⚡ The Evolution of Discipline: How Effort Becomes Automatic 🔗

I remember reading somewhere that a good way to find well-connected people is to ask random people, “Who is the most well-connected person you know?”

When I ask my friends a similar question about discipline, many of them point to me.

But I’ve noticed a pattern when it comes to discipline: most people know what they should do—read more, wake up early, eat healthy, exercise, save, invest—yet they don’t do it.

The earliest example of this for me was reading. When I was young, adults constantly talked about the benefits of reading, but few actually read. I decided I would read a lot. And I did. It didn’t take much discipline because I quickly started enjoying it, and it became easy.

I applied this same approach to waking up early, eating well, exercising, and managing money. I consistently forced myself to do these things until they transitioned from requiring intense discipline to simply being habits.

Here is a breakdown of how my habits and discipline have evolved across different areas of my life over the years.

📑 Table of Contents 🔗

🍏 Health & Wellbeing 🔗

🛌 Sleep 🔗

• Ages 12-18: Consistently woke up early for school, but stayed awake late watching TV.
• Ages 18-30: Consistently woke up early for university and work. I strictly eliminated late-night TV and internet to ensure I slept early. (Note: During my university years, I experimented with polyphasic sleep—sleeping only 2 hours a day in 30-minute intervals every 6 hours. It ended when I accidentally set an alarm for 12.5 hours later instead of 30 minutes!)
• Ages 30+: I still consistently wake up early, though sleeping early is less consistent due to having children.

🥗 Nutrition 🔗

• Ages 6-12: Displayed early restraint by saving unhealthy food (like chocolate) for later rather than eating it all at once.
• Ages 12-24: Never bought unhealthy food or drinks. I only consumed them if they were free.
• Ages 24-30: Maintained the rule of not buying unhealthy food, but struggled with free junk food constantly available at the office. It took time to build the resistance to ignore it completely.
• Ages 30+: I still never buy unhealthy food or drinks, and I only eat them when free—except at the office, where I now successfully resist.

🏋️ Exercise 🔗

• Ages 6-18: Wanted to exercise but didn’t know how. Early attempts (like running too fast and exhausting myself) were clumsy.
• Ages 18-30: Found workout plans online and executed them consistently. Ran two marathons.
• Ages 30+: Consistent workouts continue, and I’m still learning and optimizing over time.

💰 Wealth & Career 🔗

💼 Career Path 🔗

• Ages 6-24: Focused on getting the best grades in school and university, while learning for fun in my free time.
• Ages 24+: Shifted focus to achieving the best performance at work to secure promotions, while still dedicating free time to learning for fun.

🏦 Saving & Investing 🔗

• Ages 12-30+ (Saving): Maintained a strict philosophy of buying almost nothing.
• Ages 6-24 (Investing): Progressed from a childhood money box to a basic savings account.
• Ages 24+ (Investing): Shifted investments entirely to the stock market.

❤️ Relationships 🔗

👩‍❤️‍👨 Finding a Partner 🔗

• Ages 12-18: Didn’t know how to talk to potential partners.
• Ages 18-24: Started talking to potential partners at parties and put in hours of deliberate practice to actually learn how to talk to potential partners.
• Ages 24+: Met my wife and got married.

🤝 Friends & Parents 🔗

• Friends (Ages 12-18): Hung out with the misfits.
• Friends (Ages 18+): Intentionally surrounded myself with people who wanted to improve. (At one point in university, I decided group lunches were wasting time and started eating alone. My friends were not happy, but it highlights the extreme phases of my discipline).
• Parents: Progressed from living with both parents (ages 6-12), to living with my mother and fighting frequently (ages 12-18), to living independently. Distance resolved the conflicts.

🧘 Meaning & Fulfillment 🔗

👁️ Awareness & Focus 🔗

• Ages 6-12: Played far too many video games.
• Ages 12-30+: Gradually reduced video game time. In my late twenties, I completed a 10-day meditation retreat, which further improved my awareness.

🎉 Hobbies (Fun) 🔗

• Ages 6-18: Learned acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and piano. Focused on difficult, obscure songs.
• Ages 18+: Continued playing all three instruments, but shifted to learning popular, easier songs that others actually enjoyed listening to.

🌟 Doing Good 🔗

• Ages 6-24: Helped classmates learn at school and university, eventually giving private lessons to help people pass exams.
• Ages 24+: Started my website to share knowledge and help people on a broader scale.

Kaue's Way of Life

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