From Reluctance to Resilience: A SEAL's Story of Self-Discipline

In this episode of The Navy SEAL Mindset, I share my thoughts on the power of discipline and living a disciplined life. I open up about my own struggles with discipline early in my military career and how a lack of discipline almost prevented me from becoming a Navy SEAL.

Here are the key takeaways that I share in this podcast episode on discipline:

• I recommend setting yourself up for success by making a plan and writing down your goals. Break big goals into small, achievable steps.
• Prioritize what's important to you. Don't get distracted by things that don't advance your goals. Stick to your schedule.
• I explain how discipline creates habits. Repeat actions purposefully until they become routine, like waking up and going to bed at the same time daily.
• Discipline is mechanical, not motivated by feelings. Do the right things consistently, even when you don't feel like it.
• Apply discipline to all areas of life - fitness, nutrition, relationships, parenting. Show up fully in every aspect.

Discipline compounds over time to create the life you want. Start with small wins today. What new habit will you build?

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Transcript

William Branum: 0:00

Welcome to the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branum. And this is episode 016. Most people don't know this about me, but I hate getting up early. Hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate getting up before the sun comes up. I hate it. Actually that's not true. I don't hate it anymore. I've hated it almost my entire adult life. But now that I'm older, I'm retired, I don't hate it anymore. But in the SEAL teams, in the military, actually, you know what? Not wanting to get up early is one of the reasons that I ended up on a ship in Yokosuka, Japan for two years prior to going to SEAL training. I didn't have the discipline to get my dumb self out of bed, my lazy self out of bed and go take the Navy SEAL screening test the second time. I was in plenty good shape to pass it and crush the standard, but I didn't have the discipline to drag my butt out of bed to go take the test. And because I lacked that discipline, I ended up on a ship in Yokosuka, Japan for two years and almost didn't become a Navy SEAL because of it. You know what, even if I rewind the clock and I think about, I didn't have the discipline to work out enough to pass the SEAL screening test the first time I took it. I didn't pass it the first time. I had the opportunity to pass it the second time because I was training for it. I was doing push ups and pull ups and sit ups and running enough. My swimming was good enough. But when I failed it the first time, I failed the push ups. The minimum number, which was the reason I failed it, the minimum number of push ups that I needed to do was 52 to pass the screening test. I did 37. I was doing hundreds of push ups, hundreds of sit ups, and a lot of pull ups. Not hundreds, definitely not in the hundreds, but I was doing sets and sets and sets every day at lunch. I would skip lunch and I would go work out with a handful of other guys. In the barracks getting ready for the SEAL screening test. All I had to do was wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning, one morning, one morning that they were giving it, and go take it and pass it, and then I would have my orders to go to BUDS. But because I didn't have the discipline to knock that out and get it done, I didn't. And therefore I ended up on a ship in Yokosuka, Japan. And that kind of sucks. I got a lot of experience from that, but because I didn't have the discipline to get out of bed when I needed to, or I didn't have the discipline to work out the way I needed to the first time, I didn't pass the screening test. And I ended up on a ship and I almost did not become a Navy SEAL because I didn't have discipline. So in this episode, I want to just share with you a handful of things to discuss Discipline with you. Because discipline is not hard, it is not complicated. Discipline is simple. It's not easy, but it is simple. And I'll just go over a handful of things just to set yourself up for success. So number one is to set yourself up for success. And to do that, you need to make a plan. You need to figure out what you want to do. What area in your life do you want to be disciplined? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to learn how to get up early? What do you want to do in your life? Figure out what that is and write it down. I believe in writing everything down. I write everything down. I think about it. But I have such an elusive brain. I forget. I'm like, what was that thing I was thinking about? It was super important. It was, I believe it would be impactful. So I wrote, I write everything down. I carry a notebook with me everywhere. If I don't have my notebook, I put notes in my iPhone in the notes section so I can go back and review. What was that thing I was thinking about? Oh yeah, my good idea. Good idea. Very sometimes they're not good ideas, but whatever. You have to write them down and you have to make kind of make a plan. Number one is to set yourself up for success is to create a plan, figure out what you want to do. Where do you want to be disciplined? Maybe it's weight loss, maybe you want to have a, work out. So to do that, I would say if you have weight loss, then you need to start working out, number one. And number two, you need to change your diet or your the things that you put in your body and to set yourself up for success for that, get rid of all the junk food in your house. Start preparing your own meals. If you don't like to cook, get a meal prep service. I'm happy to give you some ideas. I know a handful of people that do it. That have companies that ship all over the country. And if you don't like making meals or you're not sure about like your macros, I hate that word macros, fats, diets, and carbohydrates. If you don't really know what those are, or ketones, I guess is the fourth macro. If you don't really know the best way to cook, just save yourself the time, the money and the mental anguish of trying to figure things out and just buy food that's pre made, that is high quality, that you can just heat up and get on the go. Or maybe you do like to cook, plan your meals out on, during the weekend, prep everything. Pre make everything, put them in the fridge, and then when it's time to eat, you have a good healthy meal ready to go. So you don't have that decision making fatigue, you don't want to deal with that. Just have good stuff ready for you to go. If you have a hard time going to the gym, or you don't know what to do, hire a personal trainer. They're not that expensive, and they're also going to be someone who's going to hold you accountable. Why would you spend a bunch of money and then not show up to the gym to have someone help train you? Set yourself up for success. The next thing I would say is to set achievable goals. Again, that's the same thing as setting yourself up for success. I believe in doing little things early in the day. Create momentum and then attack your big goal for the day. Because, I equate it to working out. I don't go in the gym and try to deadlift 400 pounds. I don't go in the gym and try to, throw 315 on the bar and try to get a one rep max. When I go to the gym, I do a warm up. Sometimes I do a jog, sometimes I skip rope, sometimes I put light weight on the bar and I just do a bunch of light reps to get my body ready to go before I try to do heavier sets or bigger sets or anything like that. Before I attack the big goals of the day, I do lots of little things. I create achievable results. So if I'm going to, if I want to lose 20 pounds, I'm not going to try to lose 20 pounds all at one time. I'm going to try to lose 1 pound a week over 20 weeks. That's way more achievable than trying to lose 20 pounds in a month. But again, to do that, you have to set yourself up for success. You have to, Work out properly. Maybe hire a trainer. Maybe hire a nutrition coach, even. Maybe go get those pre made meals. Or go, if you love cooking, go make those meals yourself and prepare for the day. Prioritize what's important. Life is busy. Technology has made life even busier. And it's very easy to lose or forget what is the priority. I was talking to one of my coaching clients yesterday, as a matter of fact, and he was having a hard time with time management. And so one of the things as we've been working together, I've had him do a couple of things. One of those things was go run a marathon, because he wanted to be pushed physically in a way that was also going to help his business. So I said, okay, awesome. We're going to set some Big, hairy, audacious goal, and you're gonna go achieve it. And you're gonna make a plan, and you're gonna go achieve it. And it's gonna be something that if you don't have discipline, you're not gonna achieve it, or it's gonna suck a lot. And he hates running. So I'm like, okay, you want this? You're gonna go run a marathon. And while we're on the call, I made him book it, and go run the marathon. And then, leading up to the marathon, he's still made some excuses. What if, what if, life is getting in the way? No, sir. I mean, Are you going to be proud of your actions if you go do the marathon, I'm using air quotes here, go run 26. 2 miles on your own and not do it in the race? Is that the example that you want to set for your kids? He said, Roger that, coach. I'll be at the race. I think it's funny when he calls me coach. He had to prioritize what was important. Was it important for him to finish the goal that he had set for himself or that I set for him? Because he started sharing with people, Yes, I'm going to go run a marathon. And they're like, Bro, that's a lot of work, that's hard to do. He's like, Yeah, I know, but I'm going to do it. I'm dedicated to doing it. It's a priority to me. Then other things started popping up. So he had to make the decision. Is he going to go accomplish his goal, finish the thing that he started? Or is he going to go make excuses and do something else? So you have to prioritize things. Discipline is a mechanical thing. Discipline and motivation are very different. Motivation is you do something when you feel like doing it. Discipline is you go and do it even when you don't feel like doing it. But discipline doesn't have to be hard. You just have to set yourself up for success. You just have to build a structure in your life. Make a schedule and stick to that schedule. Be very disciplined about that schedule. If you schedule something and you don't get it done in time, you didn't get it done in time. You can't do it again until tomorrow. You can't let your, you know, Oh, I just need ten more minutes to finish this project. Sorry, you don't get that ten more minutes. You get those ten minutes tomorrow when you have time for that project already planned. So you have to be disciplined in everything that you do. But you have to set yourself up for success. I would say, and really that comes down to, creating those small victories. EAsy Wins. I just did a call again with a coaching group and we, we talked about, uh, some gurus out there in the world they say, when you wake up in the morning, you should do that hard thing first thing in the morning. And so let's just say I'm writing a book. I'm not going to write the whole book in the morning. It's going to take me a long time to write this book. But maybe I do something much easier and much more manageable and I write 200 or 500 words first thing in the morning. That's not doing the hard thing, it's still hard, but it's something that's very manageable. And then after enough mornings of getting up and writing 500 words or 200 words or 100 words even, first thing in the morning, pretty soon my book is done. But it was because I set very achievable goals and I was disciplined about sticking to my timeline. The other thing about discipline is it creates habits. Most of us have good habits and most of us have bad habits. And so what discipline is, and I'm talking about myself, I have some good habits and I have some bad habits. And some of those habits are relationships. Some of those habits are eating. Some of those habits are staying up late or making excuses to... Watch one more video on YouTube. Whatever it is. Watching one more episode on Netflix. I have to be very disciplined. I only watch one thing a day. If I'm going to watch Netflix, I'm only going to watch one episode. Or maybe I'm going to watch a movie. Because I just have a little more time. But I'm only going to watch one thing, and then I'm going to go to bed. Whatever it is. I'm very disciplined about that. I'm very structured about that. There may be days where I don't need to do that, and I just, I'm doing work or I'm doing other things, traveling, and I don't have time for that one thing. I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she says that she hates getting up early. Well, the reverse of that is she hates going to bed early. And so I'm like why do you hate going to bed early? And I can totally relate to this because this has been a bad habit that I've had for a super long time. She said, well, I have FOMO, fear of missing out. I'm like, what do you feel like you're missing out on? She's like, I don't know, but I want to stay up and I want to watch movies and I want to do other things and screw around on my phone and social media. I'm like, well, why, what is that doing for you in your life? Nothing. It doesn't really advance my life in any way. And so, but I have felt the exact same way. I've done the exact same things. I would stay up drinking late at night, watching videos, watching YouTube, watching Netflix, watching Amazon, scrolling social media, for no good reason. There's no reason for it. It didn't improve my life in any way, shape, or form. But I had this weird FOMO thing. I'm fear of missing out. And so I just stayed up late and I was drinking. I don't do that anymore. I have products that help me sleep now. Again, and those products are at nw recovery. com. I like the buzzing gummies, I like the sleep gummies, and I like the sleep soft drills. I stack them all. My sleep is amazing now. I don't have any excuses for not going to bed. I take the buzzing gummies. If you have a a job where you are drug tested, you do not want, you do not take the buzzing gummies. You're not going to pass a drug test for sure. Because they do have some Delta nine THC from the hemp plant. And so when I take them, I take them about an hour before I'm ready to go to bed. I take them, chew it up. And I don't feel anything until about 30 45 minutes in. I usually take it, right after dinner, after I'm finished eating. And then my brain starts to slow down. The world starts slowing down. Maybe I'm having a conversation with someone, and when the thoughts in my head... I know that if I aren't quite making it from my brain to my mouth, I know that it's time to wind down and end the day. But I also set myself up for success. So I, I'll take a gummy and some magnesium, some other CBD sleep products. And, but then I'll start writing out what's my plan for tomorrow. What am I gonna do? What's the first thing I'm gonna do? And I write that stuff down while my brain is still working well. Because in about 30 45 minutes, it's gonna work less. I get that stuff down, I have my plan, I'm ready to execute the day. And when I wake up the next morning at 5. 45, because my watch goes off every morning at 5. 45, 7 days a week, it vibrates, and it wakes me up. But I know that that's what time I'm gonna get up, because I've set myself up for success the night before. I never have FOMO anymore. And I just go to sleep. I go to sleep when I'm supposed to. As far as sleep goes, most people's sleep cycle is about 90 minutes. To go from awake, light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep, back to light sleep. The cycle is about 90 minutes. If you want to wake up early count backwards by 90 minute increments, and then set your bedtime. I like to go to bed around 9, 9. 30. My sleep cycle, I wake up right around 45 and I'm ready to go and I'm ready to attack the day. That's how I roll. That's the discipline I have in my life. I go to bed early and I wake up early. I'm already tired by the time I'm ready to go to bed. I don't have that FOMO, I don't have any of that other stuff. So set yourself up for success. Your goals, make your goals achievable. Prioritize what's important and get rid of the other stuff that's not important out of your life. Create good habits. Discipline is all about habits. It's about going to bed early. It's about getting rid of the crap food that's in your house. It's about working out when you're supposed to. It's about keeping the promises that you've made to yourself. That's what discipline is. Do it even though you don't feel like it, but it's really about keeping the promises that you made to yourself. If I wasn't disciplined in the SEAL teams, disciplined practicing, disciplined with, being disciplined with sound and light and, how I was engaging targets, if I wasn't disciplined, then I wouldn't be in the SEAL teams. The lack of discipline can be the difference between life and death. I have to be disciplined in everything that I do, in all of my actions. Because that discipline is really the difference between life and death. If I'm not disciplined and I come into a room and, I don't clear the room properly the way that I've been trained, I could die or one of my buddies could die. If I'm not disciplined with light, the enemy can see us coming. If I'm not disciplined with sound, if I don't get all the crap off of my kit. That jingles or whatever so that, people can't hear us coming, so we can be very quiet when we sneak up on the enemy. If I'm not disciplined about that, then the enemy will know we're there before we want them to know we're there. So having discipline in your life is a good thing. It builds good habits, it builds good relationships. Even be disciplined about your relationship with your significant other. Discipline your relationship with your kids. Go on dates. Set dates and go on them. Go on dates with your kids. Take them out. Take them out to dessert, ice cream, take them out to dinner. Show them what you want them to be when they grow up. Show them the parent you want them to become. Show them the man or woman you want them to become. Have the discipline to give to your family, to your significant other. Have the discipline to show up for them. I've been in relationships where I wasn't disciplined in giving enough to them. Or where we just sort of move through life parallel and not together. That's no way to be, that's no way to live. If you're going to be with someone, you should be with them and be disciplined with your relationship with them. Have good habits, build good habits. That's what discipline is all about. It's doing what is right. Even when you don't feel like it, but it's building the habits to do those things right all the time. Hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. Again discipline. I'll just cover them one more time. Set yourself up for success. Always. Set goals that are achievable. Prioritize what's important. Create really good habits through discipline. And then build the structure around it. That structure will build the habits do it purposefully over and over again, and then pretty soon it becomes a habit Hope you guys enjoyed this episode again. My name is William Branum. This is the Navy SEAL mindset This is episode 016 hope you guys enjoy the show Don't forget to like and subscribe and all that other good stuff, and I will talk to you soon Peace out