The One Thing That Will Make You Stand Out As A Young Person
“The biggest challenge is to stay focused. It’s to have the discipline when there are so many competing things.”
Alexa Hirschfeld
You want to know how to ascend the hierarchy, especially among your peers.
If you have the same mentality as I do, then you’re on a good path.
Most young people are interested in short term pleasure because nobody teaches them how to create an inspiring vision and act upon it.
There’s one skill that you need to cultivate if you desire self-respect, abundance, and success…
How To Win When You’re Young
If you’ve read enough of my work, you’ll know that self-control is a crucial part of my message.
It’s the foundation of my philosophy and has helped immensely on my path to becoming the best version of myself.
Here’s the secret that many young people know but don’t act on:
Discipline is a bridge you must build towards a better future.
Sure, many practice discipline in the context of conventional pursuits such as higher education or going to work daily.
But they fail to apply the same philosophy to other facets of life.
It’s not enough to control yourself in one or two domains; you must practice the art of self-discipline holistically.
What does that mean practically, you ask?
It’s a commitment to learning how to:
Understand food labels and cook healthy meals.
Strengthen your body through resistance training and conscious movement.
Create strong social bonds that last a lifetime.
Know the difference between a hobby and addiction.
Sell yourself
Cultivate a strong purpose much bigger than yourself.
Not a single facet of life escapes the influence of self-restraint.
The Paradox of Competition, And How You Can Use It To Your Advantage.
Competition exists, and more importantly, it matters.
But it’s also not about comparing yourself to others because everybody is unique. It’s an apple to oranges comparison because each person has a different background, value system, etc.
The healthiest way to compete is against yourself, but you cannot avoid other contestants’ reality.
Most young people choose pleasure.
The greatest way to separate yourself from your peers is to prioritize a disciplined lifestyle.
Self-control is the skill that makes all the difference.
The formula is simple in theory:
Go to bed when most begin the night.
Eat foods that others think are disgusting.
Push yourself to exhaustion when others choose to take it easy.
Build something meaningful while others waste precious resources on the meaningless.
If you want to thrive, doing the opposite of your peers is likely a good bet.
Now, just because it’s simple in theory doesn’t mean that the same applies to practice. There’s a reason why your peers choose a path of least resistance.
It’s hard work.
It requires sacrifice.
It also means you must reject the lifestyle of friends and family.
The worthy battles are worth suffering for, and this is one of them.
The Young Person Who Chooses Discipline Over Pleasure Always Wins.
Whenever I experience a rut, I often remind myself that I’m walking a path that many my age are too timid about entertaining.
I will definitely make mistakes and occasionally fumble the ball, but my mentality and results surpass my peers by default.
You’ll often feel like you’re losing, yet there’s value in comparing yourself to the majority who don’t try.
A growth mindset forces you to aim for the stars while most keep their eyes stuck on the ground.
There are many benefits to living with the philosophy of discipline:
- Wiser and older people notice your mentality and want to help you.
- Healthy habits and compound interest automatically work in your favor.
- People, especially younger ones, look up to you and value your perspective.
- Your gifts shine for others to enjoy.
- The maturity process takes less time because you quickly notice what does and doesn’t work.
- Valuable people desire your presence because they can see your value.
- Life is enjoyable, and it ceases to become a tooth and nail struggle.
- You get to experience a freedom that most can only dream about.
- Cravings exist, but you understand the power of mind, body, and spirit; hence they don’t impact you much compared to most people.
- Your projects experience success because you are willing to plant the seed and nurture it over time with discipline.
I can go on forever listing the benefits, but you get my point.
How To Begin The Process
There are three crucial steps to transform yourself from hedonistic to disciplined:
1. Create conscious values and live according to them.
Values either unconsciously work for or against your personal development.
Most young people struggle with behavior change because they unconsciously follow unhealthy values such as fame, luxury, and ego.
Knowing this allows you to sit with yourself and choose meaningful values such as love, curiosity, growth, creativity, vitality, etc.
If you’ve ever wondered what an example of internal work looks like, it’s this.
How many young people do you know have a printed out list of their top ten values that determine how they’ll make a decision?
Few, if any.
Here’s my list to help you jog the mind:
- Health/Vifor/Energy
- Personal Growth
- Wisdom/Knowledge/Learning/Understanding
- Consciousness/Awareness
- Freedom
- Open-mindedness/Perspective
- Passion/Enthusiasm
- Self-control/Temperance
- Beauty
- Excellence
Make your list and religiously follow it.
2. Triple down on your strengths.
You can only get so far by playing to a weakness; hence using your strengths is the best bet.
Most are not living in their element. They are trying to get through the day and playing small.
Here’s a resource to help you begin: https://www.viacharacter.org/
Also, here’s a list of my strengths for reference:
- Love of learning: Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one’s own or formally; related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe a tendency to add systematically to what one knows.
- Perspective: Being able to provide wise counsel to others and looking at the world that makes sense to oneself and others.
- Curiosity: Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating; exploring and discovering.
- Self-regulation: Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one’s appetites and emotions.
- Appreciation of beauty and excellence: Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and skilled performance in various life domains, from nature to art to mathematics to everyday experience.
The moment I finished this list a few years ago, it made sense and felt right to my intuition.
These strengths describe everything I do, and knowing them consciously makes all the difference.
3. Prioritize action, not theory.
It’s easy to develop an addiction to self-help books and acquiring high-quality information, and I’ve been through it.
Discipline is a practice, not a fancy idea to speak about every once in a while.
A helpful rule of thumb is to act on only one piece of information and assess your experiment results—approach personal development like a scientist.
Create a hypothesis, control conditions, observe the results, and adjust accordingly.
I hope this article helps you out; feel free to respond to it with your perspective!
