8 Ways to Build Self-Discipline in Your Life

 

1. Start Small.

You don't need to wake up as a completely different person. As a cultural event, people tend to make resolutions on New Year's Day: They say, this year will be different. Well, you can make this year different, but you don't need to change everything at once. For best results, pick just one thing.

Otherwise, you can overwhelm yourself with too many changes to make at once. This defeats your intention of becoming a more self-disciplined person.

  

2. Identify What You Want to Do Differently.

If you're focusing on health, pick something that is practical and that will make a real difference in your life, and ideally, that you enjoy. That could be going to the gym, walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator or limiting the ice cream you eat.

If you want to make your career different and more successful, ask what would make a difference. Take a look at the performance of people who have the job you want. What do they do differently than you? Do they arrive early? Dress up, even though the dress code is casual? Do they respond to all emails within an hour? Figure out the characteristics that you are missing, pick an important one and build on that.

  

3. Remember You Are an Adult

Adults don't sit around and wait until someone tells them what to do; they just do it. That may mean giving up some of your down times at work, but disciplined people are the ones who succeed, and disciplined means that you keep going even when you'd rather not.

Again, you can start small. If you normally sit at your desk and play on your phone until your manager comes by and gives you a new task, set your phone time for 5 minutes. Then, when the alarm goes off, go find your manager and ask for something new to do.

Better? Work with your manager to establish such clarity about your goals and the expectations about your contributions in your job that you never have to ask your manager what to do. You just move on to the next task.

4. Make a List

Part of self-discipline is knowing what you need to do and then doing it. When you're not used to behaving in a disciplined manner, you will sometimes struggle to come up with your next activity. Start your day with a list of tasks that you need to accomplish.

You can make the tasks work-related or plan part of your day for personal items. Everything from emails to laundry to stop at the grocery store can go on the list. Checking the items off the list can help you towards developing self-discipline.

 5. Make Choices in Advance

If your goal is to pay attention in meetings, choose to leave your phone at your desk. Don't even put it in your pocket. You can't play with it if it's not there.

If you want to become more self-disciplined about food, ask the waitress to box up half your meal before she puts it in front of you or choose to always eat just half of the sandwich.

If you want to get on top of your emails, decide how many emails you'll respond to before doing something else, whether it is 5, 10, or all of them. Just decide before the situation presents itself and you'll find it a lot easier to remain steadfast in the face of temptation.

 6. Make Use of Technology

Technology makes people flighty—they can always check Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, not to mention playing games and texting friends. But there are also technological tools that can help you build self-discipline.

Additionally, you can set timers that limit the amount of time you spend playing a game, or on your favorite time-wasting website. You can use one that tracks your time to give you an idea of how you spend it and then work from there to lower the number of hours you spend being unproductive.

If your goal is a fit lifestyle with a healthy weight, regular exercise, serious walking, and a restful sleep each night, trackers exist to help you.

7. Recognize Your Limited Temptation Capabilities

If a self-disciplined life was easy, everyone would practice self-discipline. But, it's not. However, did you know that every temptation you avoid improves your ability to avoid the next temptation? So, for example, when you make decisions in advance, you reduce your temptations. This also holds true for decisions in your personal life.

Figure out a way to make the things you struggle with less available. This will lower the number of times you are tempted to do something that hurts your self-discipline. This will also save your strength for unexpected temptation.

8. Remember That Failure Is Always Part of Succeeding

Many people want to become self-disciplined and then they make a mistake in their hoped-for routine on day two and give up. You will not make yourself perfectly disciplined overnight, so expect some failure to happen along the way. But, if you plan for it, and understand that you will fail from time to time. one mistake won't derail your whole plan on your way to success.

At the same time, when you experience success, you need to celebrate. You accomplished all of the five goals that you had set for yourself this week. Reward yourself and celebrate in a way that won't undermine your success. Say that your goal is to gain new clients for your business. A bad reward would be to take three days off from prospecting. A good reward might entail lunch at a fancy restaurant with a friend.

Building self-discipline can help in all areas of your life. If you're ready to get started, pick one area and get going.

Source:www.balancecareers.com