People often say ‘I wish I had that kind of willpower’. But self-discipline is a skill you learn rather than being born with. A lack of willpower means people often don’t achieve their goals. Rhodri Jones offers tips on how to develop it
DEVELOPING SELF-DISCIPLINE is something many of us struggle with. Breaking bad habits from the past, and replacing with them with new, healthy habits for the future can be a constant battle.
Humans are all creatures of habit. Living in ways that are normal and comfortable to us are far more appealing than battling habits that will ultimately improve our quality of life.
For example, consuming a poor diet and spending endless hours lounging in front of the TV are habits that are far easier and more comfortable to maintain.
Conversely, eating a healthy, balanced and nutritious diet coupled with regular visits to the gym is often something way too far outside the comfort zone of so many.
The task in developing willpower and self-discipline is without doubt one of the toughest challenges that we face in life.
It’s so much easier to live our lives on auto-pilot, sitting back and letting our habits be formed for us rather than proactively instilling positive, healthy habits that will benefit and improve our lives.
Here are some basic tips to develop self-discipline that will help you achieve a better and more rewarding life.
1. A Sense Of Belief And Importance
The journey toward good self- discipline must begin with a deep sense of belief and conviction. You must have a strong, unshakeable belief that self-discipline is not only achievable but also that possessing such a discipline is vitally important in life.
Placing a high level of importance on developing self-discipline will mean that you’ll be more inclined to seeing the job through. Things that are unimportant, that have little or no value are the things that are often shelved or pushed to the side.
When you place a high value on something, you are then more likely to devote more time and effort toward achieving it. Therefore arriving at a place where you realise that an undisciplined life can be seriously inhibiting and destructive, then this will be a problem of enough importance for you to work on and address.
2. Define Your Goals
Take some time out to evaluate both your life currently and the kind of life you want to create for yourself in the future. This evaluation simply involves the process of defining and setting goals for yourself.
What battles do you want to focus your attentions on now? Do you want to concentrate your energies on trying to give up your smoking habit first or do you want to become more physically active and visit the gym more regularly?
Before you even attempt to overcome your habits and problems you first must clearly define what your goals are, and what you want your new life to look like.
3. Get Started
Once you have defined your goals, the next step to improve your self-discipline is to simply begin.
There’s little point having goals if you don’t make a start. As the saying goes, ‘a journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step’.
If your eventual goal was to lose 50 lbs, you can initially set out to lose just one to two lbs within the first week. This may not sound like much in the grand scale of things, but the important thing to remember is that something is better than nothing.
However, the momentum you’ll gain from doing just this will help significantly in carry- ing you toward your final destination.
The journey to developing self-discipline is paved with challenges and struggles. It’s a battle that is often hard and long, however, once accomplished the benefits will be well worth all the pain and effort.
When you achieve a strong will and discipline, success will come to you so much easier and quicker.
Written by: Rhodri Jones
(This article first appeared on voice-online)
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