Shadowing Practice: How To Rewire Your Brain To Enjoy Discipline - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
I'm going to teach you the biggest reason why discipline feels so hard for you.
2
And it's because your brain has been unconsciously rewarding comfort and punishing growth for years.
3
And if you do not change that, you'll continue to procrastinate.
4
You'll continue to avoid the hard things.
5
You'll continue to keep self-sabotaging and wondering why you're not creating the life that you know that you're capable of.
6
The good news, though, is that discipline is not something you're born with.
7
It's something your brain can be trained to enjoy.
8
And so today I'm going to show you how to rewire
9
that brain of yours so that you love discipline
10
and it stops feeling like punishment and starts feeling like something that you want to do.
11
Because the most disciplined people in the world aren't necessarily tougher than anyone else.
12
They've just simply learned to enjoy what other people avoid.
13
So let's dive into it.
14
I want you to understand this, okay?
15
The biggest misconception around discipline is
16
that most people think discipline means forcing yourself to do things that you don't want to do.
17
They think that the goal with discipline is to become better with self-control and to become better at resisting temptation.
18
But if that were true, then disciplined people would spend their entire lives basically fighting themselves.
19
And that's not really what happens.
20
So when you actually look at someone who hates running, they have to force themselves to run.
21
When you look at someone who loves running, they don't have to force themselves.
22
They just do it.
23
When you see someone who hates sales and they're in sales and they have to force themselves to make calls,
24
but then you see someone who's like an entrepreneur who really believes in their mission, they don't have to force themselves.
25
They just do it because they believe so much in it.
26
Someone who hates the gym has to drag themselves into the gym.
27
someone who identifies an athlete like they feel weider
28
if they don't show up to the gym
29
so the difference is this the behavior between those two people
30
for all of those examples the behavior is the same the
31
real key thing to understand is the experience for both of
32
those two people is completely different same behavior different experience one person has to force
33
and use willpower the other person is using identity and they're actually like showing up because they want to.
34
One person is fighting themselves and the other is just expressing who they believe that they are.
35
They're enjoying doing what they're doing.
36
And so the goal isn't to become better at forcing yourself when you look at discipline.
37
The goal is to become the type of person who naturally does difficult things.
38
That's a very different game, different perspective.
39
Like let's talk about why you as a person repeat certain behaviors, why any person will repeat a certain behavior.
40
Your brain is constantly asking one question.
41
Should I do this again?
42
Whenever you do something.
43
Every action that you take helps answer that question.
44
When you look at dopamine, most people think it's just a pleasure chemical.
45
And it is, but it's not just that.
46
It's not entirely true.
47
Research from neuroscience Wolfram Schultz showed that dopamine is also heavily involved in reward prediction.
48
And so your brain is constantly learning what behaviors are worth repeating.
49
And it's constantly updating its predictions about what you should do based off of future rewards.
50
Your brain wants to be rewarded.
51
It wants dopamine.
52
And we will be right back.
53
Hey, real quick, let me interrupt you for something exciting.
54
On June 10th at 7 p.m.
55
Eastern, I'm doing a free live Zoom session called Break the Ceiling 2026.
56
This is for anybody who knows that they're capable of more, but they just keep self-sabotaging and hitting the same ceilings no matter what they try.
57
I'm going to teach you exactly why that keeps happening and how to finally change it so that your income, your relationships, your happiness, your mindset, your entire life is better.
58
You can register for free by scanning that QR code right there, or by going to BreakTheCeiling2026.com.
59
And I will see you live on that session.
60
And now back to the show.
61
And so check this out.
62
This is really important to understand.
63
Every time you procrastinate and you feel relief
64
because you procrastinated your brain learned something ah this feels good to procrastinate every time you avoid a difficult conversation
65
and you feel a little bit better because you didn't have to talk to
66
that person today your brain learned something huh this feels good it feels good to avoid things
67
that are hard every time you choose comfort and you decide to go for immediate a gratification, your brain learns something.
68
This feels good.
69
And your brain doesn't judge.
70
It doesn't care if a behavior helps you or if a behavior hurts you.
71
It only notices the outcomes.
72
It notices what feels rewarding.
73
And so then it encourages you to repeat what feels rewarding to it.
74
So think about this.
75
What have you been training your brain to think is rewarding?
76
See, most people have accidentally trained themselves to enjoy comfort over everything else.
77
They've rewarded avoidance and rewarded procrastination and rewarded distraction and rewarded staying exactly the same.
78
And then they wonder like why discipline feels so painful, why it feels so hard to do, like why growth feels so difficult, why change feels so uncomfortable to them.
79
Well, because the truth is they haven't trained their brains to love growth.
80
They've accidentally trained their brains to love comfort and avoidance.
81
Do you get that?
82
Like, can you see the places in your life that you have done that?
83
Because it's really key to start to be able to pick apart the places in your life where you're doing this.
84
And so here's where it really starts to get interesting.
85
Okay.
86
The activity that you do isn't what determines your experience.
87
Now, most people think that it is.
88
Like the activity itself isn't what determines your experience with that activity.
89
It's the meaning that you give that activity that determines your experience.
90
So it's not going to the gym that determines how you feel about it.
91
It's the meaning that you give going to the gym that determines your experience.
92
So let me give you an example so you can kind of understand it, right?
93
Imagine two people running.
94
One person thinks, oh my God, this sucks.
95
I hate running.
96
I hate this.
97
When can I stop?
98
How much longer do I have to go?
99
The other person thinks to themselves, this is good for me.
100
I'm becoming stronger.
101
I'm building resilience.
102
This is changing me.
103
I am so proud of myself for showing up.
104
This is good for me and that's why I'm doing it.
105
It's the same workout.
106
It's the same run, but it's a completely different experience.
107
Why is that?
108
Because the meaning changes your emotion and your mental association to the action is what's most important.
109
Both people are still running, but their mental association with the running, two completely different scenarios.
110
And there was Stanford psychologist named Aaliyah Crum, who has spent years studying mindset.
111
And her research has actually shown that your beliefs change physiological responses.
112
And her research shows that your beliefs change your physiological responses to the activity.
113
So in other words, what you believe about an experience affects how you actually experience it.
114
So when most people believe like discipline equals sacrifice and it equals restriction and suffering and missing out on things.
115
Well, that sounds like it sucks, doesn't it?
116
Like most people are not gonna wanna do that, but that's how most people think of discipline.
117
But highly disciplined people know that their discipline equals freedom.
118
Their discipline creates self-respect.
119
Their discipline equals growth in their life.
120
Their discipline is becoming who they want to be.
121
They can think that their discipline equals self-love
122
because you only have to use discipline to do the things that are good for you.
123
And so the action didn't change.
124
The meaning changed.
125
And because the meaning changed, the emotional experience changed.
126
So if you associate it, whatever it is that you want to do, that you need discipline for with a negative mental association,
127
you will always, always, always until the day you die, resist doing it.
128
You can still make yourself, you can still force yourself to it, but you will resist it.
129
But if you associate it, whatever your it is with a positive mental association, you will want to do it.
130
That's what's crazy about it.
131
Like not only will you want it, you'll actually start to enjoy it.
132
That's what's wild about it.
133
And when you enjoy something, you will actually crave to do it again.
134
This is how you start becoming somebody who enjoys discipline.
135
And when you look at all of this, this brings up one of the most important concepts that you'll ever hear.
136
Psychologists call it psychological flexibility.
137
And so psychological flexibility is your ability to experience difficult things or difficult emotions without feeling like you need to escape them.
138
So most people are thinking like, well, how do I avoid discomfort?
139
How do I avoid rejection?
140
How do I avoid failure?
141
How do I avoid uncertainty?
142
But the highest performers, the people who have a different perspective of what they're doing, think to themselves, how do I expand my capacity for discomfort?
143
How do I become someone who can carry uncertainty?
144
How do I become someone who can handle fear?
145
How can I grow myself to be able to be okay with failure?
146
Like that changes everything because discipline stops becoming a battle that you're doing every single day.
147
It becomes a practice.
148
It's just something that you do, a practice that you do so that you can expand your capacity, so that you can expand your potential, so that you can become the actual person you're destined to become on this earth.
149
See, like most people, they see discomfort as a stop sign.
150
Like most people feel a little bit uncomfortable and they think in their brain, this means stop.
151
No, like disciplined people see discomfort as a positive thing that they want because it means that they're actually growing.
152
So they assume that if something feels uncomfortable, hey, there might be some growth here.
153
Let me go ahead and see what kind of weird stuff I can get into, because I might be able to grow myself in this situation.
154
And it kind of becomes like a game.
155
It kind of becomes fun.
156
The signal that makes other people retreat and like coil away becomes a signal that high performers follow.
157
They begin to seek out discomfort as a means of looking for a way to grow.
158
And so how do you actually rewire your brain to start to love this?
159
Let's go through like a step-by-step process, okay?
160
Step number one is you have to stop rewarding avoidance.
161
I want you today to start paying attention.
162
Notice where you seek immediate relief.
163
Notice where you procrastinate.
164
Notice where you avoid certain things.
165
And then ask yourself the question when you're noticing it, if I avoid this, what lesson am I sending to my brain right now?
166
It's like if one of your children is watching you and they're seeing what you do and you're like, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this.
167
Like what?
168
Okay.
169
What, what am I teaching them by showing them that I'm doing this?
170
Maybe get frustrated at somebody and you want to yell.
171
It's like, well, what am I teaching my kids?
172
If that's the case, same exact thing.
173
If I want to procrastinate, if I want to avoid, if I want to just go do nothing but doom scroll on my phone.
174
What am I teaching my brain in this moment about avoidance, about discipline?
175
Okay.
176
So that's the first thing.
177
The second thing I want you to do is start rewarding the action.
178
Like most people reward the outcome, but that's a really big mistake because outcomes are often delayed.
179
Like if you work out today, you're not going to see any results today.
180
You're not going to see any results tomorrow.
181
If you work out for the next 30 days, You might see some results in 30 days, but you have to understand Usually if we reward outcomes,
182
that's too far on down the road Your brain learns way faster.
183
You can train your brain faster With immediate rewards
184
So you can look at this thing that you're doing and say how can I immediately reward myself?
185
After I take this action, it could be anything.
186
There's been a lot of studies that found if you give yourself a tiny piece of chocolate after a workout, you're more likely to show up.
187
Not eat an entire Snickers bar, but a tiny piece of chocolate, little tiny square of chocolate.
188
You're more likely to do it again tomorrow.
189
But you don't even have to give yourself anything.
190
You could also just reward yourself by talking positively to yourself, to celebrating yourself.
191
There's actual studies. So just
192
celebrating yourself and talking yourself up after doing something difficult makes you excited about doing it next time
193
because you're getting a little bit of dopamine.
194
So reward yourself for showing up.
195
Reward yourself for consistency.
196
Reward yourself for effort more than outcome.
197
Reward yourself for keeping your promises to yourself.
198
Okay?
199
Step number three is to start focusing on identity.
200
So stop asking yourself stuff like, what do I need to do?
201
Like, what do I need to do to do this?
202
What do I need to do to make more money?
203
What do I need to do to get a six pack?
204
And start to ask yourself stuff like, who do I want to become?
205
Right, we're all becoming somebody.
206
Either we're going to become somebody worse in the future, we're gonna become the exact same person we already are, or we're gonna become somebody better in the future.
207
So instead of saying something like, oh, I need to work out, you can ask yourself like, what would a healthy person do?
208
What would a disciplined person do?
209
What would the future best version of me do?
210
Why would you wanna do this? because your long-term behavior will always follow your identity.
211
And identity is way more powerful than motivation.
212
It's way more powerful than anything else.
213
You don't want to just go for a run.
214
You want to become a runner.
215
You don't want to build a business.
216
You want to become and identify as a successful business owner.
217
You don't want to become a great parent.
218
You want to identify as a great parent and you will automatically start taking the actions that you need to
219
because of what you identify as, okay?
220
That's number three.
221
Number four is to learn to love the feeling after.
222
Listen, nobody enjoys every workout.
223
Nobody enjoys every single difficult conversation.
224
Nobody enjoys every single challenge.
225
That's a little bit crazy, right?
226
But almost everyone enjoys the feeling afterwards, right?
227
The pride that you feel, the confidence that you feel, the self-respect that you feel, the momentum that you feel, the relief that you feel.
228
So you want to train yourself to focus on that reward after the discomfort, not the discomfort itself.
229
Because if you focus on just the discomfort, it tells your brain like, oh, this isn't something that we like doing.
230
Like that was really hard to do.
231
But if you focus on the reward of rewarding yourself after, it tells your brain, this is something that we enjoy.
232
We want to do this again.
233
Okay.
234
And so like maybe the new goal here isn't just becoming more disciplined.
235
Maybe the new goal is becoming somebody who enjoys growth
236
and someone who sees discipline as a positive thing that helps you bring your potential out to the world.
237
Because people who achieve extraordinary things aren't necessarily more disciplined than you.
238
They're not necessarily smarter.
239
They're not more talented.
240
They've just learned to enjoy what other people avoid.
241
They just seek out what other people run from.
242
They find meaning in their discomfort.
243
They find freedom in their discipline.
244
And so your brain, you have to understand, is always learning.
245
Every action that you take is teaching it something.
246
Every choice that you make is shaping your future identity.
247
And so you have to ask yourself, what have I trained my brain to enjoy?
248
Is it comfort or is it growth?
249
Is it staying the same or is it discipline?
250
Because the answer to that question will determine the trajectory of your life.
251
And so remember, like discipline, it's not punishment.
252
It's not restriction.
253
It's not suffering.
254
Discipline is self-respect.
255
It's self-love.
256
It's freedom.
257
It's growth.
258
And it's the pathway to you becoming the person that you're meant to be.
259
Hey, thanks so much for watching this video.
260
If you love this podcast, click this one right here.
261
Based off of everything you've been watching recently, YouTube has searched all of my videos and your algorithm, put them together, and this is its suggestion for what it thinks you would wanna watch right now.
262
And if you wanna make sure to never miss another video, click that button right there, subscribe, and I'll see you on the next one.
About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice your English speaking skills by focusing on the importance of discipline and how it can be reframed as a rewarding experience. Through the lens of the video "How To Rewire Your Brain To Enjoy Discipline," you will learn to recognize the differences in behaviors concerning discipline, motivation, and identity. By engaging with this content, you not only expand your vocabulary but also enhance your ability to articulate thoughts on personal growth and motivation. This practice will help you in IELTS speaking practice and allow you to better express nuanced ideas in English.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Discipline: The ability to control oneself and make positive choices.
- Self-sabotaging: Interfering with your own success or well-being.
- Identity: The qualities and beliefs that make a person unique.
- Dopamine: A chemical in the brain that influences pleasure and reward.
- Motivation: The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
- Willpower: The ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.
- Reward prediction: The brain's process of determining the potential rewards of a behavior.
- Comfort zone: A place or situation where one feels safe or at ease.
Practice Tips
To effectively utilize the shadowing technique while engaging with this video content, focus on the following tips:
- Match the Speed: The speaker presents ideas at a moderate pace, allowing for clear understanding. As you listen, try to mirror their speed to improve your English pronunciation and fluency.
- Emphasize Key Phrases: Pay special attention to the vocabulary and phrases outlined above. Use them as focal points in your shadow speech to better internalize their meanings and proper usage.
- Repeat for Clarity: If a section feels challenging, replay it and practice repeating the phrases until they feel natural. This can enhance your confidence, especially in contexts like IELTS speaking practice.
- Focus on Intonation: Listen carefully to the speaker's intonation and emotional inflection. It will aid you in improving your own intonation, making your English sound more natural and expressive.
- Record Your Practice: Use a recording device to capture your shadowing attempts. Listening to your own voice can help you identify areas for improvement, making it easier to fine-tune your approach.
By embracing these practice tips, you will not only enhance your speaking abilities but also develop a deeper understanding of how discipline and motivation can be communicated effectively in English.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.