A belief that you are self-disciplined is what I call a foundational mindset. If you don’t follow through on doing the things you know you need to do, then all of your intentions to apply yourself aren’t supported by your own ability to execute them.

However, I do believe the idea of self-discipline is misunderstood. It’s not a notion of doing what you said you would do at all costs… I relate with it as something more beneficial - To faithfully do what you know most serves you, consistently, despite the circumstances surrounding it.

For that reason, to rest is to be disciplined. Let me explain this by running through a scenario.

You wake up in the morning with a plan to get a workout in, but your boss pings you or you have that one important errand to get done. You do it quickly but realize now you don’t have time for your workout so you start your workday. Things come up that pull you off track - getting distracted in non-essential things, requests from your boss, etc. - and you start to run behind. Maybe you squeeze a mini-workout in but most likely you put time into doing the things that others need from you. Even so, it pushes your work day a little longer.

Then at the end of the day you have dinner, spend time with loved ones and do activities that you enjoy, or even wrap up one last thing at work. But it’s not enough, and when it’s time to start shutting down for the day to get to bed on time, you have a decision to make. You have time to do more of those things you enjoy, didn’t do, or need to do… Or you can choose to go to sleep.

The right choice, that most serves you and everything else you have on your plate, is to take care of you. To get enough sleep and be well-rested for a new day. It takes self-control and will-power to get yourself to stop and actually go to sleep on time. It takes discipline to make that choice despite the circumstances and pressure of wanting to do more.

An investment in your energy is an investment in everything else. The quality of your output, focus, or presence is limited by how you feel when you show up to the moment. Going to sleep on time is harder than it needs to be, but that’s why it’s an ultimate expression of self-discipline. Challenge yourself to go to bed on time for a full week and notice how much it transforms your life.

If you want to really take things to the next level, learn about the 2 other foundational mindsets, alongside being self-disciplined, here.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I wanted to share some actionable tips to support you in not overeating on Thanksgiving while still enjoying the Holiday. I’m going to line up a few ideas, shout out to my friend Arozo Shahabzada for organizing these insights.

Tip #1 - Don’t linger by the snack table. It’s so easy to mindlessly keep having one bite at a time when you’re hovering over the food. If you want to eat, make yourself a plate and then move away from the table.

Tip #2 - Drink 8 ounces of water before you get started. By getting something in your stomach first, you’ll find that you have less of a craving to keep eating.

Tip #3 - Keep your eating schedule regular and have breakfast. Many people skip the first meal to “make room” for a bigger meal later in the day. Doing that can cause more harm than good and may leave you prone to overindulging.

Tip #4 - Give yourself 8 minutes before going back for seconds. Instead of instantly reloading your plate with more good stuff, let it settle for a few minutes. This gives your body time to catch up and update your perceived hunger level.  Even if you do choose to get seconds, what you put on your plate, and the amount of it, will be radically different than if you didn’t take a pause.

And Tip #5 - Decide your dessert in advance. There are often a lot of different sweets to sample, when you set an intention for how much dessert you ideally want o enjoy, it’ll keep you from stuffing yourself full. Especially when it comes to rich foods like dessert, it’s important to practice moderation.

This information is great but it’s using it that what will actually help you be proud of the choices you make on Thanksgiving. So pick one or two of these tips and really commit to practicing them, helping you to eat more mindfully.

And if you're reading this not around the Holiday... Then these are good practices for any setting where you might be tempted to mindlessly overeat.

Recently lists have been getting a bad reputation. A ‘todo list’ plays into the overwhelm and busyness that so many people are experiencing, creating this unreal expectation for the day that leaves us disappointed when we don’t get it all done. 

Goal lists are great at getting clarity on what we’re working toward, but sometimes we stick to them too rigidly and actually pull ourselves off alignment in an effort to achieve the things that no longer represent what we want, or what most satisfies the true intention. 

However there’s another type of list that is underestimated, which is a checklist. A checklist is a step by step, written out procedure that helps guide our actions. Rather than trying to remember every detail required to complete a complex task, a checklist outlines it for us and makes it easy for us to produce the desired result with minimal effort and error. Atul Gawande wrote a book called “The Checklist Manifesto” to demonstrate the incredible power of a checklist, citing examples of how pilots, surgeons, and other high performers use checklists to ensure the quality of their work. 

The reason checklists work so well is because they’re a type of system, creating leverage that maximizes value out for what you put in. It takes time to build out a check list, but it’s just an upfront investment that makes things go smoothly every time moving forward.

In my morning routine, I have a checklist. There are specific tasks I want to do every single day, and in order to not forget them, I run through the list. This ensures that I maximize my daily priming and set myself up to have a killer day.

When I make my schedule for the day, I have a checklist. Instead of randomly putting things on a calendar I have a process for putting in external commitments and appointments, then my exercise and self-care, then my most priority tasks, and so on.

Using a checklist is not a sign that you’re less capable and need help doing basic things... It’s a failsafe way to create efficiencies in your life, hold yourself to a higher standard, and improve the quality of what you do. If that’s not one of the intentions of self-improvement, then I don’t know what is!

As part of the Self Improvement Fast Track series, today I want to elaborate on the fifth and final reason why people like you choose to invest time in their self-improvement, which is to to meet their insatiable desire for self-growth, taste their fullest potential, and be a high-performer.

These are people who want to be in incredible shape and physically be able to do things very few are capable of at their age. They want to excel in their career and be a part of extraordinary projects that make a real difference to improve lives and change the world. And they want to share incredible experiences with loved ones to cultivate a deep sense of connection and joy for life. 

The challenge is many people go about ‘scratching this itch’ by consuming more content - reading more books, listening to podcasts, watching Ted Talks. They figure that if they’re a sponge for self-improvement material their life will change as a result. But it leads a lot of people astray because they’re spending so much time learning and active "doing all of the right things”, yet they’re not getting out anywhere near as much as they put in. 

It’s people who’ve read ‘Atomic Habits’ and know all about habit formation, but still struggle to be consistent with their health routines. They’ve heard on a podcast that it’s not healthy to be driven by achievement or compare themselves to others, yet they unconsciously seek out opportunities for external validation and feel insecure that they’re not doing enough. People who pick up “Essentialism” and learn the value of focusing efforts on the critical few, yet find themselves still overstretched with too many things on their plate. Someone who knows the benefits of cold exposure, or intermittent fasting, but hasn’t implemented it as a consistent practice, or if they have it’s just because they think they should and they don’t really know if it’s doing anything for them.

It’s not uncommon for people to learn about a new idea, recognize that it addresses a problem that they’re facing, yet nothing changes about it.

A high-performer knows that taking consistent action and integrating feedback is the path to improvement. But just because they’ve learned that doesn’t mean they have the structures and systems in place to actually optimize their life... And because of it they feel like they’re not good enough and constantly falling short of being the person they know they’re capable of.

Knowledge and information is like fuel for a car, you need some to go but if you want to go further, go faster, or be better, it’s probably not going to do much. Instead what you need is a new system that utilizes the fuel, a new engine, that takes what you’re learning and turns it into real tangible growth.

Once you get in the process of observing your growth every single day, and use feedback to make adjustments that improve your health, productivity, and level of intentionality in everything you do, that’s when you become capable of accomplishing extraordinary things and living an extraordinary life.

As part of the Self Improvement Fast Track series, today I want to elaborate on the fourth reason why people like you choose to invest time in their self-improvement, which is to improve their confidence and self-esteem.

Now that it’s so easy to see everyone’s success on social media, many people feel sorry for themselves because they don’t feel successful in comparison. We see people with beautiful bodies, going on amazing trips, building incredible businesses and leading impactful initiatives, and we question if we’re even capable of any of it ourselves. It makes us doubt if we can live up to the big vision we have for our lives and wonder if we’re just average.

If you’re low on self-confidence, you’re less likely to put yourself out there. You’re hesitant to take risks and create opportunities in your career, settle for relationships and friendships where you’re undervalued, never get that new idea or passion project off the ground, and invest in the things that you know will help you get to the next level. You’re letting limiting beliefs and overthinking keep you from doing the things you’re feeling a nudge to do, and because you’re not taking the necessary actions you keep falling short of generating the desired results.

First and foremost, self-confidence and self-esteem come from having an intense trust in yourself. It’s a belief that you'll do what you say you will do, that you have what it takes to make the most of whatever situations you find yourself in, that you can fix the mistakes you make, trust your own judgment over what other people think about you, and that you’ll always be okay because you’ve got your own back. Improving your self-confidence goes along with improving your mindset and becoming more self-disciplined, resilient, and faithful in your ability to improve.

To build those mindsets, you need to start collecting evidence that all of those things are true. You make that difficult call because you said you would, and doing so most serves you. You get bold about a new idea you have and start asking people for help. You do your best to reframe any feelings of criticism to datapoints of feedback. You challenge yourself to express yourself more because you know that you’re more than just how you look, and a full package of great ideas, a caring heart, and unique personality that other people enjoy being around. It’s the consistency in action that builds up proof that you are a confident person.

Once you get your self-esteem up, then you’re unstoppable! You have full conviction in your abilities and you’re someone who others seek advice from because your life example inspires them. You don’t put so much pressure on yourself because you know you can rise to the occasion, which helps you to take action with more ease and flow.

As part of the Self Improvement Fast Track series, today I want to elaborate on the third reason why people like you choose to invest time in their self-improvement, which is because they want to get better at managing stress, feeling less overwhelmed by all of their responsibilities, and create more balance in their life.

I get it - life is busier than ever. It can feel like a constant sprint where you’re just trying to get over the hump, only to find an even bigger hill to climb behind it, over and over again. It’s like you’re running a race where the finish line is always moved forward before you reach it. And waiting for things to slow down is pointless because something else adds on and you never get a chance to recover, leading to burnout as you’re slowly being overstretched too thin.

At work, it could be that things just keep getting added to your plate and it keeps demanding more and more of your time. In your personal life, maybe things just keep piling up where family emergencies and commitments like trips, visits, decision-making and being a supporting system all fall on you. Not to mention the financial pressure you carry to continue performing in your work so that you can ensure a sense of security for you and your loved ones.

Stress and overwhelm are the symptom of the same thing - you don’t have the personal capacity to comfortably handle everything that life demands of you. And as a result, you get pulled out of balance and start overweighing certain areas of your life at the expense of others, particularly your health and self-care, which are the pathway to expanding your capacity.

So what needs to happen first is decrease the demand - To set better boundaries, take on less, get out of the rat race of trying to survive the day. Then with that space, you can start investing in things that increase your capacity, like a more reasonable work schedule and consistent health routines, that keep you from overexerting yourself. And it’s by improving your physical and emotional state that you can start doing things with more quality, and more efficiently, to be the person capable of taking on the challenges life throws at you. 

It’s by arriving at a more settled, sustainable, balanced state that you get out of the daily fight and start enjoying the things you’re doing more, because you have more capacity to be present with them and you’re actually in a place to make progress on them.