Discipline Is a Skill, Not a Trait (5 Stoic Moves)

About this episode

The episode discusses how discipline is a skill that can be developed through practice, rather than a fixed trait.

I used to think discipline was a character trait, like height or eye colour. Some people had it. I did not. That story is comfortable, and it is rubbish. The Stoics did not treat discipline as willpower. They treated it as a set of five trainable skills that get stronger with reps and weaker with neglect. In this episode I walk through each one, using some of the best lines Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and Musonius Rufus wrote on the subject. The five moves: decide before the moment arr...

People in this episode

Host: Jon Brooks

Topics covered

• discipline
• Stoicism
• self-improvement
• skills
• personal development

Keywords

• Stoic practice
• discipline
• self-discipline
• trainable skills
• 7-day challenge

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