Preparation Beats Discipline

And your life depends on it.

Created using MidJourney and the style “by Jean Jullien”

It’s school rush hour, cars are zipping in and zipping out.

Preschoolers are bouncing off the walls, skipping on the paving stones and crying at the door. Clinging to parents. Forgetting shoes and lunchboxes.

And my car won’t start.
The battery’s dead. Again.
My kids are in their car seats.
And we’re still at home.

I try again, and again and again.
My wife has already left.
It’s just the three of us.
The clock’s ticking by.

Why did we forget to drive this car?
Why didn’t we park them nose to nose?
Why didn’t I test start before she left?

Hold on — there it starts.

And off we go.

Discipline won’t make you successful

Alex Hormozi, has a short, where he talks about how being disciplined won’t make you successful.

• Doing difficult things over and over, and white knuckling over the hump won’t get you there.

• You have to make it as easy as possible to work as hard as possible.

• Make achieving your goals easy. Don’t pick a gym far away pick a close one.

It’s not about willpower, it’s about planning.

Preparation beats willpower

James Clear, in the bestselling Atomic Habits, says prepare your environment for success.

• Clear away the distractions

• Remove the tasty treats in the pantry cupboard

• Set up your writing station so that you can just dive in.

• Use cold turkey writer and block out the web

• Put out your gym clothes the night before

Zoom out to get ahead

Your luck will run out, like mine did.

My wife and I have spent so long being “disciplined” swapping our cars. Driving them enough to charge the batteries. Parking nose to nose in case we needed to jump start them. Instead of just testing our batteries or the alternator.

Often, willpower and discipline are wasted fighting the symptoms of the problem. Not the actual problem.

1. Zoom out, see the forest, and see what needs to be changed.

2. Find where you should really focus your energy.

3. Then prepare the environment so you don’t need to fight it.

4. Make it easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing.

Then apply discipline and willpower to keep that system going.

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