The Science of Self-Help

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Self-Discipline in 10 Days - Day 1

Just started the book Self Discipline in 10 Days: How to Go from Thinking to Doing by Theodore Bryant.

I initially heard about this book on one of Reddit’s sub-forums on discipline (http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/). What attracted me to the book was that it provided a series of exercises, some of which one Redditor described as “painful” practices to get through self-discipline problems.

The exercise part was attractive because I feel too many books offer intellectual explanations without engendering any real change. The painful part is not because I’m a masochist, but because I realize that there are deep emotional demons that can affect a personals psychological relationship to success, and I know I’ve got some issues I’d like the opportunity to work through.

The first exercise which I completed had to do with writing down 3 times in your life (2 in childhood) where you suffered immense humiliation. This was very painful, but interesting in that the specific feelings I experienced in bringing up the experiences were exactly the same. I’m assuming the book is connecting humiliation with getting over fear of failure -but  it remains to be seen what the exercise will do to provide forward progress in the realm of self-discipline.