So today, I wanna talk about a topic

I get asked about all the time and that is self-discipline

and specifically, what I'm gonna do in this video

is share an exercise that I've done in the past

and that I believe is one of the best ways

to build a universally applicable mental toughness

and self-discipline that you can apply

to basically any situation.

So here is the exercise

and it comes in the form of a challenge

that I'm gonna issue you.

If you're willing for the next 30 days,

take an ice cold shower every single day.

Now, I know some of you flinched

just at the thought of doing that

but like I said, I've done this

and in fact, I did it for 60 days

and now on a regular basis, I end my showers cold

even though I do do them warm at this point.

So the question is why is an ice cold shower challenge

the best way to build self-discipline?

Well, to answer that, first, I wanna talk a little bit

about what self-discipline is.

At its core, self-discipline

is the willingness to accept discomfort

and that could be in the form of physical pain or discomfort

or it could be in the form of the discomfort

that comes from denying yourself instant gratification

in service of making progress on longer term goals.

In either case, your ability to deal with that discomfort

is a skill that must be built through repeated exposure.

It's as Aristotle once said

or rather the historian Will Durant paraphrased,

"we are what we repeatedly do.

"Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."

And if you take self-discipline

which is one of the core components of excellence

and slot it in there in place of that word excellence,

the quote still holds up

and the great thing about this process

of building up self-discipline

is that no matter how you do it, it's an adaptable skill

much like our focus or our willpower

or the muscles in our bodies.

It's able to tackle a variety of different situations

even if it was trained in a different way.

So we've laid the foundation of self-discipline

but the question still remains.

Why the heck is an ice cold shower challenge

any better than any other method

for building that mental toughness?

And the answer is twofold.

First and most importantly,

taking a cold shower is an exercise

that is particularly resistant to excuses.

So take something else

like writing a term paper for example.

Say you've got a term paper coming up

and it's due in a week.

This is an opportunity for your brain

to come up with lots of insidious,

clever little rationalizations for not doing it now.

You might tell yourself,

hey, I've got plenty of time remaining.

No need to rush things now.

In fact, I do work better under a deadline anyway

so I'll be more creative if I wait till Friday to start

and I'm just gonna play some Mario Kart now

because my schedule seems to be cleared.

In any case, you're gonna come up with a rationalization

that seems to make sense

instead of telling yourself the truth

which is that you're lazy

and you just don't wanna do the work.

By contrast, taking a cold shower

affords you no opportunity for these clever

little rationalizations

because you were already gonna take a shower

every day anyway so you're left with nothing

but a simple binary decision.

Either you turn that handle to cold

and embrace discomfort head on

or you avoid that discomfort and turn the handle to hot

and regardless of what choice you make,

you know that the reason you made it

is because of your ability and your willingness

to accept or not accept that level of discomfort.

The second reason this is such a good exercise

goes back to what I was saying earlier.

You were gonna take a shower anyway

so you're not taking any extra time

out of your day to do this.

Instead, you're just facing that same decision

you make every single morning

and you're choosing discomfort rather than comfort

and every time you do it,

you're building that universal mental toughness

that you can use in every other situation

and it really is universal.

Otherwise, people in boot camp

wouldn't be forced to scrub floors and toilets

because it wouldn't apply to combat situations

but it does and in the same way

a cold shower challenge is gonna apply to your homework

or that side project you've been doing

after you get home from work or that gym session

you've been trying to convince yourself to go to

because all of these things

draw from that same reserved willpower and grit

and mental toughness that you build

every single time you face discomfort willingly.

So that's it.

I've said my piece and I realize that not everyone

is going to like this challenge

and hey, I get it, this is ice cold water

coming down on your face every single day for 30 days.

That's not a whole lot of fun

but like I said, I've done this challenge myself,

in fact, for double the amount of time

and I really did see results.

Now, the creative people among you

might realize that there are other things you could do

that you already do every day

where you could just choose the uncomfortable option

rather than the comfortable option.

So if you have additional ideas

for self-discipline exercises,

I would love to hear from you down in the comments below.

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