Self-Discipline in 10 days How To Go From Thinking To Doing by Theodore Bryant, MSW HUB Publishing Human Understanding and Behavior Publishing Seattle, Washington Dedicated... to all the people who have attended my self-discipline courses, seminars, and lectures. You provided me with the desire and motivation to write this book. You enabled me to create a self-discipline system that can work for anyone. But, more important, you taught me that life's greatest pleasure lies in helping others accomplish their desires. For this simple lesson, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Table Of Contents Part One Preliminary Information • Important! 2 • How To Use This Guidebook 5 1. Getting Started 7 2. Poisons & Antidotes 13 3. Action-oriented Self-talk 31 4. Understanding Self-Discipline 41 Part Two The Ten Day Self-Discipline Development System • Before You Begin 52 5. Day One: Fear of Failure 53 6. Day Two: Fear of Success 61 7. Day Three: Fear of Rejection 67 8. Day Four: Fear of Mediocrity 74 9. Day Five: Fear of Risks 78 Table Of Contents Part Three Subconscious Beliefs plus Five Power Tools • Understanding Subconscious Belief Systems .... 89 10. Day Six: "All or Nothing" & Visualization 93 11. Day Seven: "I Must Be Perfect" & Reward Systems 99 12. Day Eight: "I Can Achieve Without Discomfort" & Vitaminds 109 13. Day Nine: "I Can't Change" & Relaxation 117 14. Day Ten: "Something Terrible Will Happen" & AGoal Sheet 127 Part Four Putting It All Together • Congratulations! 135 • The Self-Discipline Process 136 15. The Decision Stage 137 16. The Preparation Stage 141 17. The Action Stage 147 18. The Completion/ Maintenance Stage 153 • About the Author 160 Part One Preliminary Information Important! Whenever and wherever I conduct self-discipline workshops, seminars, or classes, I always hear this question: "Can I actually improve my self-discipline in only ten days?" My answer: YES... YES... YES Absolutely. Positively. Definitely. Actually, you will experience improvement in one day! Your improvement will be in direct proportion to how closely you follow the program in this book. A partial effort will generate a partial result. The exercises, tips, and techniques contained in this book came from many different and diverse sources. This book contains the quickest and easiest methods currently available for improving self-discipline. Did you notice that I did not say "The best methods"? The best methods can take lots of time and tons of effort to understand and employ. In this book you will find methods that will work fast and painless; we will use a no-frills approach. But I promise that you will learn more than you will need to improve your self-discipline immediately. To facilitate your consumption and digestion of this material, all psychobabble and jargon have been skimmed off. So you're getting only the real goods in a powerful and concentrated dose. 2 Trust me. The system in this book will give you the insight, techniques, and tips to quickly improve your self- discipline skill. You will note that I said, "skill." That is because my experiences with thousands of people have taught me that self-discipline is simply a skill that anyone can learn to use. No one comes into the world with it. And improving self-discipline, like improving any skill, is simply a matter of education and practice. Some of us learned self-discipline from parents, friends, or relatives. Others of us learned it through school, sports, the armed forces, or maybe even through our own intuition. Unfortunately, however, most of us were never taught the psychology of self-discipline, how it really works. So we can't always use it when we need it. This book will help you learn what you need to know, and unlearn what you need to drop. Soon you will be aware of many tools, techniques, and concepts to help you unravel the mystery of self-discipline. You are going to be amazed at how quickly and easily this self-discipline system works. Sound promising? Then let's get started. 3 How to use this guidebook First, you'll jump into the chapter titled, Preliminary Information. This section is filled with information that will put your whole self to work for you. Before you tackle the ten-day self-discipline plan, be sure that you are familiar with all the information in the Preliminary Information chapter. Most self-discipline failures occur because of a lack of psychological preparation. The Preliminary Information chapter is designed to provide you with the necessary psychological preparation to make this system work. Next comes the ten-day program for the development of awareness and attitude. Then, in the Putting It All Together section, you'll go into Action. This system evolved over years of experimentation and research. Through classes, workshops, and seminars, I've taught this system to people from all walks of life. Its overall design has a purpose. Each exercise, technique, and lesson was designed to follow the one that precedes it. "One day at a time" is good advice when making a behavior change. Do not devour this book all at once. Do not skip around from chapter to chapter. While you don't have to complete the ten-day section in ten consecutive days, don't spread it out too much. Such an approach, while yielding some benefits, will leave you with the hole rather than the donut. In other words, don't work against yourself. Prepare yourself for the ten-day program by thoroughly learning the Preliminary Information. Then the ten-day portion of the program will zoom past and you'll soon be putting self-discipline into motion. I've seen it happen time and time again. So remember: Follow the instructions! Do the exercises in order! 5 1. Getting Started Self-Discipline in 10 days Caution! Before you take another step, meet your greatest obstacle to self-discipline: Meet Hyde Every psychological theory recognizes that we are made up of several different selves. So, obviously, we have more than one side of ourselves with which to contend. Moreover, difficulty arises when we consider that frequently our different sides want to go in different directions. Inner conflict, it's called. Sometimes one side of us wants to engage in a productive activity such as working on a report for work, cleaning the kitchen, or balancing the checkbook. But another side of us wants to watch television and eat chocolate chip cookies, or anything else to avoid doing something we consider a productive use of time. In other words, there is a part of you that does not want self-discipline. This side of you we'll call Hyde. In Robert Lewis Stevenson's classic novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we find a literary example that perfectly suits ours needs here. Basically the story is about a benevolent doctor who, through chemical experimentation on himself, brought out the evil side of his personality while suppressing the good side. The two sides of himself ended up in a struggle for dominance that eventually destroyed them both. Think of the part of you that wants self-discipline as Dr. Jekyll, and the part of you that fights your attempts at self-discipline as Hyde. Get the idea? Do not, however, think of your Hyde side as an enemy. Think, instead, of Hyde as the part of you that is creative, fun-loving, and pleasure-seeking; the child side of yourself. You do not want to do battle with Hyde, but you want to recruit Hyde as a partner who supports your self-discipline efforts. 8