The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Highlight: How To Actually Become Disciplined WITHOUT Willpower… The Leading Behaviour Expert
Fri, 07 Mar 2025
Discipline isn’t something you either have or don’t—it’s something you build. Chase Hughes, a leading expert in human behaviour breaks down how small changes in your habits and mindset can transform your ability to stay disciplined. Learn how to leverage focus, emotion, and repetition to create powerful, lasting habits. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link//qeaGbuGkwRb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link//cFLUNTJkwRb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Chase: https://chasehughes.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can I fix my lack of discipline?
How do I fix my discipline if I'm an ill-disciplined person?
Chapter 2: What is Chase Hughes' definition of discipline?
Understanding what discipline is, is the most critical element. And I define this differently than most people. So I define discipline as your ability to prioritize the needs of your future self ahead of your own present self. And that's it. That's all that discipline is. I'm prioritizing the needs of future me. You're trying to think of an exception.
No, I was thinking of two scenarios. The scenario one is I go home tonight, right? Because I go to sleep, I get to bed early. And there's this other thing I'm thinking about doing after this, which is going to the gym. And I'm like, I was just, as you're saying that, I was thinking both help future me. So I was like, which one is discipline?
I think they would both be discipline. Okay. So... The moment that we start understanding that, if I could just make decisions that are prioritizing future me, then we go back to where am I getting my dopamine from? And I want past tense me to be a source of dopamine for present tense me. Because most of us look back with regret. I shouldn't have drank that much.
Chapter 3: How can future planning enhance discipline?
I shouldn't have mouthed off at the family reunion. You know, whatever it is. I shouldn't have overslept. If I can start looking backwards with gratitude, that's the fastest way to make discipline dopamine generating. So the tricks are to start small. So like when I go to bed at night, I will pop open the little Keurig coffee thing and stick the thing in there, put a cup under there.
Everything's like ready to go. So when I wake up in the morning, I just go, bam, and everything's ready. I'll get my clothes out, everything kind of lined up, ready to put on for the next day. So I'm lowering the threshold of how much attention I'm spending. So I'm going to set my life up in every single way that I possibly can as if I were a butler for future me.
So when I wake up in the morning, all this stuff set out, my laundry's laid out, my checklist for what I need to do for the day, all the stuff I've got to get on a plane is all laid out by the back door. I can grab it and jump in the car. Everything that I could possibly do to make my future self go, oh, man, that's awesome, and look backwards with gratitude, I'm going to do it.
I'll take a $100 bill or maybe a few $100 bills, every spring or summer, and I'll stick them in a jacket pocket that I'm not going to use until the winter. And I'll forget about it. And in the winter, I'm looking, and now I become a source of dopamine. Past tense me is becoming a source of dopamine for present tense me.
that forces me to look in the future, along with like printing that old me photo and putting it all over the house. But everything that I can possibly do to make myself look backwards with gratitude is what I'm gonna start doing. But you have to start small. It's like just going overboard is gonna be crazy.
And even writing a little post-it note to yourself and sticking it in a jacket or maybe a dress shoe that you're not going to wear for a few months, it means so much to find that. And it's from you. It's not from a loved one. You did it. So you're looking backwards with like, wow, that's amazing.
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Chapter 4: What role do habits play in achieving goals?
So you're now getting in love and sending gratitude backwards, which automatically means that what's going forwards is concern. and care. The moment I'm always looking back with gratitude, the concern is always going forward in the future. And the concern for present goes away. And I'm going to push that concern to the right out in the future.
People struggle even with the small things, right? It's funny because I watched a video last night about a lady that went to YouTube and started her journey of weight loss and whatever. And I think she was 400 pounds or something. And she was trying to get down. And in the video, some people will know who I'm referring to, over the space of a year or two years, she actually just gains weight.
So she gets to, I think, 500 pounds or something. And as I was watching it, you're watching someone who's saying, I want to change my life. But then it's coming on every day and saying, I've just gained three pounds. I've just gained another three pounds. And there's almost this,
this visible dissonance that you're observing between this person saying they want to change their life, but clearly the actions that they're then taking are different to that. And many people can relate to that feeling of, I want to be this person. I mean, we're coming up to like... For anyone that doesn't know, we're recording this in December. So New Year's resolutions are around the corner.
Everyone's going to say to themselves who they want to become. But it's easier said than done. I think, what, 7%, 8%, 9% of New Year's resolutions will stick?
Yeah.
So... Is it just a case of starting small or is there any other tricks to discipline that you can offer?
It's starting small and realizing that all of our lives are about habits, not goals. But what are the habits that make my goal a byproduct? Everything is about byproducts in your whole life, whether you know it or not. So instead of setting goals, set like the byproduct. What are the byproducts I want to have for this year? And then what are the habits that make that up?
So what the big mistake most people make is they see somebody like you. You go to the gym very often. You probably eat really clean. I know you don't drink alcohol because I brought you a flask and gave it to your team. But... They took it. They did. So somebody who doesn't live a very disciplined life would look at you and say, God, I want to be like Steven. He's got all this discipline.
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Chapter 5: Why is understanding your 'why' crucial for discipline?
There's an interesting part of this like habit equation, you could say, or like discipline equation, which is the why part. Which is like, why does this matter to you?
And is it important to get really clear on why this thing matters to you, whether it's the gym or... Because when I was playing around with this discipline equation idea for my last book, and the kind of conclusion I landed at was that to be disciplined, you have to understand... the reason why something matters to you. You can say that in other words.
Plus the psychological reinforcement you get from the pursuit of the thing, minus the, you could say, the psychological or perceived cost of the pursuit of the thing. So in the context of brushing your teeth, I think I know why it matters, right? Because if I don't, then I have to go to the dentist, my teeth fall out, I look ugly, whatever it might be. Is it rewarding and fun to do? No, not really.
and minus the cost of the pursuit it takes two minutes it's not that bad but when that nets out the y is stronger thankfully on net than the cost so the behavior happens yeah but the key part of this equation here is the y part like it's not the key part but it's a central part is the y part why does the thing matter to you yeah and and how much y like how big is the y yeah because if
If the why is I need enjoyment in the present moment, then no other why will be bigger. No discipline why will ever be larger. The only why will be why am I eating these Cheetos right now? Or why am I drinking 20 beers every night? Because that's the only why.
So I think once the why starts edging its way into the future, that's the moment where you break the discipline spiral and you get out of that because your whys are extending into time that hasn't happened yet. Does that equation stack up for you, saying this?
I like it. A lot. Because I've been saying it, I wrote about this in my book, the whole idea is Y plus, like, you could say reinforcement, minus, you could say cost, just to simplify it.
Yeah.
But is there anything missing from this equation? Do you think? Is there anything... I said it to Simon Sinek and he went, let's try it out. And he talked to me about taking his bin out in the morning, like taking the bin out for the bin men. And it kind of holds up because he's... So the why is if I don't take the bin out, then I'm going to get fined and my bin isn't going to overflow.
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