Douglas: Welcome to the Unleash Your Potential Blog, what question can I answer for you today?
UpliftAI: What methods can I use to improve my self-discipline?
Douglas: Thank you for asking. Self-discipline is critical for long-term success, but what is self-discipline? There are a lot of definitions out there, but they all center around the same idea. Self-discipline is the ability to defer short-term gratification or endure short-term inconvenience to achieve a long-term goal. Self-discipline is the perspective that I can deal with crap now to succeed later. Self-discipline is the ability to stop scrolling FB for an hour a day to write a blog to improve your writing or further your coaching business. Sure, I get a nice dopamine hit when I am scrolling through FB, but in the long run, my blog will help me develop the coaching business I want to start. In a more practical sense, self-discipline is the force behind any kind of practice. When I was a younger musician, practicing was frustrating, time-consuming, and boring, but those who practiced got better at their musical skill and found more satisfaction long-term (I was terrible at practicing, I preferred the short-term success of playing what I already could play well).
Self-discipline is wrapped up with goal achievement. You can’t practice self-discipline if you don’t have a goal. The first thing I would suggest is that you take time to clarify your long-term goals. What is it you want to accomplish? Once you know that you can examine what it is that is standing in your way. The things that are standing in your way are the very things you need to develop your self-discipline around. For example. I have a long-term goal of achieving a weight of 195 lbs. This is the weight that, through research and discussion with my physician, would be the ideal weight for me to lead a healthy lifestyle and extend my lifespan. Standing in my way are: unregulated snaking, lack of core strength exercise, food portions, and regular aerobic exercise. I can curb snacking, but to do so I need to develop self-discipline so I don’t time I walk by it. I can work on each of those areas, but not until I have a plan in place to deal with those. The plan includes giving up short-term pleasure (the taste of the snack, the comfort of sleeping in a few minutes instead of doing morning exercises, etc.) in favor of my long-term health goal.
Now that you have a goal, here are a few things to support your journey toward increased self-discipline:
Remove Temptations - Temptations are a real thing. We all like to think we can resist them. In reality, we all have things that draw us away from our plan. As we develop self-discipline it becomes easier to resist them, but in the beginning, it may be necessary to use some “out of sight, out of mind” techniques to help bolster your self-discipline.
Practice, Fail, Forgive, Start Over – Self-discipline is a process and no one gets it right every time. This is where grace comes in. As start to practice self-discipline, you will likely fail (I have many times in my weight loss journey). The key is to forgive yourself and then start over. If you use every failure to “prove” that you can’t do something, you will have a much harder time developing self-discipline.
Find Your Motivation – Many times throughout my days in theater, we would talk about my character's motivation. Why does the character do what they are doing? As you are developing self-discipline, you have to know the WHY behind it. Sure you can tell yourself, “I need to exercise to lose weight” but it is much more powerful to tell yourself, “I need to exercise and lose weight so I can extend my lifespan and have more great days to spend with my wife.” Motivation is key to self-discipline. What is your why?
Develop Habits – I have written in previous entries about habits, but it bears repeating here. A habit is something we do without active thought. It is a programmed response. If you are trying to develop self-discipline, develop some habits around the goal. To write my blog every day, I had to make it part of my morning routine. It is the second thing I do in the morning (right after prayer). In the early days, I did not want to do it, but as time progressed and I did it every day, it got easier.
There are many more techniques you can use to develop self-discipline, but this gives you something to start with. And there is the key, start today! There are lots of well-used sayings about just taking the first step and they are all accurate. Do something today, right now even, to get you started on your journey of improved self-discipline.
I hope my answer sheds some light on your question. If you want to dig into this concept further, I encourage you to reach out and set up a conversation. In the meantime, check back tomorrow for the next question in the Unleash Your Potential Series!
Be Well!
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