Why bother?

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Why should you even bother changing the way you do things?

Why should you bother with this whole 'self-help' thing?

What's the point?

Why expend precious and scarce effort establishing habits that 'can' improve your life when the alternative—leaving everything as is— is infinitely easier?

These are valid and important questions, but before we get to the answer, we can all agree on one thing:

Life is not easy.

If you do not agree with that, you just have not lived long enough.

Life is wholly permeated with trials, tribulations, challenges, choices, evil, corruption, malevolence and tragedy, to name a few.

So, if life is terrible and full of 'bad' that would further cement one's resolve to remain the same: 'what is the point?'

Terrible things happen, and they happen to everyone, and they will happen to you.

It is not a question of 'if', but a matter of 'when'.

When something bad happens to some people, their lives completely change.

They develop mental disorders, become reclusive, their entire personality changes.

You can prevent this.

When you begin to implement changes in your life that you do not necessarily want to implement while at the same time, understanding that the change is beneficial in and of itself, something interesting will happen.

Your mind will begin to rewire itself (This is after the initial protest it will undoubtedly throw.)

At first, your mind will prevent you from establishing new routines because it is accustomed to a particular way of living, but you will hit a certain point where you will find that your body will automatically move without much thought, I call it 'Autopilot'.

To give you a personal example, through hard work and discipline, I have been able to establish a routine/series of habits; one of which is my ability to awake before my alarm.

When I get out of bed, my body instantly (and with little effort) goes through the motions that I have drilled into my behaviour.

Some days I move a little slower, some days a little faster, but I always move.

What does all this have to do with life being terrible?

A disciplined mind is a mind under your control.

When tragedy eventually strikes you or those you love and cherish, you will have the ability to handle and deal with the issues that occur as a result of the tragedy efficiently.

In contrast, most people become overwhelmed with emotion that they shut down, either emotionally, physically, spiritually or mentally, in severe cases all of the above, similar to what happened to me at my lowest point.

A disciplined individual will feel the full spectrum of emotions associated with the trauma while still thinking explicitly through the emotional 'fog' because they are the ultimate master of their mind.

They control 'it' rather than 'it' controlling them.

Therefore, it has been through my personal experience and research that the slow and calculated incremental implementation of micro habits is the key to achieving a measure of discipline. (More on this in later entries)

Once you have secured a small measure of discipline, you will immediately and intrinsically know and understand precisely what you need to do to reach the next level and the level after that.

Discipline your mind so that the assured struggle of life does not preclude you or the ones you love.

Oliver