How do you gain a self-discipline habit? Why is it important? These are all questions that we will explore in this post. Self-discipline and motivation are both required for successful people. You can’t motivate yourself if you are in lack of discipline to do what needs to be done. And, on the other hand, it is hard to maintain your discipline without feeling like you are going forward towards your goals in your personal life.
We all need self-discipline to remove bad behavior or bad habits from our lives like junk food or unhealthy food, or even better, acquire new healthy habits with some Healthy Eating, morning routines, Exercise Habits, Active Decisions, starting or joining a book club.
Self discipline is important in every aspect of your life. It would help if you were disciplined to accomplish anything in life. If you don’t have self-discipline, you will not accomplish great things or make progress towards your goals. Discipline is what will push you through the hard times and help you get to where you need to go. With self-discipline, anything is possible. Self-discipline is also what will help you achieve your goals.
Here, we will explore how to create habits that will lead to self and proactive discipline. It’s not a secret formula, but you can call it a guide or a self-growth plan for self-discipline. You will then be able to stick to these self-discipline habits and have motivation. For this method, I will use a three-step system…ignore the steps; they’re just a way to organize your thoughts and long-term goals.
- Step 1: Identify your goals and intentions
— Which goals do I want in life? What is my Primary Goal?
— What are my values? — How can I make my life more meaningful? — How can I live up to those values? — What are the outcomes that will result from the decisions I make daily regarding self-discipline (e.g., focus on important tasks instead of frivolous tasks)?
— Are there any specific behaviors that need discipline (e.g., starting each day with a task that requires discipline)?
- Step 2: Identify the ‘why’ behind your goals and intentions.
— Why do I need to develop self-discipline? — Why do I need to make my life more meaningful? — Why do I want to live up to my values? — What rewards will I receive from living up to these values?
— What are the consequences if I don’t follow through on my goals and intentions?
- Step 3: Create a self-discipline habit plan.
— What specific behaviors will I need to perform each day to help me reach my goals and intentions?
— Will I have the courage to do these behaviors consistently?
— What do I need as resources and/or environment to do these behaviors consistently?
— What metrics can I measure my progress in creating this habit and sustaining My Goal in Mind?
Once you have identified your goals and intentions, you are not done. You must understand WHY you are doing this. You must live up to your high standards to (re)focus when you lack discipline. This is the most important step in your plan. Without knowing WHY you need discipline, it will be hard to maintain discipline and motivation for long. On the other hand, knowing your WHY, you will take action each day to implement these behaviors.
As you can see from the steps above, if you can’t identify your goals and intentions and WHY behind them, it is difficult for you to always follow through on them.
In addition to this three-step process, there are 3 key questions you can answer to create a self-discipline habit:
- How do I define my discipline?
- How do I determine if I am being disciplined?
- Is my discipline sustainable?
How do you define your discipline? Do you think that self-discipline is the ability to wake up early in the morning, work out for an hour, and then stay focused on a task for 5 hours? Or do you think that self-discipline is always eating a healthy breakfast, working out, and eating a healthy lunch each day? What about doing 10 pushups after dinner every night? This is not true self-discipline because what if you are tired after waking up or don’t have time to exercise in the morning before work.
By answering these three questions, you will quickly learn that your building self-discipline is different from the next person. People can’t just pick and choose which behaviors to implement because they will have a different definition of discipline each day (i.e., you can’t define discipline as exercise and then go out drinking on the weekend). Your definition of discipline will change every single day of life! So, to follow through on your discipline, it must be SUSTAINABLE.
Sustainability is key to success and not be frustrated because you don’t stick with your self-discipline habits every day. Throughout the years, I have learned that the more sustainable something is, the easier it will be to practice self-discipline. So what can you do to make your discipline more sustainable? Well, you must think about your discipline in terms of creating habits.
How do you create a self-discipline habit? It isn’t easy, but it is possible. First, you must start with baby steps and then gradually implement more difficult activities.
For example, if you want to wake up early every day to exercise, first try to get up early for 5 minutes to read a book. You could set an alarm clock to go off at 6 am so that the book will be there when you wake up. Then get up at 6:05 and read for 5 minutes. Then try to get up at 6:10. I would recommend using an alarm clock for this process because it can be easy to go back to sleep if you don’t have a specific period to wake up.
Also, try this method with other self-discipline habits (as long as they are related). For example, if you want to lose weight, start by doing 10 pushups every night after dinner. Don’t change your diet right now until after you have established the self-discipline habit of doing 10 pushups daily.
In today’s world, there are many distractions to prevent us from achieving our goals daily. Not everyone can remain disciplined and perform time management within their goals. This is why it helps to have a goal that is important to us, so it can motivate us and remind us how important it is to stay disciplined.
