Lessons on Personal Development: #7 Stay Disciplined — Become Your Own Emperor and Samurai

If self-discipline feels difficult, then you’re doing it wrong.

I just finished watching an outstanding documentary about World War II, and my attention was drawn to the narrator’s passionate appreciation for the Japanese army’s discipline. And it occupied my thoughts as well!

The Japanese soldier was maybe the most disciplined in WWII. When compared to their Axis counterparts, Japanese soldiers may have been even more disciplined than their German allies. While German discipline was focused on tactics, organization, and esprit de corps (a feeling of pride), Japanese training focused on great physical and mental toughness, a determination to endure sickness, hunger, deprivation, and torture. They were even so radical that they were willing to die for the empire.

It all started with the Samurai, and their discipline has been passed down through generations of Japanese people. The samurai (or bushi) were premodern Japan’s warriors. Samurai were expected to live their life in accordance with the bushido ethic code (“the way of the warrior”), and bushido emphasized ideals like loyalty to one’s master, self-discipline, and ethical behavior.

“Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.” — Roy L. Smith

So what keeps you away from becoming your own Samurai and living your life according to your bushido code? You have everything you need:

• A master to be true to (YOU, as well as your vision of the future YOU)
• Self-discipline capability as every human being
• The potential to display respectful, ethical behavior for yourself and others

How to stay disciplined?

Self-discipline is essential in practically every aspect of life where we want to improve and progress. Whether you want to eat healthier, spend less, procrastinate less, get promoted, manage your emotions better, or strengthen your relationships.

“If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?”
― John C. Maxwell

1. Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses

We all have our strong suits, but we also have our weaknesses. It could be tobacco, an obsession with social media, not reading enough books, difficulty saying “no,” a lack of financial knowledge, of confidence, a fear of confrontation… you name it. They all have a similar effect on us.

But they are OK, they are all perfectly common and natural. The weaknesses themselves are not the problem. The problem is that we acknowledge things in certain situations but try to sweep them under the carpet by claiming “I don’t have time to do better” or “It’s just who I am”.

So, my point here is: discover your flaws through self-analysis or consultation with people who spend considerable time with you, acknowledge them, and start researching how to overcome them. Did you overcome all of your weaknesses? I have my doubts, but if you say so, okay. In that case, you now have strengths to maintain, master, monetize, and be proud of. As a result, self-discipline is always necessary.

2. Look around you for motivation

Visualizing your future self is the most powerful motivation. Visualize yourself at a career you enjoy, surrounded by people you admire, mastering a new productive hobby, and having the type of relationships you desire. Samurai imagined their nation’s and emperor’s welfare, and in this case, the emperor is you. But what else can we use to motivate ourselves?

Keep track of your situational motivators. If you’re feeling fantastic and cruising through an activity with ease, take the time to notice and write down what makes it easier for you. Is it a song from your current playlist? What time of day is it? Was it anything that happened recently? Then you may develop plans to include these motivators into whatever or whenever you are doing something that requires self-discipline.

Keep track of human motivators and demotivators as well. Make sure that the 3–5 individuals closest to you are nothing less but your objective and truthful cheerleaders.

3. Don’t talk yourself out of what you want because you’re scared of failing

One of the reasons we lack self-discipline is that we avoid the difficult and uncomfortable. We prefer to do simple, pleasant, and familiar things because we are worried that the difficult ones may lead to failure.

But you’re the emperor and the samurai at the same time, so you can tell yourself that you’ve had enough of running. You can give yourself an order to gradually push yourself into discomfort and learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You can also obey that order.

Push yourself into discomfort one small task at a time. Examine how it feels. It’s not the end of the world, and you will see that. See if you’re strong enough to deal with difficulty, and believe me, that the results are well worth it.

4. Get better at time management

Great time management may help you avoid procrastination and stress, achieve your objectives, and enjoy your free time more since you won’t be concerned about what else you could be doing.

Make it a priority to enhance your time management abilities in order to get more self-discipline. My advice is to look for an excellent time management course to get you started.

There are many ways to develop self-discipline as a habit, but the ideal approach is to actually come up with some fundamental reasons why you desire the things in life that you want. I firmly believe that when our reasons are powerful enough, they can get us through just about anything.

Until next time!