How To Build Self-Discipline: 8 Tips For Building Unshakable Self-discipline
“Self-discipline is the No.1 delineating factor between the rich, the middle class, and the poor.” Robert Kiyosaki
What is Self-discipline?
Self-discipline starts with the mastery of your thoughts. If you can control what you think, you can control what you do.
What is the core of achieving a good life, the major key to the good life? The major key is not in learning how to set goals. It’s not in how to better manage your time, it’s not in mastering the attributes of leadership.
Feeding knowledge to your mind is not enough to achieve success. If it is then why the vast majority of people wandering here and there but not getting their destiny? There might be so many answers to this question but the fundamental answer is the ‘absence of self-discipline’. It doesn’t really matter how educated or how intelligent you are if you don’t use it, you’re gonna fail to achieve your goal.
“The world is full of educated idiots.” John Wayne
Tips for Building Self-Discipline
1. If It’s About to Be, It’s Up to Me
No matter what your goals are in life, how intelligent or educated you are. If you lack self-discipline, you’ll suffer in mediocrity. No one’s gonna sacrifice for you. It’s you and only you who will be responsible for your future. It’s up to you whether you make or break it. What type of life you want to live is getting decided by the choices you are making in your daily life.
Our mind resists tasks that are cognitive or boring. We give excuses to ourselves like – ‘we should do what we love.’ But this is not how things work. Everyone has some kind of struggle in their life. Every successful person in the world has been through this. Bill Gates loves to code but it doesn’t mean he never struggled to learn to code. The most successful persons work smartly whether he is a writer or a politician.
It’s been a custom that if you love to do something you can do it without any struggle. It feels like when we say ‘Do what you love to do’. The message from this saying is clear but we taking it in the wrong way. And I also believe that we should do what we love to do but it doesn’t mean we’ll not face any problem with it.
David Goggins lose 45 kgs exercising daily for 8-11 hours in 3 months to be recruited in the US Navy. Did David make it easily? No. Thoughts like ‘It’s very tough’, ‘I can’t’ would have come into his mind too. What was that which made David do it? Self Discipline.
2. Don’t Wait For It to ‘Feel Right’
Self-discipline meaning is to do what you should do whether your mood is in favor or not. Make some plans and start implementing them. If you make a plan to study for three hours then do it whether your mood is ready for it or not. But remember one thing, start small. If you can hardly study for one hour then you can’t stretch it to three hours suddenly. You have to do it smartly. First, study for 1 hour then stretch it to 1 hour and 10 minutes and keep pushing your limits slowly. This is how you can build new habits and self-discipline.
3. Eat Healthily and Regularly
A well maintained healthy diet gives you the energy to focus on your task throughout the day. If you are hungry, you can’t focus well. If you eat too much junk food, you can be ill and you can’t focus on being ill. And if you can’t focus then how you can build self-discipline? So what to do is straight and simple. Have a well-balanced diet regularly. It doesn’t mean you can’t have junk food. Yes, you can. But in an amount that is negligible when it comes to destroying your self-discipline. And it would be much better if you offer junk food as a reward or treat to yourself after accomplishing your weekly or daily goals.
4. Get a Better Sleep
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I’m reborn.” Mahatma Gandhi
Better sleep makes your mood better. It means you’ll be energized the whole day and can focus better on your work. Sleep improves your concentration power and higher cognitive function which leads you to be successful at your work. So try to improve your sleep quality to build self-discipline.
5. Change Your Identity Instead of Behavior
This thing will really help you with developing self-discipline. It’s been mentioned very well in James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.
Imagine you’re at a birthday party and someone offering you a piece of cake. Now, what your answer should be if you’re trying to lose weight nowadays? It may be, ‘hey, I can’t have it because I’m trying to lose weight these days.’ This response is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. But assume what if you would simply say, ‘hey, I don’t eat cakes.’ The second response shows the change in your identity while the first was showing your behavior that could be changed. The second response shows that you’re a person who doesn’t eat cakes at all while the first is showing that there are few chances to have it.
Just like that if you want to build a reading habit, say to yourself that ‘I am a reader’ instead of ‘I am reading nowadays’ or ‘I want to be a reader’.
You are reading this article to build self-discipline. So, say to yourself that ‘I am a self-disciplined person’ instead of ‘I am trying to build self-discipline’.
6. Obstacles are the Parts of Success
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” Micheal Jordan
“Failure is success in progress.” Albert Einstein
You are trying to build a new habit of self-discipline and I’m quite sure you’ll fail many times. But remember one thing, ‘obstacles are the part of success’. Every successful person has been through some kind of obstacles in his/her journey to success.
It’s natural that anything feels hard in the starting. You try, you fail. You try, you fail. And these obstacles that are the main cause of the failure, is gonna succeed you in life.
7. Don’t Run toward Perfection
“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist…..Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist” Stephen Hawking
As you know that if you try to learn new skills or build new habits, there will be some or more imperfections. Because you are not a master at it. So, it’s ok to be imperfect.
Find out your mistakes and work on them to master that skill. This is the only way to achieve mastery. Running toward perfection will never let you reach the best level of self-discipline.
8. Pardon Yourself and Move Ahead
There will be so many discomforts and setbacks in building the habit of self-discipline. But never feel regret on them instead learn from the mistakes that caused the setbacks and try not to repeat that mistake again. It might be possible that you repeat those mistakes but remind yourself not to do that again and move ahead.
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