Developing Self-Discipline

How can I develop self discipline? 

I love this question. Self discipline is something few of us genuinely seek after, but we should. It’s easy to think of it as captivity, but in reality, it’s freedom. It frees us from moods, cravings, whims, and addictions, which cause us far too much regret in life. So how do you develop it? Just try it. 

A part of self discipline is delaying pleasure, or making a sacrifice in exchange for some future reward. An obvious example is giving up that piece of cake and night in front of the TV in exchange for exercise, more energy, and rock hard abs. So you can start by denying yourself something. 

Give up a guilty pleasure or bad habit for a specified amount of time. You could give up TV, caffeine, sugar, Facebook, bar fights, or anything else that will be difficult. The harder it is the better (within reason). As you do this you’ll learn about yourself. Why do you give into temptation? What gives you strength to resist temptation? How does it feel to overcome a craving? 

After your designated time, try again with something else. This time use what you learned from your first experiment. As you continue to practice and learn you’ll be better prepared for more long term and complicated goals. Things like saving for retirement, or lowering cholesterol take a long time and can’t be achieved by simply not spending any more money, or not eating any cholesterol ever again. There are a lot of gray areas that will be left to your interpretation in the moment. While working on these goals always look for reasons TO keep your goal, rather than reasons to NOT keep it. With this outlook you’ll avoid justification, which is the enemy of self discipline. 

Don’t say, “I’ve worked hard, so I deserve a cookie”, because YOU DON’T DESERVE IT! What you deserve is the benefits of working out! You deserve a healthy weight, more energy, and a positive self image! Justification will destroy everything you’ve worked for if you allow it to.

Good luck in this endeavor. With self mastery comes confidence that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. There will be obstacles in your path, but you'll at least know that you never put any of those obstacles there yourself. 

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