How To Discipline Yourself

Are you willing to discipline yourself?

Have you been having challenges with your bad habits and are willing to get over it?

It is not a new thing that people with a high degree of self-control spend less of their time contemplating whether to do one thing or the other.

They can pick what is right for them at the moment.

Besides, they prefer facing hard times now to have long-term enjoyment later.

It is very unusual for them to make decisions or give in to their impulses or negative feelings.

This is because they have self-discipline.

Paraventure, you also want to build your own discipline, then you have come to the right place.

In this blog post, we will be highlighting the tips on how you can discipline yourself.

Read on to find out more!

How To Build Self-discipline

For every successful leader, business owner, or regular individual, one thing they associate themselves with is what we call self-discipline.

Be-it success in their business, personal life, career, or profession; if you check through them, you will see a trait of self-discipline/self-control.

Are you planning on accomplishing your set goals?

Then you need to understand how to discipline yourself.

This is very important.

Besides, it is impossible to form any good habit without having the ability to discipline your actions and behaviors.

The bottom line is if you want to become a better person, experience growth in life, or wish to succeed in anything you find yourself doing; then you have to be self-disciplined.

What is Discipline?

To some people, discipline feels like punishment while to another, it serves as a rule or regulation to oversee how an organization, country is governed.

Similarly, when it comes to organizing your life and controlling behavior, discipline is very important.

It is also a way of bringing stability and structure into your life.

Moreover, it serves as a way of promoting good behavior.

So, we define discipline as a way of controlling your own life, emotions, feelings, and overcoming your weaknesses.

It is the way you motivate yourself, do what is right, and remain consistent until you accomplish your set goals.

Building your self-discipline can look gigantic and overwhelming.

The point is you should start small be determined and persistent.

Strategies For Developing Self-control

There are thousands of ways on how you can build your self-discipline.

Similarly, there are different aspects of your life you can choose to build self-discipline on.

You can choose to discipline yourself on your food consumption, your punctuality at work, or whatever you wish.

Moreover, you can choose to be disciplined in the area of managing your time, staying productive, and getting things done.

Notwithstanding, which area or aspect you want to work on, we have done our research and come up with a few tips on how you can discipline yourself.

Ensure you go through each of the points and commit them to heart.

This way, you will be able to be discipline and build your self-control.

Here are some guidelines on how you can discipline yourself.

Understand Your Weakness

One of the best ways in which you can develop your self-discipline is to identify your weaknesses.

For whatever habit you are trying to build on, there is a weakness you are trying to overcome.

For instance, say you’re trying to work on your diet.

Then, having junk food such as cookies around you will definitely be a weakness and can trigger the bad habit you’re trying to stop.

Self-control becomes easier when you can get your weakness out of sight.

So, the ability to understand what your bad habits triggers or weaknesses are will give you an edge to overcome them.

Hence helping you to be disciplined.

Some people believe they can get over their bad habits without getting rid of their weaknesses.

This is because they don’t want to admit that they have areas of weaknesses.

Examples of such are smokers.

Most of them never want to admit that having a stick of cigarette around them makes it difficult for them to give up smoking.

They believe they can do without smoking even when they are surrounded by cigarettes; but in a long run, they end up smoking.

If you want to build your self-control and discipline, then identify your weakness and do away with them.

Remove all sorts of temptations and triggers from your environment.

This will inevitably help you build discipline and self-control.

This is because, for the fact that you aren’t seeing those tempting things around, you wouldn’t be moved to do it.

Thus, helping you to get over such a bad habit.

Manage Your Time Well

Another area of your life where you can build self-discipline is in your time management.

So many of us are not disciplined when it comes to how we use our time.

We tend to give excuses for every single thing in life.

You probably get up late from bed, or you get late for an appointment most times.

However, your ability to be self-disciplined will help you to manage your time effectively, notwithstanding the number of tasks you have.

When you are disciplined with your time, you will manage your time well and show up timely for your meetings.

Moreover, to be successful in anything in life and career be it your position as a business owner or leader; you have to be disciplined with your time.

This is so that you can be productive and efficient in whatsoever you do.

A few ways you can manage your time are;

Learn how to stay away from your phone: Lacking the discipline to stay away from your phone goes a long way in affecting your productivity. If you can turn off your phone, then do it. This is because it is easy to go to your social media account instead of doing something useful and important at that moment.
Have a routine morning plan: Having a routine plan of how your day will be spent is another way in which you can manage your time more effectively. Hence, you will be more focused and discipline doing what you are supposed to be doing instead of doing something else.
Understand when you are more productive: A lot of us have different productivity hours. If you identify that you are more productive in the morning, then you should always use that moment to focus on your set goals to achieve more.

Bottom line is that if you can control the usage of your time, it increases your discipline level, and help you achieve most of your long and short-term goals.

Staying Healthy

Another area of your life you can choose to be discipline is in the area of your health.

Most of us lack discipline when it comes to eating healthy, exercising, or working out.

To build a healthy lifestyle, you have to break some unhealthy habits and have a plan for your meal.

For instance, if you are the type that eats fast food every day, it would look difficult to break free from such a habit.

However, to improve your overall health by building more healthy habits you need to be disciplined with how you eat.

This means doing away with those fast food and junks meal you prefer to eat.

Doing this will not only build your self-control but also enhance your health status.

Exercise Often

Many of us find it difficult to build a habit of exercising.

We seem to find it difficult and tiring.

Besides, some have too many things to worry about they merely think about or schedule a time for any workout.

Scheduling a time for exercising and trying your best to maintain or remain consistent with the process will not only help you to be disciplined, but it will also improve your physical and mental health status.

Thereby, helping you discipline yourself and improve your overall health.

Build Your Organization Skills

Getting organized is a habit you need to build not only in your professional life but also in your personal life.

However, for you to be organized and achieve more in life, you need to be disciplined.

Changing from an unorganized life to an organized one is not something that would happen overnight.

You need to take small consistent actions towards becoming more organized with your stuff.

Hence, you will need to start small.

You might need to start with one task then follow by another.

Simply pick up one thing and stick with it for the moment.

For instance, you can choose to start by always keeping your work desk/space, bookshelf organized, then follow with arranging and cleaning up your shoes and clothes closet.

Overall, being organized requires a high level of discipline in the way you handle stuff around you and treat tasks generally.

Hence, by building your organization skills you’re building up self-discipline.

Set Clear Goal Or Challenge

Another way you can build your discipline level is to also challenge yourself.

Until you can set clear goals or deadlines, you will realize your self-control will not be discovered.

So, setting goals will help you to remain disciplined and remain focus on the goals you have set.

Whatever you are finding difficult to achieve, if you can challenge yourself on it, then you will definitely beat your nonchalant habit.

Let’s say, you are a writer but feel lazy or find it not interesting to write as you usually do, the best you can do is to challenge yourself to write at least 3 times a week.

The bottom line is that you have to stay committed to your set goals and be determined to accomplish them.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t live up to your goals or challenge.

Overall, setting goals and achieving them requires a high level of commitment.

Hence, by setting goals, challenging yourself, and committing to those set goals, you’re directly and indirectly building your self-discipline.

Identify The Risk Or Reward

Most times, when you can identify the risk or reward in doing something, it will boost your self-discipline.

What has made most people discipline today is the risk of punishment they have recognized to be attached to whatever they do.

For example, when you understand that eating junk food and garbage impacts your health negatively, this will prompt you to stop or limit your consumption of such food.

Or perhaps you are trying to lose weight?

You might not like the idea of you losing weight but the risk of being an obese patient will definitely want you to go for those workout sessions.

This is because you are aware of the health hazards such as heart diseases and in the worst case, death attached to being obese.

As such you’ll try as much as possible to avoid foods that could expose you to such risk.

Thereby, helping you to be disciplined with your diet.

Similarly, if you can identify the benefit of doing something, it motivates you to keep up with the process to get a better result.

For instance, you understand that if you pass a particular professional exam, it will set you up for promotion in your office.

This will inevitably motivate you to study even when you don’t feel like it so that you can do well in the exams.

Thereby, making you discipline yourself to do the needful to achieve your goals in life generally.

Build A Ritual Habit

Building a habit is another way you can develop discipline.

This is because you will remain dedicated to that habit you are trying to emulate.

Let say you want to curb your habit of lateness to work.

For someone like this, you can set your alarm to an hour or 2 hours earlier than your usual wake up time.

Since you have determined to get up early, you wouldn’t be pushing the snooze button when the alarm rings.

You have to understand that at first, you might not really meet up but as time goes on, you will begin to get used to the habit.

Moreover, you can also decide to get your things: bags, clothes, shoes ready for work the night before.

Doing so constantly will help you form a new habit that will help you become more disciplined in the aspect of waking up early and getting ready for work on time.

Have A Mentor Or Role Model

Having a mentor is a way of building a strong support system that helps you become more disciplined.

However, the mentor or role model should be someone with the qualities or attributes you’re trying to build up.

Apart from being a good example of the attributes you’re trying to develop, they can also give you the moral and emotional support you need to accomplish your goals.

Building discipline is just like building any new habit.

It can be difficult to remain consistent and committed to the process.

However, if you have positive people supporting you every step of the way, it becomes quite easy.

Hence, when thinking of building discipline, have positive people around you who can model good behavior and support you every step of the way.

Benefits Of Self-discipline

There are a lot of benefits you will enjoy when you have self-discipline.

A few of them are;

You will be able to withstand temptations: When you have been able to build your self-control, you develop the strong will to resist temptation and the urge to engage in negative behavior. This is because, you will be able to control yourself and focus on what is important to you, your career, and your health.
It also helps you to form new habits: Discipline helps you to create new habits that will be beneficial to you. Example of such habit includes punctuality, limitation in drinking or smoking, dieting, exercising, etc.
It helps achieve your goals.
Boost your career and academic success.