This Is Why Self -Discipline Is Vital To Live A Successful Life
Not only do we all want to make more money, spend more time with our family, be fit and trim, and achieve financial independence, but we all know what we have to do to achieve them. And we all intend to do those things, sometime.
But before we get started, we need to take a little vacation to a wonderful fantasy place called ‘Someday Isle.’
Someday I’ll read the book. Someday I’ll start an exercise program. Someday I’ll upgrade my skills and earn more money. Someday I’ll get my finances under control and get out of debt. Someday I’ll do all those things I know I need to do to achieve all my goals.
We think and dream and fantasize about all the things we are going to do “someday.”
Everyone wants to know the formula for success. The first rule of success is simple: No more excuses!
Do it or don’t do it — but don’t make excuses. Stop using your incredible brain to think up elaborate rationalizations and justifications for not taking action. Do something. Do anything. Get on with it! Repeat to yourself: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!”
Now, how can you tell if your favorite excuse is valid or not?
It’s simple. Look around and ask, “Is there anyone else who has my same excuse who is successful anyway?” When you ask this question, if you are honest, you will have to admit that there are thousands and even millions of people who have had it far worse than you have who have gone on to do wonderful things with their lives. And what thousands and millions of others have done, you can do as well — if you try
It has been said if people put as much energy into achieving their goals as they spend making up excuses for failure, they would actually surprise themselves.
There is a common saying that there is no free lunch and that holds true to achieve our goals. The single greatest determiner of success in life is self-discipline. One quality that most philosophers, teachers, and experts agree on is the importance of self-discipline.
Collins dictionary defines self-discipline as the ability to control yourself and to make yourself work hard or behave in a particular way without needing anyone else to tell you what to do.
It is the ability to do something you do not want in order to get something you want. Discipline is what you must have to resist the lure of excuses. It is the key to a great life and, without it, no lasting success is possible.
Legendary investor Warren Buffett is quoted as saying:
We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest.
I discovered you can achieve almost any goal you set for yourself if you have the discipline to pay the price, to do what you need to do, and to never give up.
Thus, self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you and makes everything else possible.
With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his/her talents and intelligence can take him/her. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education, and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.
Just as self-discipline is the key to success, the lack of self-discipline is the major cause of failure, frustration, underachievement, and unhappiness in life. It causes us to make excuses and sell ourselves short.
It can also be defined as self-control. Your ability to control yourself and your actions, control what you say and do, and ensure that your behaviors are consistent with your longterm goals. You deny yourself the easy pleasures, the temptations that lead so many people astray, and instead discipline yourself to do only those things that you know are right for the long term and appropriate for the moment.
It is the ability to put off satisfaction in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term. For example, let’s say you want to get fit, it takes self-discipline to get up every morning at 6 am and go to the gym, for the long-term benefit of being healthy.
The best news is that all habits are learnable. You can learn any habit you need to learn in order to become the kind of person that you want to become.
Fortunately, self-discipline is not an inborn attribute. It is something learnable and we can all learn and succeed. You can develop the habit of self-discipline.
The regular practice of disciplining yourself to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not becomes stronger and stronger as you practice it. You refuse to make excuses.
Bad habits are easy to form, but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to form but easy to live with.
It is hard to form the habits of self-discipline, but once you have developed them, they become automatic and easy to practice. When the habits of self-discipline are firmly entrenched in your behavior, you start to feel uncomfortable when you are not behaving in a self-disciplined manner.
You can become an excellent person by practicing self-discipline whenever it is called for. Every practice of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline. Unfortunately, every weakness in discipline weakens your other disciplines as well. You will enjoy a more rewarding and fulfilling life if you teach yourself to be self-disciplined.
The following are simple steps that you can use to develop and lead a self-disciplined successful life:
First, know what you want. Be specific and write down what you want to achieve and by what time. For example, you set your goal to be ‘I want to be more fit in the next three months’. This will guide you on what you need to do.
Second, have a strong ‘why.’ Self-discipline is about sacrifice and you cannot sacrifice without a strong reason for doing so. List all the reasons why you want to achieve your objective and the consequences of not achieving them.
Third, start small and start now. Pick a few small habits to focus on each week, there’s no right time.
Fourth, develop new behaviors and habits to replace the old ones that prevented you from succeeding in the first place. You must do things differently to get different results.
Fifth, Forgive yourself and move forward. Instituting a new way of thinking won’t always go according to plan. You will have ups and downs, fabulous successes, and flat out failures. The key is to keep moving forward. When you have a setback, acknowledge what caused it and move on. It is easy to get wrapped up in guilt, anger, or frustration, but these emotions will not help build improve self-discipline. Instead, use the hiccups in your plan as learning experiences for the future. Forgive yourself, and get back in the saddle ASAP. The longer you’re off your game, the harder it is to keep going in a positive direction.
Sixth, Reward Yourself if you achieve one of your goals. It’s a proven way to keep on track. Also, just as importantly, don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t meet your goals straight away — failure is inevitable, it’s how you deal with it that’s important, learn from it and move on.
Finally, maintain focus and avoid distractions. The ability to focus on a single task until it is satisfactorily completed is the greatest attribute you can cultivate and nurture. There are many distractions that will come your way you have to learn to say no and focus on your plan.
Be okay that it won’t feel right.
When you are on your way to attaining self-discipline, your normal routine will change. This will affect your body considering the fact that you are not used to it. It will take time for your brain and body to regularize with the new pattern. So breaking your bad habit and adapting to a good one will take time but will be worth it. So don’t stop moving forward.
There is no short cut to excellence. The development and maintenance of the habit of self-discipline are a lifelong task, an ongoing battle. It never ends.
