Self-Discipline: Starting Points
Earlier in the week i read a insightful blog on steps that should be taken to strengthen your self-discipline. The blog “7 Simple Yet Effective Exercises To Strengthen Your Self-Control” by Oskar Nowik provided some very useful exercises/tips on strengthening your self-discipline that i put to work over the last week. In his blog, Oskar talked about what self-discipline is and that strengthening it, is a process that takes a while. Then he goes to list a few exercises and tips to help kick start us on how to improve it. Here are a few things that stuck out to me and that i tried to put to use.
Defining your higher values. In this section Oskar writes about how easy it is to do things that makes us temporarily happy but not what we really need to to do. For example he states “ If you aim to lose 20 lbs and love chocolate, you know that even though you crave the dopamine release the latter releases, your weight loss goal is much more significant.” In society today, there are many things (cell phone browsing, video games, friends etc.)that can distract us from our true goals. This truly was a problem i deal with on a day to day basis. Usually id go and do the things i enjoy doing like playing basketball or playing video games, and ignore my responsibilities/ higher values. When i did take time and think about my higher values the right decisions i made became more clear on what i should invest my time in, but that doesn't mean it was easy making these choices.
Acting in spite of discomfort. This is a tip i found very important . He talks about how easy it is for us to always fall back into our comfort zone, that the mind craves for it to be in a comfortable place all the time because its easier on your mind. If we are in a comfortable place all the time are mind,body and our choices become lazy. This help me put in perspective my problem. Even though its easier to resort back and watch Netflix or play a game of Madden, putting your mind through regular discomfort will help you make better choices in the future because now your mind is getting used to not being lazy. From choosing to do homework before turning on Netflix this week, i have noticed that the next time the decision between the two came up again, it was an easier choice for me.
1.Nowik, Oskar. “7 Simple Yet Effective Ways to Strengthen Your Self-Control.”Meduim.com, Medium, 29 Oct. 2015, medium.com/personal-growth/7-simple-yet-effective-exercises-to-strengthen-your-self-control-46f3f5a69c90.
