How To Be More Self-Disciplined? I am an international social etiquette consultant and author of Etiquette books, Etiquette. At least you need to know an accident to Etiquette. I talk about Etiquette, soft skills, self-development, and all kinds of topics related to that, and today we are going to discuss about Self-Disciplined.
Contents
what is discipline?
So, first things first, let’s understand what is discipline? Discipline is an amalgam of rules that help us go through a process that could be imposed by someone. So it could be a discipline that’s imposed by us, by society, family, friends, or school, or it could be self-imposed.
In that case, that’s called self-disciplined, which is something that is much more difficult to train yourself, but it’s the one that brings the most rewards. The good news about being self-disciplined is that discipline is a kind of a trait that is not inborn. So we’re not born Self-Disciplined, really. Perhaps few people are born with that gene that helps you become Self-Disciplined easily. It’s not the kind of a trait that you are, the color of your eyes, or the texture of your hair.
It’s something that you can work on in order to grow in yourself. So in a way, when we think about it, discipline is something that could be acquired and learned over the years. That is the good news. But the bad news is that there’s no one to blame. You have the full responsibility on your shoulders to make yourself Self-Disciplined.
Self-Disciplined can transform anyone from an amateur to a master
Self-Disciplined is a beautiful trait that can transform anyone from an amateur to a master. And there’s actually this quote that has been my favorite in the last couple of months, and it says, every master was once a disaster. And I wrote this quote in my planner and I look at it every day.
Whenever I start up a new class, whenever I take on a new skill, I can get discouraged in the middle when something is not working the way I thought it would. And then I look at that quote and I’m like, okay, I just need to work a little bit more.
Also Read:
The Ultimate Guide To Stop Feeling Tired in 6 Steps: It’s Easier Than You Think!
How to Become A Speed Reader in 15 Minutes | The World’s Fastest Way To Increase Your Reading Speed!
Nomadic lifestyle how to get started with 3 Easy Steps to a Nomadic Lifestyle
What Is Artificial Intelligence? will it take over humans in future?
And over time, I can also become a master. I advocate for self-improvement and self-growth and self-development. And I think increasing your skill set and your know-how is really the key to doing that, So it’s super important that I remain self-disciplined.
I generally consider myself a very Self-Disciplined person, but before it was something that was imposed on me by others, whereas now it’s something that I need to self-impose so that I can get my goals accomplished, and my projects accomplished on time. I have accumulated a lot of rules for myself over the years that have definitely worked for me. Again, you might find some of these rules apply to you or not.
This is something that you have to decide for yourself. So these are not just the rules I’ve read in a book that may or may not work. These are the rules that have actually helped me. And I hope that by sharing it with you, they can help you as well.
Set Your Goals On Paper And Add Reference Visuals
The number one rule that has helped me tremendously in my life for being Self-Disciplined is writing down my goals, my wishes, my tasks, and my schedule on paper or a planner, it is important for me to see what I have to accomplish on paper. As soon as I write it down on paper, it kind of relieves my mind of the task in my mind. And then I have this call to action on paper.
What also really helps me is finding visuals, and images on Pinterest. That’s where I usually go for references to the imagery that I associate with a goal, that task, or that dream. Let me give you an example. For example, I want to create a really clean, neat office desk where I work. I have this image in my mind of how I want it to feel and then I go on Pinterest, I look it up, and I find reference images that will inspire me to create that kind of a similar space.
So I get ideas from here and there, and I have written down that task to create an inspiring workplace, for example. And then I put those images together in the album on my phone, either on my Favorites or my dreams, or I create a special folder for that. And then I continuously go back to that folder, look at that task, look at the images, and really bring that idea. I don’t know if it’s magic, if it’s universal, aligning with your thoughts, whatever you believe in, but that truly, truly works.
When you can juxtapose a call for action with an image that you aspire to create, together that brings an emotion in you that then takes you into action and then you get it done. The example that I gave you was really just about cleaning your workspace. It could be about working out.
You could write in your diary that I want to work out three times a week. And then you could find reference images of beautiful bodies that you want to look like or want to create for yourself.
It could be having a beautiful home and then finding the images that suit your head to that image of a perfect home. Thank God we have Pinterest nowadays and a lot of different images available for us that we can save and screenshot and really refer to those images whenever we want to feel inspired. And that will motivate you and give you that kind of discipline that you need to get it accomplished.
Start From Smaller Tasks
The second rule that has helped me a lot to remain Self-Disciplined and to get things done is to always start from smaller tasks, the tasks that are requiring less amount of energy or the ones that you do with the most amount of joy, something that doesn’t have much friction for you to start. I used to think where I was before told that start with the homework that was most difficult and then go for the homework that requires less amount of energy.
I realized over the time that didn’t work for me. What works for me is always starting from little things that keep on nagging your mind and keep on lingering there that you have to get it done. Get it done first because it requires less amount of energy and there’s less friction between you and the task. So you don’t keep on postponing it and delaying it all the time. Get it done.
Once you get it done, it’s off of your planner. You see this little tick on the side and that makes you feel good about yourself. And that really puts you into the mood of someone who gets things done. So I say it’s a mood of a doer that I can do it. If I have accomplished already two things on my to-do list I can keep on going, that creates this really good energy so I can continue taking on bigger and bigger tasks.
Self-disciplined is very much tied to willpower and both work like a muscle. Self-disciplined is a skill that you can learn and improve with practice. As you practice it, you will become better at using it. To me, understanding that self-disciplined works like a muscle, it’s important not to overload it with too many activities or too many tasks at once.
Because when you impose on yourself a lot of difficult tasks at once, it’s very difficult for you to get started. Let’s imagine that you’ve never worked out and you force yourself to do 50 squads.
You’ll either never do it or do it once and never again. For you to be self-disciplined, you need to start loading on yourself little tasks at once and then achieving them, therefore gradually building it up in yourself.
When you overload yourself with too many tasks, you will either burn out mentally or you’ll never be able to build self-disciplined. One of my favorite books is Make Your Own Bed. And the whole idea of this book is not just about the importance of making your bed in terms of your room looking neat or being very organized.
But the core idea is that when you start your day by making your bed, you feel a lot more empowered. You feel like you have done one task on your to-do list. So that puts you into this mindset that I can do things, I have control over things. The same way works with checking off your list of tasks.
Always starting from smaller ones and gradually going for bigger ones will help you become more self-disciplined over time.
Optimize Your Life
The third rule for Self-Disciplined is that I live by optimizing my life in a way that I can reduce the friction between myself and the activity that I have to do. This allows me to stay self-disciplined for a really long time because whatever I set my mind to do, it becomes part of my life, and then I don’t have to impose too much willpower to really start doing it.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you intend to finish reading two books per month and you need to have a lot of self-disciplined to get it done in one month to finish two books in one month. What I recommend you do is you place the books in your eyesight and make them easily accessible, reachable at your arm, grasp.
What I would suggest you do is to have the book with you at places where you frequent the most. Let’s say put it on your Bedstone, carry it on your back, and leave it in your car.
So whenever you’re stuck in traffic or you’re waiting for someone in the car, you can open, and read a couple of pages you carry on your back. So whenever you’re sitting and waiting for a new appointment, you can open the book and read it. Whenever that book is reachable and accessible to you, you’re most likely to consume it.
The same rule applies to every different aspect of your life. So whenever you have less friction between you and the action, whenever the action you need to take is reachable, and accessible in your eyesight, you are most likely to get it done.
Do Not Compare Yourself To Others
The most important rule when it comes to staying self-disciplined is not comparing yourself to anyone else. Be it someone who’s absolutely not self-disciplined. You comparing yourself to them is not healthy. Neither you comparing yourself to someone who has perhaps a lot more self-discipline than you. You are you and you are on your path of self-improvement.
So don’t compare your day zero with someone’s day 100 or someone who hasn’t even gotten started. This can take you off the track. What you need to do is compare your daily results only with your own self. However, this is not to say that comparison is always bad, that it’s unhealthy.
Because sometimes a good amount of comparison is actually healthy. And in a way, ignites the fire in you to really start doing something and really get working. What I meant is not comparing your amount of self-discipline to someone else’s. What I do recommend, though, is finding role models or mentors or people you aspire to be like in their sense of self-discipline. I consider myself a very disciplined person, but I know people that are a lot more disciplined than I am.
And I always look up to those people and I aspire to be like them. This doesn’t mean that I compare myself to them. I just look up to them. And I hope to also achieve that level of self-discipline one day.
Do Not Wait For The Perfect Moment, Start Now
And the final rule when it comes to self-discipline is not waiting for the perfect moment day Monday to arrive so you can start working on it. It’s not something that can miraculously come into your life and happened to you. It’s something that you need to initiate, that you need to work on, that you need to build up almost like a muscle. And I am a person that has lived through this. I know what it means to work on your self-discipline.
I remember that when I was a student at university, I always wanted to work out, but I always thought, okay, when the midterms are over, when exams are over, when my thesis is over, I’ll start working out. And then the four years pass by without me ever frequenting the gym. Now, as an adult, self-employed, I have a lot of projects going on that I’ve scheduled and put into my work the number of times that I need to go to the gym and work out. And this is something that I don’t do because I want to do it’s, something that I make myself do.
But after doing it, I feel so much more proud of myself. And before, I was the one who waited for the perfect day to arrive. And I’m the person who, as soon as I have this idea, I put it down on paper and I just get started. I do not wait for the perfect day or time to arrive. To support this point, I want to share a quote that I personally love and that says, “If you don’t make time for it, the time for it will never come”.
And that is very true and very applicable to anything that we do in life. To finalize today’s post, I want to say that there’s this idea of the kind of life that we aspire to have. So these are our dreams and wishes. There are these emotions that we feel about something. There’s this action in the middle.
And between those emotions and those actions is self-discipline, which is the channel that helps us get things done, so then we can see our dreams and wishes come true. No success can happen overnight, and very few that do rarely last long. The good news is that everyone can be successful and accomplished. Granted that we work on our self-discipline. And the good news is that we can all learn that if I could become self-disciplined, so can you.
I hope that this post will help and inspire you and motivate you to work on your self-discipline. And please do let me know down in the comment section below.
