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The first habit to build fast discipline is what the Stoics called Premeditatio Malorum—the premeditation of evils. Most 'productivity gurus' tell you to visualize success. The Stoics tell you to visualize failure. Every morning, Marcus Aurelius would tell himself: 'The people I deal with today will be ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and uncharitable.' Why does this build discipline? Because most of our discipline breaks when we get frustrated. By visualizing these obstacles in the mo