90% of People View Discipline Poorly (Read this to Seamlessly Do Hard Work)

I am a Muslim.

For those who know, a couple of months back we were fasting for the entire month on account of our religious month.

Long story short, my sleep was incomplete from the 5th day itself and I felt very low energy levels for the following 5 weeks

I was doing good habits before Ramadan (the holy month):

• Going to the Gym 3x every week

• Meditating (kinda)

• Cold Showers every morning, etc.

All the basic self-improvement stuff

Due to late bedtimes and early rises, my sleep suffered.

I place a lot of emphasis on my sleep, and I’ve noticed a pattern where, once my sleep starts to decline, so does every other area.

Why does this happen?

Sleep is the most fundamental form of energy for every living organism

‘Rest & Digest’

When my sleep suffers, so does my energy.

I don’t have enough energy to focus or even hold attention.

I become mindless and start doing activities a mindless person does — Doom Scrolling on TikTok, Eating Junk Food, doesn’t feel like doing anything Hard (Gym, Cold Shower, or even a 5-minute Meditation).

Due to the mindlessness, I did bad habits.

I eat a Large Pizza in one sitting, start watching reels instead of learning and absorbing long-form podcasts, drink Pepsi and cola, and even skip the gym.

It’s a pattern I’ve noticed in me ever since I became aware.

Awareness is a double-edged sword.

I (sometimes) hate that I know so much about myself and the human psyche.

So, naturally, with my lack of sleep and energy levels, I flunked on my good habits.

I started eating Pringles and Bread at 4 a.m. to keep my fast. I had french fries and sandwiches and ginger ale to break the fast. I tried to stay disciplined on my diet, and I tried to force myself to go to the gym, but I just didn’t have any will to.

My main goal in life right now is to build my physique (I am on a cut)

(but at the time, I was trying to do multiple things, like learning business, thinking about business, going hard in the gym, going on long walks to think, et.)

It bothered me every day that instead of going to the gym, I was watching ‘Modern Family’ whilst having 8 bars of KitKat

For 37 days I didn’t do the single greatest lever-moving task that’d move me toward my goal — Hitting the Gym.

This happened throughout the month. I coped by saying, “It’s only for this month. You can’t do anything about it right now. Let it go. Enjoy the bad habits for the month, and vow to get back on it after it’s done”

What an absolutely shameful way to live.

As a Man, you are either:

1. Living a life that fulfills your purpose,

or (what most people do)

2. Living a life that distracts you from it.

Anyway, Ramadan is done and now I gotta quit all my vices.

I got rid of them fairly quickly and continued my Carnivore Diet that I was on prior to the month (p.s. this takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of hits on this journey to be able to go Cold Turkey. I was able to do this because I’ve done it in the past with other bad habits, like, Smoking, Vaping, Porn, et.)

But there was still so much friction to go to the Gym.

I continued for 3 days/week… till I read this 1 sentence that broke down every wall of inaction I was having

I was reading this issue of The Koe Letter, and it had this 1 sentence that said, and I quote

Something just clicked in my mind.

A few days prior, I watched a Goal Setting lecture from Hamza, where he asked this question,

“What is the one goal that if you achieve, will give you the massive 0-to-1 change in your life?

That’s your Purpose. Now Align everything in your life towards that.”

I thought:

I’m fat, and I’m broke too.

But trying to sit down to work with 24% body fat, a shitty diet, no experience with women and no experience in the world wouldn’t make me any progress in business (because I’d be the Virgin ‘Sex Guru’)

Getting Jacked as fuck and having 6-pack abs WOULD DEFINITELY land me more experience with women, get me into better jobs, make people want to listen to me, and be treated with respect in general.

But even though I knew this, I wasn’t dialed in until I read that sentence.

When it clicked, I realized why I wasn’t making much progress in anything;

It’s because I was knee-deep in 6 different things at the same time demanding my attention.

And hence, I didn’t have enough energy to put into 1 Single Goal

After this Clarity hit, these are my results…

I went from:

• going to the Gym 3x per week, to,

• skipping it for 37+ days (whilst eating shitty food, and laying in bed all day), to,

• going Cold Turkey 6x per week consistently

“Okay Maaz, But how does this relate to Discipline?”

Here’s the thing, I automatically wake up and go to the gym.

I don’t need to use ‘Discipline’ to go hard on my workouts, or ‘Willpower’ to just Meat and Eggs every day.

I don’t need to Force myself to do something that 99% of people DREAD doing.

I have achieved Clarity.

That Clarity tunes out everything that could distract me from my 1 Massive Goal

It’s a Filter that tells me what is important and what isn’t

It tells me what are the highest Needle-moving tasks that I need to do everyday.

Clarity is fucking underrated in this world.

You find it hard to do the hard work because you don’t KNOW where you want to go.

You’re a tiny leaf getting blown in every direction of the wind.

You have 27 different goals in your mind that you were conditioned into by society, friends, or even people who you ‘learn from’ on the internet.

It hit me how in the past 1.5 years of my life, I made such mediocre progress in the gym because I wanted to do many things at once.

Here’s Your 2 Actionable Steps:

1) “What is the 1 Goal, that if I achieve, will give the Biggest, 0-to-1 improvement to my Life”

2) Align your Entire Life towards it

If you are slacking right now, find Clarity.

You won’t need any other ‘self-improvement hack’ to stay consistent.

Hope this planted a seed of awareness in your head.

- Maaz