Self-Discipline – Mark Manson

Habits are an investing mindset. Habits require one to invest one’s efforts for a little while and then take the rewards of that effort and re-invest them in a greater effort to form even better habits.

Just like forcing yourself to work and save for 20 years is unlikely to get you rich, forcing yourself to go to the gym dozens of times is unlikely to make you lose much weight and keep it off.

People tend to bite off more than they can chew, so to speak, setting goals that are far above their ability or knowledge level and then becoming frustrated when they make little to no progress towards them.

You wake up early because it feels good to wake up early.

Because when you’re in a room full of people, you don’t want to be the lone asshole who gets up and walks out after three minutes like you do at home! The social pressure makes it so that not meditating causes a bigger emotional problem than meditating for the full amount of time.

Simply understanding and accepting your emotions for what they are can allow you to work with them rather than against them.

it feels good to take care of yourself.

That’s because they relieve us of the responsibility for our own actions. If I decide that I can’t give up ice cream because I’m a horrible person—that “horrible person-ness” precludes my ability to change or improve in the future—therefore, it’s technically out of my hands, isn’t it?

Ultimately, self-discipline is not based on willpower or self-denial, but it’s actually based on the opposite: self-acceptance.

They are running away from their demons. And one way to do that is to create shinier, more socially acceptable demons.