P03 · Discipline and Character
Self-discipline and impulse control
Mastering impulses, governing appetite and keeping commitments to oneself.
Cues
Showing 20 of 26 cues
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Traction versus distraction
The opposite of distraction is not focus, but traction: traction is any action done with intent that moves you toward what you planned, while distraction pulls you away from your planned intent, often prioritizing the urgent over the important.
“What have I done wrong? What have I done well? What have I omitted that I ought to have done?”
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?”
“In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.”
“If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?”
“In short, the wise man looks to the purpose of all actions, not their consequences; beginnings are in our power but Fortune judges the outcome, and I do not grant her verdict upon me.”
“I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.”
“[Chekhov] made a vow to himself: no more bowing and apologising to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love.”
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
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Lenses
Modules
“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us.”
“One can avoid opportunities for gratification of the drive [for pleasure], and through long and ever longer periods of non-gratification weaken it and make it wither away. Then, one can impose upon oneself strict regularity in its gratification: by thus imposing a rule upon the drive itself and enclosing its ebb and flow within firm time-boundaries, one has then gained intervals during which one is no longer troubled by it ...”
“There is a certain extra gain in having conquered [inner] territory entirely through one’s own initiative, courage, and perseverance.”
“Experience ... shows beyond any doubt that patients can develop an amazing faculty of keen self-observation if they are bent on understanding their own problems.”
“You should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is some thing in you that wants to move out of it ... We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.”
“Freedom in its essence is the acceptance of the chains which suit you and for which you are suited, and of the harness in which you pull towards an end chosen and valued by yourself, and not imposed. It is not, and never can be, the absence of restrictions, obligations or law and of duty.”
“Always to seek to conquer myself rather than fortune, to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to believe that nothing except our thoughts is wholly under our control, so that after we have done our best in external matters, what remains to be done is absolutely impossible, at least as far as we are concerned.”
“Begin therefore from little things. Is a little oil spilt? A little wine stolen? Say to yourself, “This is the price paid for equanimity, for tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing.”
“And life confided the secret to me: behold, it said, I am that which must always overcome itself.”
“[Chekhov] made a vow to himself: no more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love.”