Discipline Without This Will Always Lead to Failure 

Depending on discipline will always lead to failure. If you want to avoid losing, do this.

As people, we all have been given the greatest gift: the gift of choice.

When something happens to us, we can immediately react.

However, we are not required to immediately react.

There is a magical moment between every stimulus and a response: choice.

Between stimulus and response, we can choose how we will act.

And those choices define us.

We all make choices in every moment.

But not all choices are the same.

How do we make choices that make every moment better?

The answer is in this article. Plus, you will receive the exact method I use every single day.

1. The Beauty and Failure of Discipline

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” — Roger Bannister

Willpower and discipline are some of the most powerful traits of humans.

With discipline, you can will yourself to achieve incredible feats.

Roger Bannister ran faster than any human has run before.

People have walked across hot coals.

People have fasted for days.

People have gone without sleep and performed seemingly inhuman feats.

People have climbed Mount Everest — blind.

But every achievement of discipline is short-term.

Discipline takes a mental and physical toll on us. We only have a finite amount of willpower. Once it is sapped, then our ability to use discipline disappears.

We lose our ability to discipline ourselves when we are hungry, tired, anxious, sleep-deprived, sick, or fatigued.

Over time, discipline will fail you. If you rely on discipline and willpower as masters, you will reach incredible heights, but you will also walk through terrible valleys.

If you want to make the best choices all of the time, you will need another skill.

2. Monkey Bars and Bridges

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Do you remember climbing monkey bars as a kid?

Most people attack their problems in life like they are crossing monkey bars.

Crossing monkey bars is hard, but it can be done. I remember having contests on who could travel the most bars before falling.

Monkey bars require strength, endurance, and stamina.

If you need to cross some type of chasm, then you could use monkey bars to cross.

But there is a hard truth about monkey bars: if you use them long enough, you will fall. You cannot hold them forever. Eventually, the path of least resistance is to simply fall.

Your arms will get tired.

Your wrists will fatigue.

Someone will knock you off.

In essence, the monkey bar mentality is when you rely on willpower, discipline, and strength to succeed. It can be done. You will succeed. But you will also fail eventually. You will run out of discipline and willpower at some point.

The most successful people in the world do not treat their problems like monkey bars.

They build bridges instead.

3. Structure Is the Answer

“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” — William Blake

Most people do not understand the difference between the monkey bar mentality and the bridge mentality.

Monkey bars take willpower and strength. But will and strength have limits.

The most successful people build bridges. They have a bridge-building mentality.

The smartest people build structures that will allow them to confront challenges without relying on discipline and willpower. They build the structure and then follow the path.

If you have to cross a chasm, would you rather strenuously climb monkey bars, with gravity pulling you down as you force yourself to move one bar at a time?

Or would you rather simply walk across a bridge?

The most successful people build structures that allow them to avoid relying on willpower.

You can do the same thing.

You do not need to build actual bridges.

But if you want to avoid the “monkey bar” mentality, then you must build structures. You must build systems.

You must learn to create the environments that provide a path to success.

The only path to a “bridge-building” mentality is to think of building structures as an investment. When you invest, you do not have an immediate expectation of reward. But you do know that if you put in effort, time, energy or money now, you will multiply that same effort, time, or money later.

Structure only comes from investment.

Structure is the answer.

4. The Path of Least Resistance

“Any change you attempt to make in your life will not work if the path of least resistance does not lead in that direction.” — Robert Fritz

Understanding structure is so important for one main reason: we tend to take the path of least resistance in our activities.

So what can we do?

• Remove the friction.
• Remove obstacles.
• Change the structure.
• Do not make it so hard to get to where you want to go that you need incredible discipline to get there.

Make it as easy as a walk in the park.

Don’t believe me yet? Here is an illustration.

• Imagine a lake, perfectly still. No waves, ripples, or activity.
• Now imagine the exact same water — except that it starts at the top of a mountain, ready to fall directly into the ruts and grooves of a powerful gorge and river.

What is the difference? Did the water change?

No.

The difference is the underlying structure that supports the river and provides a path of least resistance for the water. That path of least resistance has incredible power.

In the book The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz presents three fundamental insights for creating the life that you want.

1. People are like rivers. They go through life taking the path of least resistance.
2. The underlying structure of your life determines the path of least resistance.
3. You can change the fundamental underlying structures of your life.

In order to make an actual, lasting change, you must change the path of least resistance in your life. And the path of least resistance is determined by the structures in your life, whether you are aware of those structures or not.

If the underlying structures of your life remain unchanged, the greatest tendency is for you to follow the same direction your life has always taken.

Fritz proposes that once a new and proper structure is in place, your life will surge to create the results that you want. The path to those results is the path of least resistance.

Here is the point of this: learn to recognize the underlying structures in your life at any one time. Then change the structure to create the life that you want to live.

If you set up your life so that the path of least resistance leads to your desired results, then you will force natural law to create your desired results.

Just like a river always follows the path of least resistance, your life will bend to a definite path. You will have designed your life to avoid failure. It may seem like fantasy, but it is real.

5. What About Willpower?

“To attempt a psychological solution to what is really a structural phenomenon does nothing to change the underlying structure.” — Robert Fritz

Is willpower useless?

Not at all. It is an incredible skill that can propel us all to great heights.

Most people have moments where will and discipline can lead to amazing results.

But one thing separates most people from the happiest and most successful among us.

The most successful people use their discipline and will to build bridges instead of to cross monkey bars. They build structures and a path of least resistance.

You must still respect and cultivate willpower.

But apply your willpower to build the right structures for success, and you will all but eliminate failure.

The beauty of this process is that you can exercise the discipline to build the “bridge” or structure that you need, but use the discipline when you know that your willpower is active and strong.

You must always use discipline in your thoughts and actions, but do not rely on it. Build up and find the structures that will guide you along the path of least resistance.

• Stop blaming yourself when you can’t resist that last temptation — build the structure when your will is strong so that next time you do not even have the temptations.
• Stop letting your self-esteem drop every time you cheat a little on your goals — build a structure and system so that “cheating” is built into the plan or, even better, not even needed.
• Stop thinking that you are a failure when your willpower fails you — it’s called being human. It is not a fault but a biological characteristic of this life we all live. Instead, anticipate the failures that will occur and build structures and environments that will immediately catch you and pick you up when you fall.

Discipline can create epic masterpieces, but relying on it all-day, every-day is a recipe for a misstep at some point.

You either need to build the structure that creates your success, or find it.

6. Structure: Build It

When you think structurally, you ask better and more useful questions. Rather than asking,“How do I get this unwanted situation to go away?” you might ask, “What structures should I adopt to create the results that I want to create?” — Robert Fritz

Build the structure.

I once heard a story about one of the most successful traders in the financial markets in the world. This trader relied on an individual person to enter the correct order at the correct time.

In an interview, a journalist asked the trader, “How can you make sure that the correct order gets placed every single time? How can you make sure there are no mistakes, since you rely on individuals to manually place the order?”

“Easy,” the trader said. “We have a system. One person makes the order, but we don’t rely on just one person.”

The trader had built a system where at any one time, at least three people managed the trade. Multiple people rotated so that no one person had sole responsibility for the successful outcome. Yet, each person had full responsibility. Certainly one person could make a mistake, but multiple checkpoints ensured that the other two individuals caught any mistakes before the order was entered.

Build the environment.

You can solve nearly any problem with discipline or willpower. But never forget that there is also a structural solution to every problem.

• If something MUST happen for your business to succeed, do not rely on discipline. Do not rely on your memory or someone else’s. Build a system so that whatever must happen, happens every time.
• If you need to get in shape, then set up the environment for success. Make it easier to exercise every day. I built a gym in my basement so that I do not need to leave my house when I work out. Now I save the drive time to and from the gym.
• If you are having problems with interruptions, then set up the environment for your success. Turn off your phone, close your door, and tell people directly to stop interrupting. Or maybe go a little further: change your phone number.
• If you want to curb the late-night food addiction, then set up the structure that avoids failure. Remove the junk food from your house. You cannot eat food that is not there. Or eat more at dinner. Or just go to sleep earlier. Solve the problem by changing the structure of your day.

7. Structure: Find It

“Build it or find it, but don’t solve a problem without changing the structure of how you act.”

Fortunately, you do not have to build every environment that will propel you to success.

You can find environments that already exist and plug into them.

Find a group that forces you to be accountable and cultivates an environment where your desired outcome is expected.

• Take a class.
• Find an accountability partner. Or find ten.
• Find a coach. Or hire one.
• Find business advisors that tell you the truth — not just what you want to hear.
• Find friends that lift you up and demand better.
• Find a place where people demand your best.
• Find a place where you have positive pressure to perform. And then go there every day.

A team can have a collective willpower that never fails.

Start Building Now

“In life you will come across a great chasm.

Jump.

It is not as wide as you think.”— Joseph Campbell, quoting a story told to a young man before embarking on his vision quest

Building systems is the key to never making mistakes again. In essence, there is a structural solution to every problem.