Stop Wasting Time & Change Your Life - One Step At A Time

00:00:00.000 | Cal, I'm a Benedictine monk in Missouri. I have a disagreement with a part of your deep life stack

00:00:05.360 | Discipline is not an identity per se but rather a tool for developing and solidifying an identity

00:00:11.200 | You use value as a criteria for leading a meaningful and purposeful life shaped through code ritual and routine

00:00:17.440 | You readily assert that you need discipline for a value to take hold but discipline needs a reason

00:00:22.840 | Yeah, it's a good question

00:00:24.880 | I you know, I get this debate a lot is I think it's one of the more unique and controversial aspects of my conception of

00:00:31.760 | Cultivating a deep life where I say discipline comes first

00:00:35.680 | No, it's Ian here disagrees part of this is semantic. I

00:00:40.800 | Think discipline is an an overloaded word. We have a lot of connotations with it often

00:00:47.380 | negative

00:00:49.160 | We think about discipline sometimes as something being enforced upon us

00:00:53.760 | The cruel headmaster disciplining the kids. We also have connotations with discipline with those who are

00:01:00.640 | Idolizing making a false god out of discipline itself

00:01:05.360 | where we have my all that matters is the

00:01:09.240 | Discipline of what I do and the harder things I do and other people won't do these things this hard and all of my self-worth

00:01:16.040 | just comes entirely from

00:01:18.040 | my discipline this is the sort of

00:01:20.680 | David Goggins

00:01:23.680 | style philosophy of sort of building your identity around

00:01:27.840 | Extreme feats of discipline. This was an idea that was really big and supported by Instagram culture sort of over the last decade

00:01:34.720 | So it's an overloaded term. So let's let's use a different term just for this conversation

00:01:39.000 | efficaciousness

00:01:42.040 | So efficaciousness describes the degree to which you believe yourself able to actually

00:01:47.040 | Take action towards goals. If you're an efficacious person you say yes in general

00:01:52.600 | I am someone who if I have something I want to do and it's reasonable I can do it

00:01:56.880 | I can figure out how to do it

00:01:58.880 | my argument having spent a lot of time with people who are trying to turn around their lives is that

00:02:04.640 | That is missing a lot of times and if that is missing nothing else works

00:02:09.560 | even trying to determine what your values are and

00:02:13.800 | Believing that you can build your life around those values even that seemingly fundamental decision

00:02:20.320 | lays on a foundation of efficaciousness

00:02:22.880 | If you do not see yourself as someone who can take action towards important things

00:02:27.800 | Even if it's not obligated and even if it's hard if you do not see yourself as a person who can do that

00:02:32.640 | Almost any other self developmental activity is going to be derailed. It's going to dissipate before it actually takes hold

00:02:39.540 | Now there's other people and probably a ton. I mean you're you're a Benedictine monk

00:02:44.820 | So you're probably an exemplar of this other type of person where they just have the strong sense of efficaciousness

00:02:50.580 | And so what matters like right off the bat then is like, okay

00:02:53.700 | Let me figure out my values and build my life around it

00:02:56.140 | But most people the average person stumbles before they get there. So when I say discipline is an identity what I don't mean is

00:03:03.540 | What matters is that you build your identity around discipline?

00:03:09.420 | That you become David Goggins or Cameron Haynes that like how you define yourself and your value is through your discipline and I agree with

00:03:15.900 | You fully there at team that that's not

00:03:18.140 | That's false idol. That's not going to get you there

00:03:21.220 | But on the other hand, I think until you have built a minor foundation of efficaciousness

00:03:26.540 | Your efforts are likely going to be wasted the average person's efforts are likely going to be wasted

00:03:31.300 | So that's why I put discipline first. You have to just start by convincing yourself

00:03:35.060 | I can do things and there's an excitement and a motivation and a clarity and a drive that comes out of that that when you then

00:03:40.980 | Say, okay. So what do I care about?

00:03:42.980 | You actually care about that question and

00:03:46.060 | You take it more seriously and the answers actually stick

00:03:49.820 | I'm so kind of convinced about this foundational idea that I've been recently playing around with my deep life stack and

00:03:55.900 | One of the configurations I've been playing around with more recently actually has a much clearer division

00:04:01.900 | between laying the foundations and

00:04:05.140 | Then cultivating depth now and I'm not this is very early stages. I'm just throwing out ideas here

00:04:10.220 | But one of the reconfigurations I've been playing with in my notebooks recently is one where it's not just discipline comes first

00:04:16.140 | But maybe we're gonna do discipline control and maybe even throw in something like craft

00:04:22.300 | So first of all, how do I convince myself? I'm efficacious second of all

00:04:25.900 | How do I just take control of all the stuff in my life learn how to have control over what's on my plate and how?

00:04:30.340 | It's going to get done and and how to take things off of my plate

00:04:33.340 | And maybe throw in their craft. Okay. Now, let me teach

00:04:35.580 | Let me take this out for a spin and show myself that I can actually get good at something

00:04:39.340 | When I set my mind to it and almost seeing that in this new configuration, I'm playing with that's the foundation

00:04:45.580 | Now with that foundation set let's get serious about that and that's step two now. It's okay. What do I what do I really value?

00:04:54.100 | Now I'm ready to tackle that question seriously

00:04:56.100 | Sacrifice how am I sacrificing my time and attention on behalf of other people?

00:05:00.940 | Community around me people I care about let's get serious about that

00:05:03.580 | there's no meaning without that and then finally escape or remark ability then now, how do I

00:05:08.540 | Leave my legacy. How do I create the remarkable aspects of my life built around these values?

00:05:14.660 | I mean I'm almost seeing now is like a very clear separation where there's this long process of just becoming to borrow a term from

00:05:20.700 | Jocko an exceptionally capable human being

00:05:23.780 | And then once you do that you say now I could become an exceptionally deep human being and I think when we sometimes swap these

00:05:29.740 | Things around it's not successful for people some people it is but I think a lot of people starting with the depth before they have the capability

00:05:36.600 | Leads to a lot of self recrimination and dissipation. It might lead people to believe I'm just not able to do this

00:05:42.400 | I'm just fundamentally a broken person. I

00:05:44.720 | I'm trying to like build my life around values. I can't identify him. I don't trust the values

00:05:49.340 | I pick it can almost be harmful if you jump right to the cultivating depth before you've done the

00:05:54.080 | Boring hard work of becoming a capable human being in the first place

00:05:57.360 | So, I don't know I'm still playing with these thoughts of teen so I'd like the excuse

00:06:00.360 | To just discuss and get some more feedback and I love this type of feedback

00:06:04.660 | But that's a little bit of an insight into how I've been thinking about this recently

00:06:07.900 | All right, let's do one more question before we do our live call-in case study which I'm excited about

00:06:14.340 | Sounds good next questions from Yalan. Hi Cal until three years ago. I used to be a deep life person

00:06:21.080 | I had a schedule for each day. I studied a lot slept

00:06:24.180 | Well, my phone was on airplane or silent mode for most of the day the usual stuff

00:06:28.340 | But since then I've been losing my charm

00:06:30.500 | I'm having a really hard time making time for studying or even reading

00:06:34.580 | I almost never plan anything ahead anymore and I've been seriously addicted to video games

00:06:38.760 | I'm an English teacher and I have my obligations, but I never do anything beyond the

00:06:43.100 | Obligatory area what's more being a teacher in Israel makes you become hooked on your phone because there are so many

00:06:49.380 | Notifications updates regarding what's going on with the school. You have to be aware of what's going on

00:06:53.800 | I want to get back on track and it feels extremely hard and sometimes even impossible

00:06:59.200 | You know, just what's interesting about that is a couple nights ago

00:07:03.160 | I was giving a talk up at my kids school about

00:07:05.580 | Smartphones and kids and social media and kids and I was talking to a family afterwards who just moved here from Israel

00:07:12.560 | And they actually had the same point. They said, you know in in Israel the phone culture is like inescapable

00:07:21.440 | And they said here they actually felt like so their kid their middle schooler had a phone and everything said in Israel like everything is built

00:07:27.280 | around like whatsapp

00:07:28.440 | Notifications and how the schools operate and everything is built around the phone for all these various different reasons and here it feels like it's possible

00:07:35.080 | Not to do that. And so they were wondering can we pull it back?

00:07:37.080 | We had that, you know, so it's interesting something about Israel

00:07:40.320 | Did you read that on New Yorker article like last month about the Chinese school and like all the what's app and how there's a thousand?

00:07:46.840 | Messages day for the parents. Yeah, I was like completely overwhelmed like the same thing. Yeah. Yeah

00:07:52.000 | So I think cultural differences and tech patterns is an interesting one, but to get back to the bigger issue here

00:07:57.120 | I think this goes right back to the question with the Benedictine monk that we just answered

00:08:02.240 | So what we see here is kind of the opposite

00:08:04.920 | so so the the Benedictine monk, this is basically what I mean here is this is sort of

00:08:09.560 | What's the right way to put this Yalan I believe has done the become a capable person piece

00:08:17.880 | Of the deep life stack you as he talks about he previously

00:08:21.860 | Had it all dialed in he's organized

00:08:24.640 | He has control over his time and activities and schedules and is careful about how he uses his tools

00:08:30.480 | But then he stopped before getting to the stuff that he Tom the Benedictine monk said is important

00:08:36.880 | To figuring out your values your vision for your legacy and purpose on earth building your life around that

00:08:42.680 | So this is a really interesting point because what it shows is if you just do the first part in my plan

00:08:47.840 | Which is like you got to be capable before you can really figure out how to be deep if you just do the capable part

00:08:53.120 | You don't know that's going to stick

00:08:55.840 | so what happened here you did the capable part and your mind is basically the what purpose and

00:09:00.320 | So you began escaping back in the video games and found sort of the capability stuff starting to

00:09:05.920 | dissipate again

00:09:08.000 | So Yalan what you need to do is keep moving up the deep life stack

00:09:12.920 | So once you regain, you know how to do this, so just get back to like, okay intentional multi-scale planning careful about my tools

00:09:20.000 | Great. Now, you got to keep moving up the stack. Now, you got to get really engaged on your values

00:09:24.740 | What's my code? What are the rituals I use to remind myself of the value of this code on a regular basis?

00:09:31.720 | What is this this vision on which I'm going to build my my lifestyle my purpose on earth?

00:09:38.000 | Maybe then throw in some sacrifice if you're not

00:09:41.120 | Sacrificing non-trivial time and attention on behalf of other people. You're not going to feel fully alive as a human

00:09:47.040 | So you're a teacher

00:09:48.400 | So there's many ways for you to reintegrate this into your life

00:09:51.360 | And then finally you have this sort of escape or mark ability legacy piece where you have some ambitious plans

00:09:56.400 | That you put into your life that are meant that are meant to actually

00:10:02.480 | Take these things you care about and push them to new extremes and now you're working towards something your

00:10:07.100 | Capability your ability to be organized on top of things is being deployed towards something that's important to you. I think that's what's missing

00:10:13.800 | So in the last question I said if you just do the second part but not the first part

00:10:19.240 | That's a problem because it's very hard to actually seek depth and sacrifice and have these legacy building projects if you're not a capable human

00:10:25.980 | But we're seeing here is if you just do the first part that's not enough either

00:10:30.040 | You're being productive for the sake of being productive is eventually going to probably be something that is not fulfilling

00:10:35.320 | So we got to see both sides of the stack

00:10:38.640 | Neither of them can act in isolation. You need both of them

00:10:41.880 | So you'll on I'm glad glad to give me a chance to talk about that. Hey, if you like this video

00:10:47.000 | I think you'll really like this one as well. Check it out

Stop Wasting Time & Change Your Life - One Step At A Time | Cal Newport

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