Everyone understands the importance and value of time, it’s a precious entity.
You need to have self-discipline in everything you do, so as to achieve your desired goals — both long-term and short-term.
You ask yourself sometimes; how can I stay consistent and dedicated?
How can I fulfil all the goals I set?
Part of the answer lies in self-discipline. It is what drives you to deliver your best in everything you do, regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not.
With self-discipline, you can put off distractions, resist the urge to act on impulses, and endure short-term inconvenience in the pursuit of a long-term gain.
Self-discipline is the ability to intentionally take action, push yourself, and remain motivated, regardless of how you’re feeling, physically or emotionally.
Self-discipline enables you to go after something better for yourself in spite of factors such as distractions, or unfavourable circumstances.
Self-discipline is an essential trait for success. It enables you to perform high performance task, helps you to achieve tough goals, can improve learning, and enable you do high-quality work.
The more you work on developing self-discipline and using it, the stronger it will become, and work out to your advantage.
Here are 5 ways to start developing self-discipline:
- Write your goals: A goal that is not written is not a goal at all. Write down your goals in clear details, define your long-term goals, then set smaller goals and work your way to the big ones. They aid you to overcome your challenges more effectively which builds your willpower and self-discipline.
- Prioritise your To-Do list: To-Do lists serve as visual reminders to ensure your tasks are fulfilled. Keep yourself on track by making a list of everything you have to do to accomplish your goals. Whenever you think up new activities and tasks, write them on your list. Prioritising your To-Do list gives you clarity on your goals and make sure you are on track to achieving them. Ensure that at the end of each day you plan out your list for the next day. Small habits like this will help you practice self-discipline, and keep your mind focused.
- Discover your strength and weaknesses: Whether it’s obsession over social media. Everyone has both strength and weaknesses, and as much as you know your weaknesses, also know your strengths so you can maximise them. Overcome your weaknesses by developing the act of self-awareness, which requires constant focus and acknowledging your shortcomings. Own up to your flaws, you can’t overcome them until you do, which helps you to develop your self-discipline.
- Eliminate temptations: ‘Out of mind, out of sight’ is a great saying to emphasis on this. If you remove the biggest temptations from your environment you will greatly improve your self-discipline, e.g. instead of keeping a pie in the fridge, you can stock up on healthy fruits and vegetables so whenever you open your fridge every morning, you’re reminded to eat healthy so you can achieve your fitness goals, and thereby eliminate the temptation to eat junks. Likewise, eliminating distractions to achieve your goals is one of the wisest things you can do to eliminate temptations as much as possible. If checking your social media feed has become a time-waster, you can reduce your screen time by setting limits on your phone, turning off notifications, scheduling breaks to check your accounts, or deleting unproductive apps. Your ability to resist temptations will revolve bad habits into good ones, which will help in harnessing your self-discipline.
- Monitor your progress: Whatever actions you put in place to achieve your goals, e.g. eliminating temptations, following your To-Do lists, envisioning your goals, etc. monitoring your progress is a good way to staying motivated in the long run.
As you work on your self-discipline, pay attention to how you feel as it develops and intensifies. Using a daily tracker which records how much water you drink per day, or keeping a journal to write down your self-discipline goals and to track your progress, reinforces the positive changes that you’re implementing in your life.
This gives you a record you can look back on to note the progress that you’ve made.
