating into your quota in a needless, wasteful, low value way.

You’re not building the muscle like you do each time you decide to get up as soon as the alarm goes off… You’re not building the muscle like you do each time you bother to make a quality breakie and each time you win the will power game and launch yourself out the door for early morning exercise.

You’re just squandering discipline.

So let’s power into what to do. Three steps to build your discipline muscle and dominate the discipline game,

Step 1: Discipline Audit. This is where you discover what is currently eating away at your day discipline?

So for my client it’s her job. She has a really stressful position caring for an elderly lady, who quite frankly is demanding and rude and pretty much zero fun (and a whole lot of discipline) to be around.

Perhaps your career or the people you spend time with eat into a fair whack of your discipline quota?

It doesn’t matter how good you are at letting it ‘go through to the keeper’ that’s a cricket reference for my non-Aussie/Kiwi friends (!)… I pride myself on always being super positive and never showing it someone’s attitude is rattling me (ok except to a tiny degree in intermittent fasting day today!)… however, the fact remains I do have a couple of clients who I literally have to draaaag through their training session and one client who is hugely UN-grateful for anything and everything awesome in life and spending time with these people eats up about a billion times more discipline than spending time with my other 95% of gorgeously fabulous clients.

So, back to the question at hand: What people, activities, commitments, circumstances eat up vast amounts of your limited daily discipline quota?

Step 2: Discipline Decision. This is where you decide just where health and achieving your goal ranks in your overall discipline deserving scale?

Given that until you’ve got awesome food and consistent exercise locked and loaded and it comes relatively easy – until that day (which will happen!) it’s going to take some discipline. So where does it deserve to rank on your discipline deserving scale?

How important is achieving your goal to you?

If it’s number one then schedule the actions you need to take to achieve that goal into your most high discipline time… that’s likely first thing in the morning.

So, taking your highest discipline time: What activities are currently eating up that most valuable time?

Perhaps extra sleep, morning TV, your inbox, social media, last nights dishes or a load of washing?!!

AND when would tomorrow be the best time to change that? 🙂

Step 3: Discipline Train Tracks. This is where you lay down the tracks – the systems that make your best actions happen as on auto-pilot as possible.

As with many a great plan, it’s sounds good however the challenge can be in implementation and adherence right?

That’s why you need to make it as easy on you to stick to doing the discipline do as possible. A complete overhaul could be a little daunting so a nice place to start is just with one new track – or system – a week.

=> perhaps a big weekly food shop on Sunday so you have a fridge full of omelette or smoothie ingredients for a week to come of fantastic breakfasts.

=> maybe getting to bed half an hour earlier and setting your alarm for half an hour earlier to get more early am discipline time. Whether you do this or not truly depends on how much you want it.

I’ve been getting up at 4.30am 6 days a weeks for years now however it means that most days my first clients get my high discipline early am time… and actually I want writing to get that time. So I’ve just started to get up at 4 instead and bought myself an extra half hour each morning to write.

=> hiring a trainer, paying for group class’s in advance or committing to regular spots with a training buddy is also a good track to lay.

Before we get actionable today, I’d like to hand over to Jim Rohn for todays quote which sums up the choice you have if you’re thinking “Yeah but that sounds like a lot of planning and hard work!” To quote Jim: “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment”.

So, onwards with actionable… What are 3 things that are currently eating up your precious daily discipline quota and don’t deserve to be AND how can you change that?

That brings us to the end of todays show. I’ll be back tomorrow with the Tuesday Tucker show and: Low Carb Takeaway Favourites.

If you liked this you’ll also like: How To Maximize Your Daily Eating and Exercise Discipline.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.