Why Consistent Action and Discipline Lead to Progress

Life rewards action, not intelligence.

Life rewards action, not intelligence.

The smarter you are, the better your excuses.

The more accomplished you are in talking yourself

out of taking action, in proving to yourself

that every action that you could take

is too small, too meaningless, and not worth it.

And George Leonard, who brought jujitsu from Japan

to the U.S., one of the things he said is,

absolutely, you cannot do everything,

but you can do one thing and another and another.

And that's the way you make massive progress in life.

The matter that you show up and try and act

week after week, month after month, year after year,

with a little bit of intelligence,

you start to get better and better and better.

Even if the action is poor action,

you're gonna learn something from it.

Discipline is necessary in our life

in order to generate consistent, systematic action.

But I think until you measure something that matters,

you do not know if you're disciplined.

Action leads you to grow, leads you to engage with others.

Action, everything good in life happens

when you're off the sofa and engaging with the world.

Find a measure of something that matters.

Pay attention to whether you're making progress

on the actions that lead to that measure.

And look at what needs to happen in your discipline

so that you value action above thinking

or intending to take action.