Self-Discipline pt. 3

How I build Self-Discipline

If you haven’t read parts 1 & 2 please go back and do that first.

First, I want to say that I have never been a fan of self-help books, or life hacks, or anything that says, “follow these three steps to have a perfect life”. I think people are much more complicated than that, and what works for one person may not work for someone else. That’s why I titled this “how I build self-discipline” not “how to build self-discipline”. I want to share the ways I keep working when the motivation just isn’t there, as well as give a list of things that I do to try and build self-discipline. Hopefully something I talk about here can help you, but maybe not. I trust that you will use your own judgement when reading and take only the parts you find useful. 

It’s not easy to build self-discipline because you need some initially before you can even try to build more. It’s like a muscle, you have to use it for it to get stronger. So, a good way to get started is to make sure you take advantage of those moments of ‘motivation’ or ‘willpower’ when you have them. Everyone has moments when they feel excited about a new project or goal. It feels like in one day you are going to fix all your problems and start being the perfect person. That feeling is usually gone 24 hours later, but it can still be incredibly useful when you have it. You see a lot of this in the gym around new years. January arrives and suddenly there are twice as many people in the gym as there were in December. Some of them stick around, but most start to disappear by February. But even though they quit after a month, one month of consistent exercise a is still a lot better than zero.

Most people can probably relate to this. You saw an ad for exercise equipment on TV, or a movie about someone who was really strong, or some other form of an archetypal human physique, and that feeling of motivation hits. Maybe you even went out and bought some exercise equipment or a gym membership, and you were working out consistently for a few weeks, but eventually life hit, something changed your schedule, a vacation, an illness, relatives visiting, maybe you just lost the motivation. Whatever it was, it made you stop working out for a few days and then you just never started again. The tough part is holding on to that discipline after motivation is gone. 

I use exercise as an example because so many people can relate to it, but this can happen with any goal that you set. Motivation is an emotion; it cannot be trusted to stick around. So how do you keep going when the motivation is gone? You let the motivation go. Commit yourself to showing up and doing what you need to do no matter how you feel.  Otherwise, you will constantly be battling with yourself to try and find that motivation in order to work toward your goal. Exercising (or whatever it is you are trying to do) needs to stop being something you do when you are motivated and become something you just do. Learn to go and do the work even when you don’t feel like it. If every day you are trying to find the same motivation you had on day one, you are going to spend more time trying to motivate yourself than you will actually working toward your goal. 

I try and workout every day, I used to have a roommate who would work out occasionally. If he was around when I was going to the gym, I would invite him to come with me. Occasionally he would say “yes” but most of the time he would say “I don’t feel like it right now” and I would respond “neither do I”. The only difference between us was that I would then go workout and he would stay home. I’m not trying to put down my friend, physical fitness was not nearly as important to him as it was to me and he could still beat me in nearly every athletic activity we did together. But this is a perfect example of the mindset you need to have in order to build self-discipline. You have to be willing to go and do something that you absolutely do not feel like doing. It has to become a habit. 

I used to work at a restaurant. At first, I loved it. It was once of my first jobs, everything was new and exciting, it was great. Then the newness wore off and I started dreading going into work every day. I would sit in the parking lot staring at the restaurant until the very last second and I would always try and get out early. I would even daydream about getting fired. This phase lasted a lot longer than the “everything is great” phase, but eventually it went away as well and what I was left with was a habit. Going to work was no longer something I looked forward to, neither was it something I dreaded, it was just something I did, it was a habit. This is the place you need to get to in order to build self-discipline. Hopefully, you set goals that you enjoy working toward so that you don’t have to ever go through a phase of “dreading going to work”. It is, after all, completely up to you to choose what you are going to do with your life. So, I suggest choosing something you enjoy. But even with things you enjoy there will be days you just don’t feel like putting in the work, and that’s when you need it to be a habit.

Now, sometimes you want to do something that is too difficult for you. You just don’t have enough self-discipline to make yourself do it and you fail to keep the habit. That is ok. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes. The trick is to make sure that every time you do slip up, you don’t give up completely. Building self-discipline is a long process. If something is just too difficult for you to make yourself do, forget about it for a while and focus on the things you can do. There is always something you can do today that will make you better tomorrow. Focus on the little things and you will slowly become disciplined enough to handle the big things. With that said, here is my list of ways I build self-discipline.

1. Workout 

This might be the goal for some of you, others are probably not interested in physical fitness. But regardless of how much you want to be in shape, working out consistently, especially when you don’t want to, is a great way to build self-discipline.

 

2. Wake up early

What is considered “early” will vary from person to person, but waking up before you absolutely have to is difficult if you are in the habit of sleeping in and it will give you some extra time in the mornings to work toward your goals. 

3. Go to sleep early

For some people it might be even more difficult than waking up early. If you are going to wake up early this is sort of a requirement because you do not want to be sleep deprived. Making sure you get enough sleep is crucial to being productive with the time you spend awake. Some people claim that the don’t need as much sleep as other people, but nearly every scientific study that has been done on sleep proves that that isn’t true.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073412/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150211132111.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181009135845.htm

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721815000157

Look at your schedule and figure out what is the earliest time you could get to bed. Then set your alarm for 8 hours past that point and make sure you are in bed at that time. Also, don’t take your phone to bed. Leave it on the other side of the room so that you won’t stay up late scrolling through social media and when your alarm goes off you have to get up in order to turn it off. 

4. Take cold showers

This one is not fun, but it is an easy way to start building self-discipline because you can use it to push yourself just a little bit further each time. What I mean is that you don’t have to step into a freezing cold shower right at the beginning. You can start by just turning the water slightly colder at the very end of your shower before you get out. And work your way up from there making the water a little colder each day and staying under it a little bit longer until you are able to take a fully cold shower. Cold water is also known to have numerous health benefits. For more information look HERE

5. Control your diet

For some people this will be nearly impossible, for others it will be to easy, but like the cold showers, you can choose your own level of difficulty. Try giving up one thing, like soda or candy, or just choose something slightly healthier when you go to your favorite restaurant. There are endless possibilities, and everyone is different, so it’s up to you to figure out what works best for you.

6. Delete an app from your phone

Is there one app that you spend most of your time on? Get rid of it. Then, every time you take out your phone and realize that the app isn’t there, you are faced with a decision of whether to re-download the app or not. If you choose not to download the app, you have just taken another step toward self-discipline.

7. Work longer than you have to

Most people don’t love their jobs. If that is you, you have a great opportunity to use your job to build self-discipline. Instead of arriving at the last possible second and leaving the moment you can, try arriving ten minutes early and leaving ten minutes late. It isn’t much, but when you are looking forward to getting home that ten minutes takes a lot of self-discipline. It will also make a good impression on your boss at work and possibly help you get a raise. 

8. All the little things

Every day you will have little opportunities to build self-discipline; Take the stairs instead of the elevator; Order a salad instead of a burger; Go for a run instead of watching TV. Building self-discipline is just about choosing the difficult thing, the thing you don’t want to do. The more you are able to do that, the easier it will become. So if you really want to become more disciplined, just choose to do difficult things.