Cal Newport's Advice For Becoming a Disciplined Person

00:00:00.000 | All right, Jesse, so I think we should do some questions.

00:00:02.560 | Yep.

00:00:03.600 | You know what they come for.

00:00:04.820 | I got one here from Toby.

00:00:07.320 | Toby asks, how do I improve my discipline?

00:00:12.140 | My problem is that I have a problem with sticking to my long term plans.

00:00:19.120 | Well, Toby, I think about discipline really more as an identity that you

00:00:27.500 | develop, then I do an approach to a particular challenge.

00:00:33.620 | If you can convince yourself that you are a disciplined person, that that is part

00:00:39.860 | of your conception of your identity, then you will be able to, with discipline,

00:00:46.220 | pursue many different important objectives in your life.

00:00:49.680 | So the question is, how do you get to an identity where you see

00:00:52.640 | yourself as a disciplined person?

00:00:53.980 | Well, let me tell you what not to do.

00:00:56.840 | Don't just pick out a random ambitious goal and say, you know what?

00:01:00.640 | I'm going to do this.

00:01:02.020 | I'm going to, I'm going to white knuckle, go after this really hard goal.

00:01:05.760 | And because I need to be more disciplined.

00:01:08.080 | That's what you're trying to do.

00:01:09.760 | That's not working.

00:01:10.960 | I'm not surprised it's not working.

00:01:13.000 | If you've not yet convinced yourself, you're a disciplined person, taking

00:01:15.760 | on ad hoc, large discipline requiring challenges is not going

00:01:19.720 | to be a route towards success.

00:01:21.480 | So what should you do instead?

00:01:23.120 | Well, I think this is where actually the deep life procedure I talk about, the,

00:01:28.480 | the sort of self-awarely overly pragmatic approach to building a foundation for

00:01:35.000 | deep life that we've been talking about on the show for over two years is perfect.

00:01:39.360 | For developing a self-identity as disciplined.

00:01:42.560 | So remember there's two parts to this.

00:01:43.880 | Number one, you identify the areas of your life that are important to you.

00:01:49.740 | We typically call these the deep life buckets.

00:01:52.480 | They differ between different people, but our starter set of these buckets

00:01:56.120 | tends to be craft, what you do, what you create, constitution.

00:02:01.040 | That's going to be your health community.

00:02:02.760 | That's going to be your connections to other people, be it your family,

00:02:05.920 | your neighborhood, the people in the organizations where you work at

00:02:09.160 | your religious institutions.

00:02:11.200 | They'll often throw in contemplation.

00:02:13.820 | We're trying to capture philosophy, theology, and ethics.

00:02:16.520 | These are all important areas.

00:02:18.380 | Most people's lives, your list might vary.

00:02:21.400 | For each of these areas, the first thing to do is to identify a

00:02:26.000 | keystone habit, something in each of these buckets that you do every day.

00:02:30.360 | Something that is not trivial, but is also tractable and you track your

00:02:35.360 | completion of these habits every day.

00:02:37.920 | If you use something like my time block planner, there's a metric

00:02:40.800 | tracking space at the top of the daily planning pages on every day.

00:02:45.000 | You just track those keystone habits right there.

00:02:49.280 | So for example, for constitution, you wouldn't have something there.

00:02:54.040 | Like I'm going to do a 45 minute intense workout because that's too hard to

00:02:58.560 | expect you to be able to do that every day.

00:03:00.000 | That's not really tractable, but you also don't want to say, you know, I

00:03:03.640 | will do one jumping jack when I get out of bed in the morning, like

00:03:07.920 | that's not going to get you anywhere.

00:03:08.920 | So instead you might want to do something like I want to

00:03:10.880 | hit this many steps in a day.

00:03:12.880 | It'll require a little bit of planning.

00:03:14.480 | Like I walk my kids to school.

00:03:15.920 | I'll probably have to do one more walk in the afternoon in between meetings.

00:03:18.520 | And, but it's tractable.

00:03:19.800 | If I think about it, my friend, Brian Johnson, uh, of optimize fame had this

00:03:26.840 | great constitution habit where he had a fixed number of minutes that he never

00:03:31.520 | wanted to go beyond without doing, I think he would do 10 burpees and it was

00:03:36.760 | like 23 minutes or 20, there was some amount of time that he had, because he

00:03:40.120 | had read somewhere, if you sit for more than this much time, it starts to be bad.

00:03:43.280 | And so it was just every, whatever it was, 23 minutes, he would do 10 burpees.

00:03:47.080 | And was it a fantastic boom?

00:03:49.720 | Now I think it helps that he doesn't work in the bullpen of a crowded office.

00:03:53.840 | I mean, I, maybe that would be an awesome thing to do, but, but it probably

00:03:58.760 | would draw some interesting attention.

00:04:00.200 | He, you know, he, he works in his own company, so he works at his own house.

00:04:03.080 | Um, but 10 burpees, three times an hour, roughly.

00:04:07.360 | And the way he pitched it to me is it keeps your ability to

00:04:10.960 | concentration, to concentrate like an, like a laser.

00:04:15.120 | Cause your body's always moving.

00:04:16.360 | It never gets into a sedentary, but anyways, for someone who works in their

00:04:19.400 | own home, works from home on their own business, very tractable, very

00:04:23.240 | tractable, Keystone habit takes 15 seconds or whatever, every time you do it.

00:04:27.120 | The fact that I think 10 burpees takes 15 seconds shows that I don't know.

00:04:32.200 | I don't know a lot about burpees.

00:04:33.960 | Does he still do that?

00:04:34.880 | I don't know.

00:04:36.040 | We should have him on the show.

00:04:37.600 | He should, we should, we should ask him.

00:04:38.720 | I know at one point he was training, he was really into, and I don't think

00:04:43.200 | he will mind me telling this story because I think he's talked about it himself.

00:04:45.960 | Um, he was really into Spartan racing.

00:04:49.280 | You know, the Spartan races.

00:04:50.960 | Yeah.

00:04:51.200 | Because he, yeah, because he was friends with Joe Dacena.

00:04:53.720 | So he knew the guy who started it and he was making a run at some point for doing

00:04:58.680 | them at a very high level, which requires, it turns out it requires a lot of training.

00:05:02.800 | Uh, you have to master a lot of these individual disciplines, but anyways,

00:05:08.440 | in his, his house, in the room where he worked, which I think might've been their

00:05:13.680 | bedroom, he had installed into the ceiling of the room, the, uh, hanging

00:05:20.640 | obstacles from the Sparta race.

00:05:22.880 | Like, so I guess you do like Ninja warrior type stuff in that race.

00:05:26.000 | We're like, you have to like, you're holding on to like rope knots and whatever.

00:05:31.160 | Yeah.

00:05:31.360 | And yeah, he installed them into the ceiling of the room so that when he was

00:05:35.160 | doing these breaks, he's like, instead of just burpees, let me jump up and just.

00:05:39.480 | Like do the, whatever hanging challenge.

00:05:43.560 | I'll tell you what you do that for a few months, your grip, strength and

00:05:47.320 | balance, like you just own it, but you don't even, and I guess that's what you

00:05:50.400 | need to do to compete at a high level.

00:05:51.720 | You could just jump up there and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:05:53.600 | And so that's, that's commitment.

00:05:55.360 | He'd probably still work out too during the day.

00:05:57.840 | I would think separately.

00:05:59.360 | Yeah.

00:06:00.000 | Yeah.

00:06:00.560 | So he, and he had a whole thing and yeah, so you still have a workout.

00:06:04.160 | So it was less, this was less about, which again, I think is an important point.

00:06:08.080 | Like if your keystone habits are not, their job is not to capture everything

00:06:11.640 | you need to do, or it's important for that bucket.

00:06:13.480 | So like getting up and doing some burpees or whatever throughout the day.

00:06:17.480 | Is a great way of saying you, you take motion important.

00:06:20.960 | You take your body important.

00:06:22.080 | You think there's a mind body connection, but it's not everything

00:06:25.960 | you need to do for exercise.

00:06:27.200 | You probably need to be doing weights.

00:06:28.560 | You probably need to be doing cardio.

00:06:30.000 | So that's, it's a good point is that your keystone habits are not trying to.

00:06:34.520 | Take on the weight of everything important in that bucket.

00:06:36.480 | They are just meant to say that you take that bucket seriously, and you're

00:06:39.960 | willing to take effort towards that bucket every day, that's non-trivial.

00:06:43.120 | Now it takes a while to get those keystone habits, right?

00:06:46.160 | You have to experiment a little bit, but you get to the point where you're

00:06:50.280 | knocking off, you have four buckets or five buckets, you're checking off

00:06:53.000 | all those, all those metrics every day.

00:06:54.560 | And you see it every day.

00:06:56.280 | You don't want to break the chain.

00:06:57.480 | All right.

00:06:59.040 | That's step one.

00:07:00.360 | You've already now leveled up discipline.

00:07:03.600 | Your identity as someone who's disciplined is now leveled up.

00:07:05.920 | You do stuff that's optional because it reflects your values.

00:07:09.680 | Even if it's hard.

00:07:10.760 | Now you're at a higher level.

00:07:12.760 | The next part of my general deep life foundation program is then you

00:07:17.440 | dedicate a one to two month period to each of those buckets one by one.

00:07:23.200 | And overhaul that part of your life when you're focusing on that particular bucket.

00:07:28.160 | So in the one to two months, you're focusing on constitution.

00:07:31.200 | Now you're getting serious about your health and fitness and you're

00:07:34.160 | starting to make changes and figuring out like, maybe you're like, I'm

00:07:36.920 | going to start training for this sport.

00:07:38.520 | Like I'll tell you right now, Jesse, one of the things I'm doing.

00:07:41.720 | It's a goal is before my 40th birthday, which is in June.

00:07:48.240 | So it's coming up.

00:07:49.520 | Um, you might not remember what it's like to be in your thirties.

00:07:53.840 | Of course.

00:07:54.320 | I mean, you've been 40 for literally weeks at this point.

00:07:58.760 | So you probably don't remember.

00:08:00.480 | But, uh, my birthday is coming up as we've talked about.

00:08:03.440 | I want to, this is arbitrary, but I want to be able to once again,

00:08:08.800 | row, uh, 2000 meters on my concept to at a sub two minute, 500 meter pace.

00:08:17.640 | So this is connects me back to my, my, my deep past when I was rowing for Dartmouth.

00:08:22.760 | I remember the type of splits I could pull.

00:08:25.080 | So like seven and change.

00:08:26.680 | Something.

00:08:26.960 | So yeah.

00:08:27.440 | Yeah.

00:08:28.400 | And so I was like, I want to, I was like, I would feel good at the age of 40.

00:08:31.280 | If, because I got, God knows what I could pull when I was 19 doing this, I could

00:08:36.560 | pull, but I'm 30 pounds heavier now.

00:08:38.760 | So it does have an advantage.

00:08:40.240 | Like I can actually, I was a lightweight rower, so I can now actually move that

00:08:43.160 | thing, but anyways, it's kind of arbitrary, but it's like, it's, it's hard.

00:08:46.400 | But not impossible.

00:08:47.800 | But like, I would feel good if I can be pulling sub two minute.

00:08:50.880 | 500 splits for, for a 2000 meters.

00:08:54.000 | Like I'm training for that right now.

00:08:55.640 | Uh, but that's the type of thing.

00:08:57.920 | Okay.

00:08:58.120 | When you're doing an overhaul of a bucket, you start, you

00:09:00.040 | figure out these challenges.

00:09:01.200 | You get your equipment in place.

00:09:02.240 | I mean, not to make a full, full circle connection, but I got that

00:09:05.760 | concept too, actually from Brian Johnson.

00:09:08.280 | Sent it to me as a gift.

00:09:09.720 | So there we go.

00:09:10.360 | It all nice gift.

00:09:11.240 | Yeah.

00:09:11.760 | He's a nice guy.

00:09:12.280 | No, for a very long time.

00:09:13.720 | Um, so anyways, that's the type of thing you will come away from doing the

00:09:18.680 | intense focus on the bucket with like, okay, now I'm going to start training

00:09:24.600 | to do this and I've overhauled my diet and I now am joined this team, this rec,

00:09:29.080 | you know, with other dads that we play, whatever.

00:09:31.360 | And so when you, you, you give the one to two month focus, you really are changing

00:09:35.800 | your life more substantially to, to really integrate that area of value.

00:09:40.440 | Um, More deeply.

00:09:42.640 | And there's a lot of experimentation in that.

00:09:44.160 | That's why it takes one or two months.

00:09:45.280 | You try some things it's not really working.

00:09:47.120 | So you change your goals or challenges or habits.

00:09:49.400 | So you find something that's really working.

00:09:50.640 | You come out of that second step.

00:09:53.240 | Toby, you're going to be a much more disciplined person.

00:09:54.960 | Step one, you build that base with a keystone step to you.

00:09:59.680 | Overhaul tractable overhauls to experimentation.

00:10:02.440 | All the parts are important to your life after that.

00:10:04.680 | Now it's down the line.

00:10:07.000 | You're like, oh, here's a new long-term plan that I believe in.

00:10:10.000 | Let me do some work towards it.

00:10:10.960 | No problem.

00:10:11.560 | That's that's what you do.

00:10:13.800 | You're disciplined.

00:10:14.640 | That's what you're gonna do.

00:10:15.600 | That's what you're going to do.

00:10:16.360 | So once you've changed the identity, then you can take on new challenges.

00:10:20.360 | The only final thing I'll say is even as a very self-disciplined person, if

00:10:24.480 | your challenges don't make sense, if your mind doesn't believe that it's worth

00:10:28.360 | doing or that your plan is actually going to accomplish what it is, you

00:10:31.840 | will still struggle with discipline.

00:10:33.040 | So you have to be selective and careful in laying out what you do.

00:10:37.640 | Your brain is not dumb.

00:10:39.480 | If you're like, I'm going to be a Nobel prize winning novelist because I'm going

00:10:46.360 | to do national novel writing month.

00:10:49.000 | Three days in your mind's like, this is stupid.

00:10:51.280 | We don't know what we're doing.

00:10:52.720 | This is not a good book.

00:10:54.040 | I'm not going to do this.

00:10:56.400 | And that's not a failure of discipline.

00:10:57.520 | That's a failure of planning.

00:10:58.320 | So that's the only other copy I'll give.

00:10:59.720 | Even after you become a self-disciplined person, you need goals your mind actually

00:11:05.320 | trust.

00:11:06.080 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:11:09.440 | (upbeat music)

Cal Newport's Advice For Becoming a Disciplined Person | Deep Questions Podcast

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