Self-Discipline

Self-discipline has been called many things, among them, "the master-key to success". Certainly, lacking some measure of personal discipline will keep you from maximizing your potential. Consider the extreme... people who don't exert any self-discipline frequently end up with their lives a mess and often destroyed. Look around you, think of the people you know... you'll soon know what I mean.

Discipline is has two essential ingredients... desire and confidence. You obviously have to truly want what you're going after in order to exert any discipline. The other component is confidence (or belief). It's imperative that you believe you'll be successful to access that wellspring of discipline. You may want to be a millionaire (or have 0% body fat or write "The Great American Novel" or whatever) but if you don't think you'll get it done, you'll flounder... you'll stumble right at the starting gate. This is the primary reason why self-confident people are, as a rule, more successful in most endeavors than the population as a whole.

Imagine someone denigrated on a frequent basis, frequent enough that they would lose any and all belief they could accomplish anything. This poor beleaguered soul would unable to bring forth the discipline required to be successful in pretty much any endeavor. When you don't believe you can do anything, you won't actually do anything. Simple as that.

Just because someone is not taking action towards a goal, that doesn't mean they don't want it. It's likely that they don't beleive it's possible for them. One way to overcome this issue is to focus on the process rather than the objective. I have a close freind who would like to get physically fit. He goes to exercise classes here and there but has trouble sticking with the sustained effort required. My sense is that there's something of a tunnel vision on his part... he has a nice vision of his future fit self, but it seems so far away, almost unobtainable. I have another freind who takes fitness classes a number of times a week, jogs, etc. She's able to derive pleasure from the workouts themselves and take pride in the little milestones along the way. This is a good example of the phrase, "the journey is the reward". Savor each stepping stone and revel in the fact that you're a better person simply by virtue of your effort.

Developing one's self-confidence is also a great boon to self-discipline. There are a number of ways to do this. It was suggested to me once to list my good qualities. When you put some thought into such a list you'll find that you have actually more positive qualities than you imagined. What's been even more helpful (to me anyway) is the realization that others have succeeded and overcome some pretty tough odds, others that might not have had all the advantages I do. The day you can ask yourself the question, "why not me?" and suddenly all your old negative answers fall flat... that's the day your self-discipline really kicks in.

You should realize that your self-discipline is like a muscle... you have to exercise it frequently or else it will atrophy and grow flabby for lack of use. Setting small goals is great for this. Try getting out of the house in the morning in thirty minutes instead of forty-five. Have two cups of coffee instead of four. Watch only one hour of TV tonight rather than three. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Each time you exert that self-discipline muscle it grows even stronger than before.

Mastery of your self-discipline is, in the end, mastery of yourself. Once you're a truly self-disciplined person there's simply nothing you can't accomplish.