When boiled down, living a life of “no excuses” is living a life of self-discipline. And living a life of self-discipline doesn’t have to be as hard as you might think (or have been led to believe).
When I think about modern media examples of living a life with no excuses, I hear Jocko Willink yelling in his Navy SEAL voice something along the lines of, “Pain is weakness leaving the body! Stop being weak, get up, and get after it!”
Or Eric Thomas screaming in a YouTube video, “Sleep? I don’t sleep – you thought that was it? It goes deeper than going without sleep because you might miss the opportunity to succeed. No, no, no—it’s about no days off. No weekends. No holidays. No birthdays. Listen to me: No Days Off! No half days, no holidays, no snow days.”
Or maybe more simply, Shia LaBeouf looking deep into my soul and shouting, “JUST DO ITTTTTTT.“
But these messages, while certainly not short in motivational kick, usually don’t last very long. Why? Because how we feel in any given moment doesn’t last very long. It’s simply an unavoidable reality that we are forever changing and constantly in flux beings.
Which is why when we talk about self-discipline what we need to be talking about are systems we can put into place, that meet us where we are, that help us move slightly forward from that place, that can be repeated day-in and day-out, regardless of mood or emotions, that are built for the long run.
Anything else is a temporary kick that’ll be gone just as fast as it was brought up.
P.s. More on how to *actually* do this here.