Self Discipline - The Habit That Will Change Your Life

Self discipline is what it means to live life beyond your comfort zone and into the “extraordinary.” It is a practice that requires inner strength and staying power to manage your impulses, emotions, and behaviors in order to pursue and carry out your decisions, plans, and goals. It is the bridge between goals defined and goals achieved.

Types of Self-Discipline

Three types of self discipline are important for building a strong foundation for creating good habits and accelerating improvement in all areas of life: active discipline, reactive discipline, and proactive discipline. Knowing when and how to execute each type can help bring desired goals to fruition.

Active Discipline

Active discipline is acting in the moment and making a choice to do something that supports you in moving closer to your goals.

Start Here: Make a decision today to do something that you have been putting off and that you know will move you in the direction of your desired goal.

Reactive Discipline

Reactive discipline is pivoting when you experience uncontrollable or unforeseen circumstances and managing your thoughts and behaviors, seeing it as a learning opportunity.

Start Here: Begin with a small situation that was unexpected and work to switch gears by adjusting your mindset and asking what you learned from it and how there could be a new opportunity that comes from it.

Proactive Discipline

Proactive discipline is preparing and planning in advance and doing things in an effort to better anticipate a future challenge or opportunity in order to get the outcome you desire.

Start Here: Take one of your desired goals and write down what you believe is needed to achieve it, then identify challenges and opportunities you might encounter. Then start executing.

Developing Self-Discipline

Things to consider for developing self-discipline:

• Know Yourself: List your strengths, weaknesses, and your vices. Name each one so you can spot them and work toward either developing, celebrating, or eliminating them.

• Identify and Visualize: Clarify your goals and why they are important to you. Reminding yourself of “why” this goal is important will help you to sustain self-discipline even when things get tough.

• Take One Step: Start with just one goal. Prioritize and focus on doing one thing consistently and mastering self-discipline with that step before moving on to the next.

• Remove the Obstacles: Anything that is a distraction, temptation, or interruption to you accomplishing your goals should be removed from your environment. “Out of sight, out of mind” is real!

• Maximize Your Time: Limit time-wasting activities that are not supporting your goals. Identify when your energy is highest and target the best time of day to complete tasks.

• Use Accountability: Sharing your goals with someone you respect can ensure you have a better chance of achieving them. Having a mentor is sometimes necessary to be able to help you go beyond your perceived edge and to hold you accountable.

• Track and Celebrate: Create a habit of reflecting back on what you have achieved on a daily basis so that this acknowledgement becomes standard.

Self-Discipline Practice

If you want to fast-track your development of self-discipline, do these two things every day: make yourself do something and stop yourself from doing something.

Make Yourself Do Something: Do something that might feel hard in the moment, but will pay off down the road. This is the start of a good habit.

Examples:

• Implement a self-care step
• Make a positive financial choice
• Choose to stay calm during a confrontation
• Begin organizing an area
• Forgive yourself for a mistake and move on

Stop Yourself from Doing Something: Stop yourself from doing something that isn’t supporting progress toward your goals. Remind yourself that it is necessary to disrupt this choice if you want to get a different outcome. This is the start of breaking a bad habit.

Examples:

• Alcohol consumption
• Eating unhealthy foods
• Spending money unnecessarily
• Skipping exercise

Benefits

The primary benefit of self discipline is having control over your life. You will have better clarity and build resilience by continuing on even when faced with challenges. Self discipline allows you to make good choices backed by good habits that ultimately bridge the gap between goals defined and goals achieved.