Daily Motivations - NO EXCUSES, STICK TO THE PLAN

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Stick to the plan. Eliminate distractions, block out the noise, and focus on yourself. Lock in, put in the work, and remember why you started. Make it happen, stick to the plan. SpeakersChris Williamson‪@ChrisWillx‬ Alex Hormozi‪@AlexHormozi‬ Jocko Willink‪@JockoPodcastOfficial‬ Ryan Holiday‪@RyanHolidayOfficial‬ Heath LedgerMel Robbins‪@melrobbins‬ Shi Heng Yi‪@ShiHengYiOnline‬ Gino D'AcampoChase Hughes‪@chasehughesofficial‬ James Clearhttps://jamesclear.com/Dr. Andrew Hubermanhttps://www.hubermanla...Lewis Howes@ / lewishowesDr. Mike IsraetelRyan HolidayBedros KeuilianDavid Gogginshttps://davidgoggins.com/Dr. Craig KoniverShawn StevensonGabrielle LyonKobe BryantMarcus A. Taylor@MarcusATaylorOfficialLes Brown@LesBrownSpeaksEric Thomas@etthehiphoppreacherCoach Pain@coachpain8129Denzel WashingtonInstagram - @daily_motivationsorgFacebook- @daily_motivationsorgSupport us PayPal

Stick to your plan. Anticipate. Don't improvise. Trust. No one never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you're paid to fight. Each and every step of the way, ask yourself what's in it for me. This is what it takes.

Choosing the plan isn't hard. Doing the plan isn't hard. Sticking to the plan is hard. The money isn't made in the buy and it's not made in the cell. It's made in the weight. like I just feel like that's such an elegant way of thinking about it. It's like the hard part about the plan is sticking to the plan. Like the plan wasn't bad. Your first plan was good because it's easy to go say I'm going to work out three days a week for the next year. And it's a good plan. It's a pretty good plan. And the interesting thing is that like a mediocre plan that's stuck to always outperforms an amazing and perfect plan that you never stick with to begin with. And I know this obviously from the fitness world, but it applies to everything. And so like the stick to it muscle. is the one that you have to flex. And that's why, like, if you're going through things,

especially in the earlier days, like I remember I used to start and stop and start and stop, and I try this thing, I try that thing. It's normal because you haven't been reinforced enough of sticking with something. If you feel like right now you're looking around and you're lost or directionless, I would take about 15 minutes

and figure out what the hell you want to do with your life and I always start getting after it. You see, you take things in your own hands and you push against it and you push against it until it's upright. And you stick to the plan. I heard a thing about Bill Walsh. He would script his first 15 plays of the game.

It was irrelevant what was happening in the world because he had his plan. Now that might have made him a little unflexible in some ways, but it also meant that if something went wrong, he wasn't scrambling. It wasn't looking for order and direction because, like, there was a plan and all he had to do was stick to the plan. You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. But here's the thing. Once something's important to you, it never leaves your mind. If you always dreamt about being a singer-songwriter and you never did it, you'll be haunted by that at the age of 70.

Because it's still right here stored in the back of your mind. It's something that's meant for you that's trying to call to you. You see, your dreams, you either pursue them or they fucking haunt you. You stick to what you put there on paper. You take your time, you make the plan, and unless you really are sick or have some type of higher excuse, you just do what you have committed to.

And this struggling of, there are still so many distractions now, but you stick to the plan. I don't adapt anything. I stick with a plan. Stick with a plan. The highest form of discipline is It's the ability to adjust and be flexible and adapt.

You're building the muscle either way. You're either building the muscle that says, I do what I say, I keep the commitments that I make, or you're building the muscle that says, I make excuses. I don't do what I say. I can't be counted on, right? And so when we think about discipline, it's really about what promises are you going to keep.

And the tricky thing is you're keeping promises to your that nobody even knows that you made. Discipline is kind of the gateway drug to everything else in authority. And it's the gateway to composure, for sure. But getting your discipline modified is one of the fastest ways to make everything else change. And how do I fix my discipline if I'm an ill-discipline person? Understanding what discipline is is the most critical element. And I define this differently the most people.

So I define discipline as your ability to prioritize the needs of your future self ahead of your own, present self. And that's it. That's all that discipline is. I'm prioritizing the needs of future me. The first question I ask is, how do I want to spend my days? And so then you'd like draw a box and inside that box, how can we make the most money, reach the most people, make the biggest impact, you know, make the contribution that you want to make. but not outside of it. And what happens a lot of the time is people do that in reverse.

They start by asking, how can we make the most money or reach the most people or make the biggest impact? And then they decide, oh, well, this is what I want to do, but it's actually outside of how they want to spend their days. And it's not going to work out well, because it goes back to our point previously about, is this fund? You know, if they don't want to spend their time that way, you're just grinding for a little while

and eventually it's not going to work. That's the key for building systems that really work is, is this how you want to spend your days? The person who wants to live the lifestyle is much better positioned to get the result. I think everyone needs to realize that discipline is like a rubber band. It stretches, right? It stretches. Sometimes it's like really, really tough and really flexed and you're good to go.

Other times it's a little flimsy. It's a little flimsy and that's okay. But do you know what you need to do to get it strong again? Do you have the right people around you that you can lean on and go, hey, but I need a little of help in this area without feeling like you might reject me or I might feel like less of a man or less of a woman if I reach out. And I think that's important. Whether someone does the project or not doesn't matter to me.

What matters is that they are disciplined in areas of their life they know they need to be. And all of that starts off by shedding the false identity and putting on a new identity of the man that you or the woman that you want to be. And then start living that life. It's literally that simple. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your inputs. Like where you're at is just a lagging measure of the things that you've gone to. toward that. And it seems like discipline is pretty much exactly the same. And that's where the line between your future destiny is dictated by your current discipline. It's about doing the things

you don't like to do for an extended period of time without getting reward. And then discipline then becomes not, are you disciplined or not discipline, but how discipline are you? Everyone who doesn't have discipline created this false identity of themselves as, man, I'm just not a disciplined person. Well, if you keep saying I'm not a disciplined person, You just keep going further away from discipline. Discipline equals freedom. You have your standards that you selected for yourself that you are living up to. I told myself I'm going to do this hard thing.

Now that hard thing is approaching. And am I going to come up with an excuse? Am I going to give myself a way out? Or I'm going to do it. And then when you do it, now you're in the middle of it. And now you're tired. And there's this voice inside of you that says, Well, no one's watching.

You can stop any time you want. Just turn around. Just go back or slow down. It'd be easier if you slow down. And the muscle or that part of you that is able to override that is a really critical muscle. All of our lives are about habits, not goals, but what are the habits that make my goal a byproduct? Everything is about byproducts in your whole life, whether you know it or not. So instead of setting goals, set like the byproduct, what do you?

are the byproducts I want to have for this year? And then what are the habits that make that up? So what the big mistake most people make is they see somebody like you. You go to the gym very often. You probably eat really clean. Somebody who doesn't live a very disciplined life would look at you and say, God, I want to be like Stephen. He's got all this discipline, going to the gym. But they don't understand that you going to the gym isn't discipline. It's a habit. So you're not like forcing yourself to go do something. You're doing something that's a habit for you. The discipline only is necessary. You only need like a teaspoon of it at the very beginning to get this habit started. So start micro habits first and then bigger habits. So the discipline is not

something that you should be seeing. If you're seeing someone eat healthy and go to the gym, do all the stuff you want to do, those are habits. And that person, you're not seeing a discipline at work right there. You're seeing a habit. The discipline. was just at the beginning. And I think if more people knew that, that you're just exercising a little discipline at the very beginning, and then it's just, that's just what you do.

It's like somebody who sees someone brushing their teeth every day. Like, wow, that's so much discipline. It's just what we do. It's a habit. The goal is not the thing that determines the outcome. So the person who wins and the 99 people who lose, they have the same goals. You look at the Olympic Games.

Presumably any event, everybody who's competing has the goal of winning the Olympic. medal, right, of winning the gold. So the goal is not the thing that makes the difference. So again, winners and losers have the same goals. So if they have the same goals, they cannot be the thing that make the difference in their performance. It has to be something else. Maybe having a goal is part of it. Maybe it's necessary, but it's not sufficient for the outcome that you want. And for that, what you need is the system. You need a collection of habits that are going to make the difference and accumulate into a bigger outcome. I think it's really important when we

when we mess up that we don't identify with that, right? We identify with the person that we want to be, that we know that we can be. We identify with the thing happening and then we fall off. Sobriety circles they talk about like falling off the wagon. I like the idea that the wagon is going and you're either on the wagon or off the wagon, right? And the idea when you fall or you mess up or you make a mistake or you break that promise, like it's still there. Like you can get back on it any time, right?

That's kind of how I think about it. So instead of going, oh, I'm a piece of shit, I'm spiraling, I'm, I'm worthless. It's like, no, the thing is continued on. You know, am I going to run and catch up to it? Am I going to start to build those habits again? Or am I going to, you know, write it off? Because it's not there anymore. Do you know what I mean?

I kind of try to think about it that way. It's like just because I've had a bad week where I was over-scheduled or distracted or I was sick or whatever and I wasn't writing, that doesn't mean all is lost. Like, I just have to sit down tomorrow or better. I have to sit down now. And I just have to do a little bit, right? And that's what starts that process again. There's this interesting thing that happens.

If you have a really good work ethic, if you have a strong work ethic, and working hard has gotten you far in life, it kind of becomes a crutch. You know, for a long time, I was like, if I ever had a problem, I was like, well, I'll just work my way out of it. You know, I'll just work harder on it until I figure it out.

And that's great. That's really powerful for a lot of things. But at some point, it breaks. You know, like you can maybe, if you really try, maybe you can work 10% harder or 20% harder, but there's some limit. But if you work on the right thing, well, you can get 100 X the result or 1,000 X the result. And so if you just keep your head down and work hard, it's very unlikely that you'll be spending your time in the highest and best way.

And the only way to figure that out, is to have time to reflect and review, time to think. You know, so you need enough time to think to figure out what should I be focused on next. And so I think that is almost, it's almost, reflection and review is almost like the meta habit that is above all others. Because if you give yourself time to reflect and review, then you can troubleshoot your habits and figure out how to adjust them. A lot of the time when someone sits down and they want to build a new habit,

they don't say this, but what they kind of assume is what it would mean to be successful with this habit is that I do it for the rest of my life, you know, and that if at some point I'm not doing it, then that must mean that I failed or I quit on it. But that's not how it is at all. Like, things have a season, you know, and so habits have to change shape over time. If the why is, I need enjoyment in the present moment,

then no other why will be bigger. No discipline why will ever be larger. The only why will be, why am I eating these Cheetos right now? Because that's the only why. So I think once the why starts edging its way into the future, that's the moment where you break the discipline spiral and you get out of that

because your whys are extending into time that hasn't happened yet. It's exciting when you win. It's exciting when you lose because the process should be exactly the same. Whether you win or you lose as you go back and you look and you find things that you could have done better,

you find things that you've done well that worked, and figure out how did they work, why did they work, how can you make them work again? It's time to pull that energy from fear doubt, anxiety, out of competition and comparison. If you're going to get it done, I need you to listen and focus. The people that are living their dream are fighting winners to attach themselves to. The people that are living their dreams of the people that know that if it's going to happen,

it's up to them. And they're resolving within themselves, it's not over until I win. You're in a losing culture. You've been in a generation after generation after generation of losing. You're like, I'm dying. When you wake up in the morning, I expect to win. I expect it to be a great day. Listen to me very closely.

I do not get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to lose. Expect to be successful. Expect it to be positive. When you set out for a goal, expect it's going to happen. That's all I need you to do. Number one, expect it to happen. I'm going to show you all. You will never win the battle if you don't get up.

Getting knocked down does not mean that you stay down. Getting knocked down doesn't mean that you're not breathing. Getting knocked down doesn't mean that it's over. Getting knocked down doesn't mean that you just stay on your back because that ground is hard and it's cold. You better learn how to get up. It's necessary that you associate with winners, that you work with your system,

that you are religious, that you never give up. It's you. You've got to take personal responsibility. You've got to make it your personal business to make it happen. And you've got to resolve within yourself that I can do this. That it's hard. But you've got to say, it's not over until I win. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.

How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. I am ready to be a winner. I deserve to be a winner. I am destined. I am destined to be a winner. From this date towards, all I know is winning. Listen to me.

I am determined come hell the high water to win. We win because we aren't disciplined. We will. not falter. If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it, if all that your dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it, and if you're glad this sweat for it, and fret for it, and plan for it, and lose all your terror of the opposition for it,

with the help of God you'll get it. Discipline is when you take the battery of willpower and you squirt that extra juice to make up the difference. Your motivation's only getting you so far. Usually it's far enough. Sometimes it's not. How do you bridge this gap? You bridge it with something called discipline. But what it takes is a discipline that everybody has the ability to do it, but they just don't want you.

Our mind may tell us it's easier to oversleep or not go to the gym. but at the end of the day, discipline can be practiced. It's not difficult. But for some reason, I think, when it comes to internal stuff, willpower, habits, discipline, because you can't see it because it feels like it's part of your sense of self. And I think that that limits maybe people's understanding of how much they can move that and lift the ceiling.

We think that discipline sucks, like not getting to eat everything you want, not getting to do everything you want. We think discipline is a punishment, but actually nobody has a shittier life than a person who has no. No self-control, no boundaries, no rules. What are you going to get without discipline?

Are you going to be in good physical shape without discipline? Are you going to be financially successful about discipline? No. If you want to make progress in your life, you've got to have discipline. It's a discipline. It's a regimen. It was a choice I made. And the choice I made was, what are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up to find every bit of who you are as a human being?

And I was willing to give everything to do that. There is a bridge from what you see in your head to what you hold in your hand. And that bridge is called discipline. We're talking about pressing and pushing towards something despite difficulty, despite delay, despite distractions, despite the doubters, despite the naysayers. This is somebody who perseveres, who has an unwavering tenacity to achieve what it is that they see in their head. We do what we hate like we love it. That's what discipline looks like.

Okay, what you need to know about discipline is three things. If you do the three things from the next part of this video, you can accomplish anything you want to in life. Okay, so write this down, three things. The first one starts with the importance of getting enough sleep and planning your day the night before. You can't be disciplined if you're tired and if you don't have a clear plan for your day.

So the first thing I need you to hear is to get enough sleep and make a plan for your day. Sleep is this tremendously important period of life because it resets our ability to be focused, alert, and emotionally stable in the wakeful period. So we can't really talk about wakefulness, focus, motivation, mood, well-being without thinking about sleep. optimizing what we're doing during the day is going to help us to actually sleep better at night. And that's really the key. So good night of sleep starts the moment that you wake up in the morning. When you sleep better, your entire day is better. When you sleep better, your life is better.

Until you are sleeping long enough and deeply enough, 80% of the nights of your life, you are functioning suboptimally. And what's the biggest risk then if we're not getting enough sleep? Deficits in learning, deficits in the immune system. We need to sleep. Now, what's enough sleep? Enough sleep has been argued it's six hours, other people, it's seven hours, other people, it's eight hours. It's basically waking up without an alarm clock and feeling rested.

Okay, the second thing I need you to hear is the importance of time blocking your day and especially your morning. Don't miss this one. It's not about making long-to-do lists. It's about being very intentional with your day. What does your morning routine look like at the moment? Morning routine is wake up, try and get as much natural light as you can in the morning hours, whenever it is that that is for you, especially the first three hours after waking. I hydrate, I drink water, and then I do everything I can to not do email, not do social media, and to take care of a few critical tasks.

These days, I have this obsession with trying to do one. cognitively hard thing a day, one, and one physically hard thing a day. I try and get my brain into kind of a linear mode. I try and narrow that aperture. If I don't, the distraction that's created by social media and interactions with others can kind of wick out into the rest of the day. So I'm not necessarily trying to finish something in that time, but I try and do something challenging.

I experience great pleasure from battling through something mentally challenging. So this is something I observed in myself, which is that from 6 a.m. until noon, my brain is very capable. My body is very capable of doing certain things far more easily than at other times of the 24-hour cycle. So I consider that sort of, you know, the first phase of my day. Sometimes I'm up by six, sometimes it's seven, sometimes it's eight. Usually it's about 6, 6.30. So I consider that one opportunity block. The second opportunity block, because I eat lunch typically around noon, between, you know, one and 6 p.m. It's our second opportunity block. And then the third is between 6 p.m. and bedtime, which for me typically is 10.30, but sometimes late. I mean, you have to live. I mean, come on. So what I started to realize is that I can do really focused work in two, but not three of those blocks, consistently. I also notice that if I exercise early in the first block, like between 6 a.m. and before 9 a.m., I have more energy all day long. But if I exercise starting at 9 or starting at 10 or halfway through that block. The second opportunity block is diminished. I'm kind of dragging. Maybe it's related to

when I eat, but that wasn't changing when I eat or what I eat. So I'm very aware of the fact that I get sort of two opportunities from these three blocks. So I do think that people could benefit tremendously, not necessarily by following the schedule that I follow, but by paying attention to their natural, cognitive, and physical rhythms. You don't have to wake up at 4 a.m., but you do need to block your day and understand when your most productive periods are. Okay, on to the last important piece of advice. Don't miss this one. Okay, here it is.

Strive to be an emotionally mature person. And one way of doing that is by forcing yourself to do hard things. Practice discomfort every single day. You say, the emotionally immature man seeks out motivation to do something hard one time. The emotionally mature man uses discipline to do something hard a thousand times. Why is emotional maturity related to motivation and discipline? Because when you have emotional maturity, you realize that some days you're not going to sleep well. Some days you're going to wake up and you've got your schedule and everything's planned out.

And whether things go well or not that day, the emotionally mature man will still do what he has to do to stack his winds to focus on his purpose. Whereas the emotionally immature man will say, well, I didn't sleep well, I had nightmares, so I'll stay in bed. Or it's raining outside. It's cold outside. I don't feel good. You have to stay the course no matter what. And it takes a high level of emotional maturity because your emotions dictate your motion, like what you're going to do.

And so if you have emotional maturity, you're more likely to lean into discipline when things are suboptimal. If you lack emotional maturity, then how you feel determines what you do next, which is very damaging to outcome-driven humans. You need to understand how your brain works. Doing hard things builds your brain and your ability to be disciplined. Most people don't know this, but there's a brain structure called the anterior mid-singulate cortex. But what's interesting about this brain area is there are now a lot of data showing that when people do something they don't want to do, like add three hours of exercise per day or per week.

This brain area gets bigger. In many ways, scientists are starting to think of the anterior mid-singotis. singulate cortex, not just as one of the seats of willpower, but perhaps actually the seat of the will to live. Now we're talking. All the data point to the fact that we can build this area up, but that as quickly as we build it up, if we don't continue to invest in things that are hard for us, that we don't want to do, that's the part that feels so Goggin-esque to me that we don't want to do. Like if you love the ice bath, yeah, I love the ice bath. You go from one moment. minute to 10 minutes, guess what?

Your anterior mid-singulate cortex did not grow. None. But if you hate the cold water, if you're afraid of drowning and you get into water and put your head under and survive, then the enter-a-singulate cortex gets bigger. It's that I don't want to do something, but do it anyway. That's right. That grows this area. That's how I've lived my entire life.

I don't know anything about that. But people go, man, you have such a strong will. It's something that you build. Thank you.