7 Tips That Can Help Improve Your Discipline
Most people want something more from their lives wouldn’t that be a fair assumption to make? They may want more free time, be able to travel more, maybe they want to improve a talent or skill. Maybe better health or to be in better shape, or at least one more pleasing to themselves or the opposite sex.
They may want a bigger house, nicer car, better boat or simply more money to live on or have saved up for future years and retirement feeling more secure about their future. They may think about helping others less fortunate and may really contemplate on how to make a difference in the world. If they are Christians, they may even think about spreading Gods word and becoming more of an evangelist. The list can go on and on.
The simple truth is that most of us can have many of these things and more if we really get serious about life and work on one internal strength each of us has and which can be made stronger, discipline.
When you practice discipline or will power, you show self-restraint and this self-control can promote and generate different levels of greater achievement in your life, in all areas it is applied. It can really be viewed as cause and effect. Give in now to immediate gratification, make a poor decision and pay the consequences later. You see it all the time, people have an instant gratification attitude and give in to an impulse and over time they get led far off a goal path that they may have wanted to go down in their lives and they now wonder what happened. They may even give up on obtaining that specific goal altogether. The practice of discipline or lack of its use can have an enormous effect on one’s future life story and who they will become and should not be taken lightly.
Discipline can provide structure and stability to your life. To be disciplined is to have rules you follow on how you live your life. Rules you use to make decisions on how you treat others, about what you do with your money, even how you take care of yourself, how you eat, exercise and rest. There are many things in the world that can be distracting and cause us to give in and pull us off track and if we give in enough to our impulses, we can become weak minded, which can lead to a lifetime of regrets.
Without practicing discipline our lives could be filled with chaos not really knowing where we might end up. Discipline is the backbone of achieving life goals, it provides the strength to overcome challenges and obstacles that will come up in life. It provides energy which you can focus toward your ambitions enabling you to accomplish much more over a lifetime. Each of us has our own level of ambition and every day there are opportunities for each of us to practice discipline and self-restraint that can affect our future days.
Discipline is one of the most important skills to master that can have a huge impact in your life. It is a key ingredient to many different areas of lifetime success and each of us has it at some level.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
Jim Rohn
Improving your discipline is not something you just sit down and do, but rather a collection of things you can do that lead to becoming more disciplined. Think of it as clearing the mines from a minefield you must pass through to get to your end goal. As you remove the minds, the pathway becomes clear and you move forward much more easily.
Here are some tips to help you become more disciplined:
- Remove distractions and temptations to improve your focus and concentration. Out of sight out of mind is a good practice to remember.
- Take better care of yourself with proper amounts of sleep and healthy regular eating habits will help your willpower improve. Being hungry and tired can make you weak and vulnerable to temptations.
- When you need to accomplish something or change a life pattern, don’t wait for things to feel just right before you begin, dig in and start. Over time your mind and body will accept this as the new norm and it can become a habit.
- Setting and writing out clear goals and expectations followed up by a plan of action with tasks or steps on how you plan to accomplish something can help keep you well disciplined.
- Take a break or have a treat of some sort is a good way to reward yourself for your disciplined efforts. This can soften the rigors of discipline which can feel difficult at times and keep you moving forward to accomplishing your desired result.
- Don’t come down hard on yourself if things go awry or if you have a mis-step. We learn more from our failings than our successes, so forgive, review what happened, try not to repeat it and move on.
- Get motivated or re-energized about what you are trying to do. You know what gets you pumped up, so use that when you need to. It can help provide energy as well as change your state of mind. Music, video’s, talking with a friend or maybe reading a book can all help.
Improving your discipline can help you accomplish many different things over your lifetime. Learning to show self-restraint and not give in to temptations or satisfy the needs for immediate gratification that come up can help you build your self-esteem as well. Becoming more disciplined can really change your future over time. But be aware, it does take time and only if you practice it.
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”
Abraham Lincoln
Gary J. Kiecker
www.LifeLongU.com