If You're Stuck You Probably Need More Self-Discipline
Here's why every creator needs it and how to develop it.
🤩 Hey! I’m Alberto. With my newsletter I want to help you reach your full potential and live your ideal life with a content-based business.
I talk about productivity, automation, strategy and mindset.
Imagine discovering the recipe for a potion that turns everything into gold. Now imagine gathering the ingredients is difficult and dangerous. Will you walk away from this challenge and miss out on unlimited wealth?
I know this may sound harsh, but I think that’s what many creators do.
They have the knowledge and tools to grow an audience, develop their craft, and improve themselves. But they procrastinate, find excuses, and quit.
What can save them? Discipline.
Yes, I know, not the most glamorous topic. But I am an extremely disciplined person and this may be my secret weapon.
If you're not getting the results you want, here's why and how discipline will help you. And, most importantly, how to develop it with limited stress.
Why is discipline so hard?
My son is almost 6 years old. He can focus and do incredibly hard things for his age. He also understands and remembers the rules. But left to his own devices, he's not disciplined at all. If you've ever attended to a small child, you know what I mean.
Discipline must be acquired.
Our brains are survival machines. Their decisions are optimized to conserve energy and avoid danger. They're also focused on immediate profit. (Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow is the bible if you want to understand this)
But nothing about succeeding as a creator gives immediate rewards. And I’m not talking about “getting viral”, or “making FU money”.
I’m talking about just regularly publishing good quality content:
you have to work for hours on a single article before seeing it published,
you need months, but probably more than a year, to get traction with a new publication,
and don't even get me started about making it profitable,
and so on.
So basically, to succeed as creators, we need to do hard things and take risks while postponing rewards. The exact opposite of what our nature wants.
Being a creator sucks (though it's awesome)
How do you envision your life as a creator?
I became a creator because I love to teach. And because I wanted the freedom of managing my time.
I left academia 14 years ago for this, and I've never regretted it. But my days are filled with activities and feelings I'd gladly avoid:
struggling for 10 minutes on a single sentence,
seeing an article I toiled over totally bomb (many articles, actually),
redesigning my strategy because platforms change the rules,
promoting myself (here’s how to make it more tolerable),
invoicing and all the other rewarding admin tasks that come with monetization.
I removed all unnecessary tasks. I automate everything possible. But I still have to endure lots of annoying tasks if I want to improve my craft, reach an audience, and stay away from a traditional job (my greatest fear!).
Without discipline, I would already have quit.
Meanwhile, my gut screams "stop!"
I started on Substack in May 2024. For a few months, to set the right mood for the day, I visited my Stats page every morning. But recently, things have slowed down.
It may depend on the platform. But it's also inevitable in the life of a creator. Growth can’t always be stellar. (By the way, here’s a detailed report on my first 6 months here)
But you can guess what my first thought is: “I’m doing something wrong”. Have I lost the connection with my audience? Am I so tired that the quality of my articles suffers? Was it just luck in the first months?
Today, I know I have the skills to turn things around. And that this may just be a phase.
But when you're starting out, it's easy to give in to these feelings and quit. After all, you don’t need to create content to survive.
Discipline is what pushes you on when your gut screams “stop!”.
How to build discipline
I hope I've convinced you how important discipline is. But you're probably wondering, "Okay, how can I develop it?"
I'm lucky because I learned it at a young age. It wasn't a stroll in the park, but now I'm reaping the benefits. Let’s reverse engineer what worked for me.
Accountability
In elementary school, I was already a clockwork student—methodical, reliable, and committed.
Maybe my genes played a role. But my mom has always been very demanding. I didn’t want to disappoint her and my teachers.
It wasn’t positive motivation. I felt too much fear. I don’t recommend it.
The healthier, adult alternative is finding an accountability buddy. As a creator, who can you commit to?
Your audience. Promise them the solutions to specific problems, a certain publishing cadence, specific kinds of content. You won’t want to disappoint them.
A mentor or coach. This may be expensive. But that’s the reason why it’s so powerful.
A community. Paid communities are more effective than free ones. They attract more motivated and proactive people. And sometimes they help find accountability buddies.
Your future self. This is the hardest option. But look at people older than you, full of regrets. Use them as negative examples when you’re feeling lazy.
Pervasiveness
I wasn’t just disciplined in school. I also practiced guitar for one hour every day, I gave very few headaches to my mom, and regularly served mass.
Every moment in the day was an opportunity to practice discipline.
You can do it as an adult, too. Learn from atomic habits and start small.
What’s a recurring small challenge that demands extra discipline for you? It can be as simple as skipping sugar in your coffee, spending 10 minutes less on social media, or sending a message to your mom.
Commit to doing it and you’ll show yourself that you can be disciplined.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot
I made a commitment not to yell at my son. I’m not always successful, of course. Keeping my cool is particularly hard when I’m very sleep-deprived or hungry.
Discipline burns a lot of energy. Ensure you sleep well and long enough, have a healthy nutrition, and keep your energy high through exercise. When you feel up against a wall, take 5 minutes to move and breathe, maybe have a snack. If you have more time, take a nap.
Unlock your progress
“If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.”—Derek Sivers
Methods, tips and hacks for achieving anything are at your fingertips. You don’t need another expensive course, or the “right” strategy.
You need a bit more discipline to take action and put what you already know into practice. Use what you read in this article and start today.
In a few months, you’ll look back and the results will show you it was worth it.
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