Develop Self Discipline

I suppose everyone has self discipline to different degrees. You will soon discover that the most successful people have a great deal of self discipline in the areas they truly excel in. Think about this for a minute. Top bodybuilders have achieved an impressive level of self discipline. They work their asses off building a fantastic physique. Donald Trump is ridiculously disciplined in his daily business routines. He has his meetings planned to the minute. Warren Buffet is an extremely disciplined long term investor. He buys companies when everyone else is selling them. Tiger Woods is an exceptionally disciplined athlete. He gets up ridiculously early every day and works out so he can stay in great shape. He hits so many balls that even those of us who enjoy golf would find it to be a chore. I challenge you to find someone at the top of their game who isn’t disciplined in that field. Get the picture?

Obviously these people also love what they do for a living. At least I think they do. So they also have the desire for doing what needs to be done. However, I can guarantee there are times when each of these guys has to do something that they really don’t want to do or don’t feel like doing. Yet, they know they must do it to if they want to achieve even greater levels of success than they currently have.

If you truly want massive success in one area of your life, you are going to have to discipline yourself in that area. Otherwise, your failure is highly likely. If you want to lose weight, you’ll need the discipline to commit to lifelong changes in your eating and exercising habits. Otherwise, your ultimate failure is inevitable. If you want to build a huge retirement nest egg in mutual funds, you’re going to have to find the discipline to sacrifice disposable income in order to contribute the amount necessary to achieve it. If you want to get a promotion at work, you are going to have to commit to taking your performance up a notch, get noticed and be disciplined enough to maintain it.

Of all the things that personal development speakers talk about, self discipline is probably the most overlooked fundamental character trait. They like to talk about persistence and perseverance. Those are very important. Yet, you can’t have them without self discipline. Without discipline, most of the positive changes you make to your life will only be temporary. Then you will slip back to the old ways of doing things. If you could only master the ability to discipline yourself, your success is virtually guaranteed.

How to develop self discipline

Self discipline is made up of two components; habits and desires. You will need one or the other or both in order to accomplish massive achievements in your life. If you have enough strength in one, it can compensate for a lack of the other. Ultimately, you will find more success in combining the two.

Finding the desire

If there is something you know you need to do, but you don’t feel like doing it, it is because you haven’t thought enough about why you should want to do it. Avoiding the hassle of doing it is more important to you than the benefits of having done it. Take a minute and reason it out logically. Pick one area that you currently lack self discipline in. Let’s use overeating as an example. Why do you overeat? You know you should stop after one helping, yet you continue to eat more. This is because you haven’t really decided that you would be happier if you just ate one helping. If you really believed you would be happier you would be acting differently. Maybe you do believe it but you haven’t thought about it enough. Really think deeply about it. Would you really be happier? If you think about it long enough, you will come to the obvious decision.

This is how you are going to build your desire for something. You can do it just by thinking about it enough. The more you think about it, the more reasons you will come up with for why you should be doing it. It is that simple. Once you have thought about it enough, you’ll muster enough motivation to get you started towards accomplishing that goal. Now that you how to find the desire to make a change, let’s go about finding the most effective way to accomplish the end result.

Creating New Habits

Learning how to implement new habits is another essential tool you will need to get ahead in life. I’m talking about permanent habits. You need to learn to make habits that will last for the rest of your life. Otherwise, you are likely to fall back to the old ways of doing things that have become so entrenched over your lifetime up till now.

1. Start by deciding what it is you really want. Decide on the ultimate end result. Do you want to rid yourself of this extra belly fat you have been carrying around? Do you want to earn more money over the next two years? Do you want to learn a new skill?
2. Set a realistic and achievable goal. Set a goal to achieve your ideal body weight of 180lbs or whatever yours might be. Set a realistic goal for how many dollars you want to earn in the next two years.
3. Build desire for that goal. Think about it for a few minutes. Make a list of reasons why that is a worthy goal. Envision what you will look like after accomplishing it. How will other people look at you once you have accomplished it? Keep coming up with reasons until you can’t wait any longer to start doing something about it. If you don’t feel that way yet, then keep thinking about it until you do. You need to have a strong desire.
4. Think of one small change you could make right now, from this day forward forever. Don’t try to make a huge change right off the bat. Try to make a small one. For example, if you are trying to stop overeating, then make a decision that you will no longer eat more than two pieces of pizza at one meal ever again for as long as you live. You can still eat pizza as often as you have been. But, from now on, you will never eat more than two slices at any given meal.Pick something that you can do today. The pizza example will only be good if you were planning on eating pizza today. You need to practice the habit immediately. Otherwise you will forget. While you’re eating that pizza later today, think about this new change. Dwell on it for a while as you eat your two pieces. This will help you to remember the next time.
5. Find some way to remind yourself of the change you have made. This is really important. If you don’t remind yourself, it will not become a habit. You must remind yourself until it becomes second nature. Here is one idea you can use. For the next month, wear a rubber band around your wrist or ankle. Every time you notice you are wearing it, think about that promise you made to yourself. After about a month, it will be harder for you to forget about.
6. Every time you stick to this new habit, you need to reinforce the good behavior. As soon as you recognize you have practiced this good habit again, go look in a bathroom or bedroom mirror. Smile and give yourself the thumbs up. Shake your head up and down and say “Yea.” Give yourself a little pat on the back and feel good about yourself for two minutes. Those little rewards really make a difference. It will really help build your self esteem.

Important tips to help you in the development of your personal discipline:

• Set realistic and manageable goals. Really ambitious goals should be broken down into steps. If you have a really big goal like say to lose 100lbs, then start by setting a smaller goal of say 20lbs. Once you get there, savor your accomplishment for a couple weeks then set a new goal to lose another 20.
• When choosing habits, choose the smallest possible change that you know you can make permanent immediately. Making one very small permanent change is better than making a big change that is only temporary.
• Write these things down. If you are afraid that you’ll be embarrassed if someone else finds what you have written then just throw them out when you’re done. If you write them down, you’ll get very clear about what you really want. You will think deeper about it than you otherwise would. Trust me. It really helps.

Best Habit To Develop For Self Discipline

Become someone who takes immediate action. When you find yourself lacking self discipline or lacking motivation remember this procedure. Think for just a few seconds about what your best course of action would be. Don’t spend more than thirty seconds thinking about it. You probably already know what you should be doing. Once you have decided that, STOP thinking about it. Cut off your thought process dead in its tracks. You thought about it long enough and you know exactly what you need to do. Now, get off your ass and do it. Quit screwing off. If you can get started on it immediately, you will gain momentum. If you sit there and keep thinking about it you will become indecisive. Then you will use that as an excuse to not do what you’re supposed to. Practice this process whenever possible. Make this thought process itself a habit.