Learning Self Discipline: 12 effective strategies that can help you change your life.
Goals and accomplishment are mediated by self discipline. It is the unseen power that is the difference between the people that just dream and the ones who succeed. Although most individuals feel that self-discipline is a mindset that certain individuals are born with, and others lack it, the real picture is much more empowering; self-discipline is a process which may be trained, built, and improved with the help of the right approach and regular training.
Being able to control yourself is a crucial principle that will surely help you to make your life smoother and happier.
The gap between ambitions and achievement is self-discipline. It is the unseen energy that puts a distance between those who dream and the achievers. Everyone thinks self-discipline is a characteristic that is either inherent or inherited, whereas the reality is much more empowering, namely, self-discipline is a quality that could be fostered, nurtured, and mastered with the help of constant practice and appropriate strategies.
This book provides insights into the basis of self-discipline.
It is important to know the real meaning before plunging into particular techniques to know what self-discipline entails. Self-discipline is about having the capacity to manage your urges, feelings and actions in order to reach long term objectives even though you have to bear short-term pain. It is not about being self-punitive or leading a miserable life. Instead, it is about the decisions made in line with your values and goals, even in the case when there are easier options.
This neuroscience of self-discipline shows that our executive functions such as planning and decision-making, the prefrontal cortex, is in conflict with our limbic system, which wants gratification here and now. Whenever you take the more difficult right instead of the easy wrong, you are in effect rewiring your brain to allow disciplined decisions to become automatic. Such neuroplasticity implies that the ability to practice self-discipline is easy when one practices, just like it is with building muscle through exercise.
Get Crystal-Clear Goals on Board.
Discipline without mission is as useless as a well-powered engine that does not have a purpose. Setting specific and meaningful goals is the first step in achieving meaningful self-discipline. General goals such as making oneself healthier or being more productive do not have specific enough goals to motivate them to take disciplined action.
Turn your objectives into SMART objectives: make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Rather than getting healthier, promise yourself to exercise thirty minutes a day, five days a week in the next three months. This targeting gives a distinct point of aim which becomes easier in calculating the progress and keeps motivation.
Subdivide bigger goals into smaller milestones. In case you want to write a book, concentrate on writing one chapter, and then focus on the other. These small successes bring a wave and render the entire objective less daunting. The little victory makes your discipline muscle stronger and gives faith in your following-through capability.
Design Your Environment to Success.
The world around you influence your conduct much more than a force of will. Trusting to self-control is as much as trying to swim against a strong current, tiresome, and not always effective. Rather, you should design your environment in such a way that disciplined decisions are the course of least resistance.
In case you want to eat better, you should take the junk food out of your house and fill your kitchen with healthy food. When nutritionally sound food becomes the most convenient option, you will automatically lean towards that food and not have to drain your forces of resolve. Likewise, when you cannot focus on your phone, leave it to another room as you work or install software that allows limitations to sites that can waste your time.
Make visual indicators that support your intentions. Get your running shoes next to your bed in case you want to exercise in the morning. You can have a book on your night stand so that when you want to go to bed, you can read the book rather than going through your social networks. These easy environmental changes remove the constant willpower since one is conditioned to do what he wants.
The same applies to the social contexts. You should surround yourself with individuals who have the same kind of discipline that you are trying to achieve. Their behaviors and ways of thinking will automatically impact on yours, whereby self-discipline will become natural and attainable. When all the people around you are committed to growth and accountability then you will be able to hold yourself to high standards.
Master the Morning Routine
The manner you begin to spend your day determines the kind of day you will have. Disciplined morning routine brings momentum to your whole day and a disorganized morning can result in reactive, undisciplined behavior.
Construct a morning routine which makes you feel energized and in line with your priorities. This could be meditation, exercise, journaling, reading or day planning. Your activities are not really important but the regularity of practice and mindfulness that you apply to the activities. When you wake up on time and manage your morning you are proving to yourself that you are in charge of your life and not the circumstances.
Wake up at same time daily inclusive of weekends. Such regularity governs your circadian rhythms and gets you to wake up more easily with time. Also, you do not need to reach out to the phone as soon as you are awake, those initial few minutes should be your moments and not handed over to the emails, the news, social media, which might steal your attention and your mood.
Arrange what you will do in the morning. Make your exercise outfits, your breakfast, your meditation area ready. Such preparations lower the level of friction and decision fatigue, which makes following through when morning comes a little easier.
Adopt the Two-Minute Rule.
The two-minute rule is one of the strongest rules to create self-discipline: one should spend less than two minutes on doing something new. This is because this strategy appreciates that the most difficult thing in any activity is usually the first step.
When you are trying to build your reading habit, then make it a habit to read one page. Want to start meditating? Begin with two minutes. It is not to be restricted to two minutes forever, but just to get so easy that you cannot say no. When it comes to the first two minutes you will find that you will go well past the first two minutes since the psychological block of going is broken.
This concept is effective as it changes your identity. Every day you read a page, you turn out to be a daily reader. That identity change is even stronger than any reading session. Gradually, these small uniform actions become tremendous outcomes.
Two-minute rule is also applicable in the process of breaking bad habits. It takes almost two minutes to begin making unwanted behaviors. Feel like viewing fewer shows on TV? Switch the television off once every time and store the remote in a different room. This extra friction will provide a momentary pause, which will enable your prefrontal cortex to override impulsive wants.
Strategy Strategic Self-Monitoring.
You can never make something better unless you measure it. One of the best techniques of building self-discipline is self-monitoring, which is the act of monitoring your behaviors and progress. Accountability and awareness is created when you document what you are doing and this automatically influences improved decision making.
Note down your habits you are trying to maintain or stop using a journal or an app to maintain a record of it. This may as simple as placing an X on any calendar every day you accomplish a wanted behavior. This is a physical record that would form a series of accomplishments that you would be eager to maintain.
Self-assess, on a regular basis, but don't be judgmental in doing so. When you observe tendencies of failure, find out what is wrong, instead of blaming yourself. Have you missed your exercise on the days when you were up late? When you are stressed about work did you overeat? Such insights enable you to work on the underlying causes and not merely to work harder.
Another method of self-monitoring is the ability to observe the energy levels, emotions, and productivity during the day. Being aware of your natural rhythms will enable you to plan the activities that require a lot of energy at the time when you are at your best and routine at the time when you are not at your best. Such a time management strategy is in itself a self-discipline that will increase your productivity.
Establish Intentions of Implementation.
Intention to work out more or eat better is too broad to interpret and procrastinate. Specific decision plans, known as implementation intentions, are dramatic in increasing the follow-through by automating the process.
State your intentions in the following manner: In case X occurs, I shall do Y. E.g. I shall wear my exercising clothes and attend the gym in case it is 6 AM on a weekday. These tangible measures remove the decision making on a moment-to-moment basis, which dissipates strength of will and presents possibilities of rationalization.
The intention of implementation is especially strong in the aspect of overcoming the obstacles. When I am too exhausted to work out, I will remind myself that I always always feel good after a workout and devote myself to not more than ten minutes. This is a pre-determined reaction and your weary self does not make hasty judgments that derail your progress.
Design implementation plans of the particular problems that you encounter. In case you are likely to mindlessly snack when watching a television, make a decision: When watching TV, I want a snack, then I will drink a glass of water and wait ten minutes. The urge can often be superseded and even in cases when it is not, you will have made a space where you will make a deliberate decision and not an automatic response.
Take a Strategic Punch on the Nose.
Self-discipline involves learning to be content with suffering. All valuable things to accomplish are the things which are difficult, or boring or unpleasant, at least at the beginning. Successful persons do not avoid suffering but learn to relate well with it.
Deliberately engage in discomfort tolerance in little means. Shower coldly, get up early or do hard things in the morning. These habits are not good, but they enhance the ability of making decisions in the long term favoring long term benefits as opposed to comfort in the short term. Imagine them to be mental gymnastics.
Redefine pain as a sign that you are getting bigger. When you are motivated to give up in the middle of a workout, understand that you are changing and you are making your body stronger. When and if you experience resistance to working on a challenging project, comprehend that resistance is the limit of your present abilities- precisely where development occurs.
This does not imply that one should be trying to suffer because it is good. The objective is to build the strength and increase the ability to concentrate on something. Through training, things that were initially intolerable become only uncomfortable and later, they get neutral and even pleasant.
Add Recovery to your System.
Ironically, disciplined self-discipline demands the knowledge of when not to be disciplined. Will power is an exhaustible resource that consumes all through out the day and should be replenished. Disregard of this fact results into burnout and subsequent breakdown of your disciplined systems.
Plan actual rest and recovery intervals. This could be as simple as one day a week of no organized productivity, no calories counted in your meal, or doing the things that bring you pleasure. These breaks are not lapses of discipline, in fact, it is fundamental maintenance that will enable discipline to last long.
Sleep is to be considered a priority over practically everything. The studies that have been conducted have constantly indicated that sleep deprivation kills self-control, decision-making capability, and emotional regulation. Even the most severe discipline will not be enough to overcome the cognitive impairment that is a result of chronic lack of sleep. Guard your sleep time like you have been doing to your most essential objectives.
Show compassion to yourself when you stumble. Criticism of oneself following failure will not make one stronger; instead of enhancing discipline, it disadvantages one through the creation of shame and discouragement. Rather, be nice to yourself like you would your good friend who is going through the same predicament. It is imperative to accept the failure, learn and pursue what you were doing without focusing on the failure.
## Accountability System Leverages.
This is because, although it is self-discipline that is eventually an inner trait, external accountability raises the chances of success dramatically. Human beings are social beings that tend to change their behavior according to the social expectations and obligations to other individuals.
Tell someone, a friend or coach, or accountability partner, about your goals and make them hold you accountable. Arrange frequent check-ins during which you report progress and discuss problems. The information that you will have to be accountable makes you have more incentive to do it.
Become part of a team with like interests. It can be a fitness session, writing group or mastermind session, but these groups add social pressure, support and examples, which affirm disciplined behavior. When friends are expecting you to turn up in a 6 AM exercise, there are higher chances that you will actually do so than when you are alone.
Take into account commitment devices, that, is, mechanisms that entail the imposition of costs of non-adherence. This could be wagering money on attaining your ambitions by downloading applications that were made to accomplish this, or by arranging sessions with instructors or coaches that cause economic impacts on dropping out.
## Cultivate Your Why
Self-discipline can be more readily related to a powerful cause. The deeper meaning of what you want in your life, as opposed to what you might think you want, offers the emotional energy that allows you to keep going.
Delve deeper below what you initially want to know about your motivations. If you want to lose weight, why? Maybe it is the energy you need to have to play with your kids or maybe it is the example you want to set of good health or maybe it is just to be able to feel confident and competent in your own body. Such more profound motives are more motivational than aesthetic aims in themselves.
Keep a note of your reason and read it frequently, particularly during times of lack of motivation. Form visual reminders, photos, quotes, symbols, that remind you of the purpose. You are tempted to hit snooze when the alarm rings at 5 AM, but when you remember your higher purpose, it may push you to sleep or not.
You must have a reason behind your action not outside it. The goals based on external validation, including the impressions of other people, the expectations of other people, or the desire to be liked are always weak. A self-driven discipline is based on your own values and the vision you have in life and is much more sustainable in failure and struggles.
In conclusion, Driving Change: Compound Effect of Daily Discipline.
It is not self-discipline that is about perfection as well as the super human will. It is about making a little better of decisions every day. The accumulation of such small decisions grows exponentially, and results in radical differences in outcomes over months and years.
Begin with one or two areas of your weaknesses of which you desire to become more disciplined. These strategies can be put into practice in a systematic way and monitored and extended by means of gradual habit formation. It is important to remember that the practice of self-discipline is also a practice that can be easily mastered through repetition.
What really matters is the kind of individual you become as a result of practicing self-discipline as opposed to what kind of goal you accomplish. Character, strength, and self-confidence are nurtured through discipline and are quite useful in every aspect of life. In doing so, you are not only engaging in a goal pursuant activity, but also making yourself an individual who can accomplish anything you focus your mind on doing so.
