7 simple ways to improve your self-discipline

Many of us have held on to long-cherished goals since we were children. Some of us have actualized these goals, while many others have not. Fortunately, once we become adults and have more control over our lives, we increase our chances of manifesting our goals.

Of course, some of us have a harder time implementing and actualizing our goals than others. And one of the main reasons for this is a lack of discipline. Self-discipline is our ability to control our urges and distractions long enough to achieve our goals.

Whether our goal is to finish school, get our finances together, or start a family, we have to set realistic goals and take the necessary steps to make them a reality. Here are the seven best tips for improving self-discipline:— 

1. Set realistic goals:  When we’re on a mission, it seems wise to take care of the larger tasks first. However, larger goals are harder to reach, which makes self-discipline harder. For instance, we may want to lose a significant amount of weight; however, after training hard for a few weeks and seeing very little results, it’s easy to give up.

Therefore, it’s far better to commit to a reasonable goal like dropping a few inches a month than to choose one that overwhelms you and causes you to throw in the towel too soon.

2. Avoid temptation: When it comes to self-discipline, it’s best that we stay away from things that can take us away from our goal. If we are trying to quit smoking, it’s important to stay away from people who regularly smoke cigarettes. This way, we’re not tempted to do it with them.

Without a doubt, this tip can be one of the hardest to implement, but it’s also one of the most beneficial. So be sure to keep your vices out of reach. Because when our vices are out of our reach, it’s easier to focus on other things, like our goals.

3. Do a countdown: We’ve all had those pesky “I’ll do it later” moments, a.k.a. A procrastination. Now, believe it or not, procrastinating is one of self-discipline’s greatest rivals. In a sense, they are antithetical to each other; they are each other’s opposites.

Fortunately, there is a way to defeat self-discipline’s arch nemesis. Just do this: when we’re feeling lazy or hesitant to follow through with our goal, conduct a simple countdown. Seriously, doing a simple count can help defeat procrastination. Counting down from ten can get us out of bed for a jog or get us off of the couch to cook dinner for our family.

The countdown gives us a bumper before springing into action. If necessary, we can give ourselves as much as a minute and work our way down.

4. Reward Good Behavior: Unfortunately, we’re usually better at punishing ourselves for poor behavior than rewarding good behavior. From now on, we need to start giving ourselves praise when we stay on track to meet our goals.

Now, the rewards don’t have to be large or extravagant. In fact, your reward can be as simple as allowing yourself a cheat dessert after eating healthy six days of the week.

In some cases, rewards can be a break. It’s possible to overextend ourselves with little to no rest, especially with physical goals. Keep in mind that we don’t want to go overboard with rewards. By rewarding ourselves with every minor goal we meet, we can become counterproductive and even stagnant in our ability to self-regulate.

5. Recruit Someone to Help with Accountability: Having someone to support our efforts is great for a number of reasons. For one, there’s someone there to encourage and motivate us to move forward. It’s also great to have someone there to hold us accountable when we begin to slack.

Say we’re trying to go into business for ourselves. There’s a lot of work that goes into entrepreneurship, and procrastination can make or break our chances of success. If a friend or partner helps us stay focused, we’ll have an easier time getting to the finish line. Even when times are hard, they can give us the motivation we need as opposed to giving up.

6. Understand Your Weaknesses: Before we start our self-discipline journey, it’s important that we are honest about our shortcomings prior to setting our goals. Once we identify what we struggle with, we can work on overcoming it and moving closer to what we’re trying to achieve.

For example, we may have a hard time saying no to people we love, even if it gets in the way of accomplishing our personal goals. Over time, you’ll learn how to turn our weaknesses into strengths.

7. Prioritize Wellness: This is easily one of the most important tips to improve self-discipline. All of the hard work is irrelevant if we’re not taking care of our physical, mental, and emotional health.

When it comes to discipline, to get optimal results, we need to maintain healthy diets, get enough rest, and keep our stress levels at bay. Once we discipline ourselves when it comes to our well-being, we’ll have an easier time and more energy to actionize our goals.

Final Thoughts: We all can benefit from perfecting our self-discipline. Using tips to be disciplined in life will not only help with productivity; it will also benefit our overall wellness and ability to connect with others. Best of all, we don’t have to do it alone. By reaching out to others, we can help each other avoid giving up on our dreams.

Source: The Strive