At the heart of any successful person is self-discipline. Whether it’s success in your personal or professional life, it all boils down to an inherent ability to control the world around you through self-discipline.
Your thoughts. Your emotions. Your behaviors. And your habits. All of them must be kept in check. To achieve all of those lofty goals you’ve set for yourself, you need to understand self-discipline. But it’s not like that’s anything new. In fact, self-discipline has been a factor in personal success stories for thousands of years. And, today, it’s being championed by some of the world’s most successful people.
Forming good habits during our younger years leads us down a path to success, no matter the endeavor. It’s not like you can develop those habits without a proper handle on your self-discipline, however. Your actions and behaviors come as a result of your ability to control yourself, whether for good or bad.
Self-discipline makes anything possible. It’s the bridge between what you want and what you’re going to accomplish, literally turning your dreams into reality. Approach it in whatever way you want, the core lesson is always the same: discipline leads to success.
Successful people all share a common understanding: discipline is the only path to achieving what you want from life. It’s imperative to use discipline, or you’re just spinning your wheels, hoping with the best of intentions to succeed without doing anything productive. These are the people who leverage self-discipline for foundational good habits for goals they can actualize.
And the good news is, you can too!
But how is discipline created or formed? What allows one person to wield what seems like total and full control over their behaviors and their actions, while others falter and fail? How can one person be so conscious of what they do on a daily basis, while others simply throw caution to the wind?
The answer to those questions lies in our habits. Since 40% of our behavior is habit-driven, if you want to control your ability to be self-disciplined, you have to control your habits.
In particular, there are 10 habits that help you to discipline yourself. If you can instill these 10 habits into your life, you can create the foundation for achieving your goals. Without these habits, you’ll just be swinging in the dark.
Habits: The Pathway to Self-Discipline
A huge amount of what we do on a daily basis is habit-driven. It’s an energy-saving measure our brains use to focus their attention on more important things, with “non-things” becoming automatic habits.
This happens dozens of times a day without us even knowing about it. And, because it’s going to happen anyway, we might as well take advantage of it.
Habit Forming For A Better Life
Developing better habits helps to instill discipline into our lives. But where do habits come from and how are they developed? And why is it, when we try to change our habits, we only follow through for so long before we give up and revert to our old ways?
The biggest problem, especially with habits that we’ve had for many years, is the neural pathways our brains create to manifest those habits. Neural pathways are like “shortcuts” for specific functions. So we can walk, smoke, or drive a car without having to actively think about what we’re doing.
Neural pathways automate our behaviors. They free the mind up to focus on the big picture stuff, starting from our earliest days as children. The problem is when bad or negative mundane behaviors are repeated and form these pathways, they hold us back in ways we struggle to break out of. These bad habits harm us to various degrees, and we may find ourselves completely unable to stop doing them. With these deeply etched neural pathways behind all of it, the longer they’re left unchecked, the harder it becomes to break free.
The Good News
If you can instill better habits into your everyday life, the bad ones have a tendency to slip away. This takes discipline and won’t be easy, but like any self-betterment, you’ll find self-discipline becoming easier as you stick with it.
Habits take time, whether you’re making them or breaking them. Start small, work consistently, and make sure to always build, and the way forward will always be completely clear to you. There’s no confusion over how to discipline yourself when you work on embodying the best possible habits for your own life.
- Be Grateful in your daily life.
- Be Forgiving to others.
- Practice Meditation consistently.
- Active Goal Setting will get you results.
- Start Eating Healthier (your mom was right).
- Get Some Sleep, at least six hours a night.
- Work Out as much as you can.
- Be Organized and you’ll get more done.
- Time Management is crucial.
- Stay Persistent. It’s the key to success.
1- Gratitude
Let’s face it: we’re all a little too superficial. We spend too much time wanting things. Wishing we had other things, or different things, or new things, or just something different. It distracts more of us than who would like to believe it. But the simple habit of expressing and feeling gratitude can shift our thought from wanting to appreciating.
Gratitude has far-reaching implications for your life. Whether you’re working on your mental, emotional, or spiritual health, gratitude helps to fill your life where there was a lack of substance. Living with emptiness and not being able to fill makes it all the easier to lose focus on our disciplines, goals, aspirations, and needs. We end up sucked into our own mental spiral, worrying and stressing out over things we have no control over. And the resulting state of fear forces all thoughts about what we do have out of our heads.
A state of lack can lead to negative physical issues, with stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine released to help. Our digestive, reproductive, and immune systems can all be adversely affected, as a result.
And this positivity is easy to work into your daily schedule. Simply spend 10 minutes a day writing out things you are grateful for. Even when you feel like there is nothing you could possibly put down on a list like this, reach deep down and find something. Like they say: “Seek and you shall find.”
2- Forgiveness
Hate and anger are easy emotions to feel justified in having. After all, sometimes things happen that are unfair, and we didn’t deserve them, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But spending large parts of your day indulging in anger, guilt, regret or resentment creates more problems than it solves. These are negative emotions that consume more energy than they give back, and especially more than love or forgiveness. When we forgive, however, we learn to truly let things go.
Forgiveness is what makes self-discipline possible. You have more control over yourself, your choices, and your life when you’re not too worried about how people wronged you. And this kind of focus frees up your self-discipline to achieve anything.
And the math of it is actually pretty easy: when someone hurts you, learn to forgive them. Now, you don’t have to forget what happened. Most of the time, that’s really just impossible. Forgiving and letting go of that negative energy, however, is.
Letting go of negativity stops self-discipline erosion, making forgiveness a step toward self-discipline. It might seem soft, unimportant, or unrelated to discipline at first glance, it’s actually hugely important.
Sometime today, think about the people you’re angry with and physically write down why you forgive them. Put yourself in their shoes, and ask what you would have done in their situation. Look for the humor, or try to find a lesson learned that benefits you personally.
I understand just how hard it can be to forgive someone who’s crossed you. It feels like “losing”. But letting go of all those negative feelings, no matter how justified we feel in having them, is when things will really, earnestly improve. Because, the more time you spend stressing out, the less time you’ll have to work on pushing things forward.
3 — Practice Meditation
It’s not saying anything new to call meditation an effective way to manage our stress. It puts our minds at ease, giving us the sort of spiritual stability that encourages real growth. During meditation, the surrounding noises of everyday life become background static. It’s easier for us to realize one important thing: we’re nothing more than interconnected individuals living in a much bigger universe.
It also has a significant impact on our self-discipline. When we’re feeling cluttered, confused or overwhelmed, it’s a great way to clears out the cobwebs. It helps to keep us on track when our day starts off on the wrong note. From mental wellbeing to physical, and spiritual health, growth comes from taking control of your mental health.
It also doesn’t take very long to do! Book out 10-to-15 minutes in your day. Focus on making your mind quiet and, whenever it wonders, bring it back to stillness until it stops. Imagine the energy in your body as being grounded in the earth underneath you. From here, open your palms and lift them to face the sky.
When it comes to meditation, aligning the physical body with the spiritual self is at the core of what we’re trying to accomplish. Align the two, and you can live a better, more focused life.
4 — Active Goal Setting
If you’ve been following my blog (which, of course, you all should be), you’ll know one thing about me: I believe in active goal setting. Now, obviously, this is the polar opposite of passive goal setting, and in one big way: passive goal setting, you only set goals in your mind. You may tell yourself you’re going to get to them, but they often lack any kind of concrete details. Conversely, active goals are written out. They’re properly defined and not abstract.
With a written out active goal, you’ve got something to keep track of. They have specifics, meaning, shape and a measurable size. There’s a plan to achieve them which, surprise surprise, helps to achieve them, whether in the short or long term. Setting long-term goals means we engage actively with our goals, day-by-day. This is the kind of momentum that makes dreams a reality.
We all know self-discipline is a crucial component in achieving our goals. Setting active goals requires direction to get right, which makes our goal-chasing all the more real. It means we are more likely to avoid distractions, follow daily goals, and live in service of our end goal.
So, how do we get started? First, you’ll need to actually set a few long-term goals, and decide on them as a rule in your coming life. Following that, you’ll need monthly, weekly, and daily engagement goals. You’ll also want to come up with a plan to actively track your progress from week to week, so you’ll know you’re actually getting somewhere. Tracking and analysis show how much progress you’ve made, allowing you to make adjustments moving forward.
Your subconscious mind is extremely adept at lying about why you’ve stopped doing things you promised to do. With active goal setting, you’ll have the proof you need to not lie to yourself or cover up the truth.
5 — Start Eating Healthier
The human body is a fascinating machine. Apart from the multitude of things it does both with and to us, it’s also a giant engine, converting nutrients into energy to do all of the things we do every day. The human body actually spends a massive percentage of this energy processing and digesting food. 10-to-25% of it, in fact!
Diets that are carbohydrate-rich, featuring lots of fats and proteins force your body to use more energy in order to process the same amount of food. The problem with this, however, is that large parts of this energy amount to very very little good for us. Instead, what you’ll want to focus on is raw foods, fruits, and vegetables. These offer the biggest, most sustainable energy boost for their money. They process with less energy while stockpiling energy for afterward in a process known as the enhanced Thermic Effect of Food, or TEF.
Energy dictates so much of our daily lives. It has its part to play in our focus, allowing us to pursue goals and stay disciplined. Being comatose from overeating makes it harder to stay strong in the face of bad decisions. If we can eat healthily throughout the day, we retain the energy to go after our goals with the discipline to follow through on our best instincts.
The change in our neurochemical makeup on a healthy diet has been confirmed, influencing both our mind and body. For all of these reasons and so many more, always opt for raw and healthy, and do your best to avoid junk food.
6 — Get Some Sleep
Sleep is, easily, one of the most important investments you can make in your body. Connected with our capacity for self-discipline, forty winks is crucial to getting through your day in a productive way. Not getting enough sleep leads directly to changes in your mood, ability to focus, and judgment.
Chronic sleep deprivation is actually more common than you might think, affecting thousands of people every year. Depriving yourself of proper sleep also puts you at risk for certain diseases, wreaking havoc with your immune system overall.
Make sure to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night, no matter what. Avoid caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, or prescription medicine, where possible, 5 hours before sleeping. Your natural sleep cycle should be your top priority.
The benefits of a full night’s sleep run deep. From discipline to better memory, lower rates of inflammation and pain, there’s a lot to benefit from, here.
Also Read: 10 Skills Every Business Owner Should Have
7 — Work Out
Getting in enough exercise is key to developing self-discipline and better personal habits. One truly does lead to the next, so instill some good old fashioned fitness habits into your daily routine and get ready to see some changes.
And, yes, if you’re wondering, exercise is by far my most recommended tip for developing a better way of living. Now, this isn’t exactly an underground idea — there are many people out there who extoll the benefits of a solid exercise routine. And yet, you still find people not making exercise a priority. Now why, would you think, is that?
As a species, we’re pretty busy. Many of us spend a lot of time running around, doing everything we can to make it through the day. We’ve all heard the same stories: they just can’t build up good habits. They have too much on their plate, too much to do, and too much to worry about. Exercising just doesn’t make sense.
This is where many of us go wrong. Keystone habits like exercise not only help us become more disciplined but can actually improve our lives in many ways. It reduces stress and pain, releasing dopamine and serotonin for better results.
Exercise has a direct impact on our health, increasing blood flow and fighting off diseases, all of which helps to boost the body’s immune system. Consistent exercise improves focus, which leads directly to self-discipline.
Now, you don’t have to kill yourself trying to exercise as hard as possible right out the gate. Start small. Go for a five-minute walk in the morning. Maybe one in the evening. Do that for a week straight. Then bump it up to 10 minutes for a week, and so on until, eventually, your exercise routine has grown into a full-blown habit.
8 — Be Organized
Achieving your goals is immensely difficult if you’re not organized. It’s this level of organization you need to embody completely, from your professional to your personal life. There’s a direct correlation between leading an organized life and being self-disciplined. Make the effort and start small if you’re not the type of person who’s naturally organized. Begin with small spaces within your life and try to be consistent about being organized. You can feel free to expand from here, but if you begin with an amount of work you can quantify, you’re more likely to stick with it in the long run.
It’s a habit, that’s all there is to it. And, like any other habit, you can slowly build it up over time, so long as you stay organized. It’s going to take effort and focus but, like all the best things in life, that effort will pay off in the long run. An organized physical space makes for a relaxed, stress-free living environment. This, in turn, makes it easier to be self-disciplined, even when things go unexpectedly.
- Keep lists
- Organize your drawers
- Put things you use back where they belong
Remember: the little things matter the most. Pay attention to how you’re behaving for better results.
9 — Time Management
Spinning a bunch of different plates can make it tempting to blame “just not having enough hours in the day”. The truth is, however, you can do so much more than you imagine if you can manage your time. Managing your time leaves more room for self-growth and introspection, all of which just helps bring us closer to our ultimate goals.
Achieving these goals comes down to knowing how you want to live your day-to-day life. These actions might not seem important but they have long-term implications moving forward. Our capacity for self-discipline derives from our time management skills, and that just comes down to being self-aware. All of the most successful people in the world show similar signs of time-management. How significant is that? Considering the examples we’ve seen over the years and continue to see to this day, unquestionably so.
We all have the same number of days in our days. Don’t waste a single one of them.
10 — Stay Persistent
Our last point today should be the underlying foundation of your entire life if you want to become self-disciplined. All the discipline in the world won’t mean much if you don’t have persistence. The instinct to never give up, even when you fail, is what gets us back up again and, without it, discipline becomes much more difficult to achieve.
Achieving goals is hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it all the time. Given enough time and too few results, it can be easy to feel discouraged. Which is a pity, because the core of what it takes to succeed is simple persistence. Even the biggest, most famous names out there have failed at what they set out to do at some point or another. This kind of failure is the foundation you’ll build your life on, failing forward into lofty new goals a little smarter and a lot stronger.
Overall, the best way to succeed is to stay persistent and stick to a list of the reasons you want the things you want. A good, strong set of reasons trumps “really wanting it”, every time.
Also Read: Mindfulness: The #1 Skill For Entrepreneurs
