Self-discipline is something that I have struggled with quite a lot over the years and I’d wager that many of you reading this have struggled with it as well. As human beings we always have to push ourselves in order to do even the simplest tasks. It seems we have a predilection for bouts of laziness were we refuse to do anything constructive with our time and choose to wile away the hours in front of TV or down the pub or smoking weed or whatever your favourite form of escapism happens to be.
The problem with this predilection towards laziness and ill-discipline is that it doesn’t serve us very well in terms of achieving our goals and becoming who want to be. If you are training in martial arts for instance, then in order to advance and get good you have the discipline to show up to class and actually train on a regular basis. Showing your face only once in a while is not going to get you anywhere.
Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have some kind of formidable iron will that drives me to the dojo every single time I am due to be there because I don’t possess such a thing. Most people I know don’t possess such an iron will. I still miss the odd session, though admittedly this is usually through injury or good old fashioned tiredness through working hard at my day job. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have the energy, even though if I probably pushed myself I’d be fine once I started training but I’ve already said I don’t have the discipline of a Shaolin monk.
Still, I have managed to keep training now for over twenty-five years, so that means I must have some discipline. I have also carved out a career as a writer and I’ve consistently stuck at this blog for the last six months so I’m not doing too bad. I could be better though. We could always do better, couldn’t we?
So in my quest for betterness I have looked in to improving my discipline and have come up with some methods to achieve this that have worked for me and which I am going to share with you now. You can thank me later when your instructor starts calling you by name instead of “stranger” or “mate”.
Ways to Self Discipline
Way #1: Practice being disciplined. Last year I read a very popular article by Steve Pavlina entitled How to be an Early Riser. The article addressed an issue which a lot of people struggle with, which is dragging themselves out of bed in the mornings. Now, I don’t know about you, but I needed a crane to pull me out of bed most mornings. Rising from bed was for me like being forced to exit the womb all over again, complete with screaming match and lots of foot stomping around the house until I’d had my morning coffee. When I seen this article I dove into it hoping to find a solution to a problem I’d basically learned to live with over the years.
Anyway, in the article, Steve advised that the only way to change the habit of hitting the snooze button fifty times is to actually practice getting up when the alarm goes of immediately. And how do you practice this? You get in and out of bed over and over again until the habit of rising the instant the alarm goes of becomes ingrained. I did this. For a few days I crawled in and out of bed for about an hour at a time until I was eventually able to rise in the mornings without too much difficulty.
If you are having problems getting yourself down the dojo then practice doing it. Pick a time, pack your stuff and walk out the door. Then go back in and do it all over again. Keep doing it until you don’t even think about what you’re doing. When you see it’s time for practice you just go into autopilot and head out the door.
Such behaviour may seem laughable to you, but take my word for it (as someone who struggled to get out the door) it works. It’s all about reconditioning your mind to react in a certain way once it’s time for training. The key with this sort of discipline is just not to think about it. Go into autopilot and cruise on down the dojo.
Way #2: Create enough desire to motivate yourself. Desire is important when it comes to actually motivating yourself to train, as we seen in the last article I wrote on commitment. If you find your discipline waning it is usually because your motivation is weak or no longer relevant to want to you want to achieve in your training. A strong motivation and well set goals that you really want to achieve will help greatly in spurring you into action, even at those times when you don’t feel like doing anything except laying up on the couch.
If the lazy git inside you starts to talk you out of training then just think about why you are training in the first place and realise that you have to train to get what you want. Override the inner opponent with positive and motivating self talk until you feel ready for action.
Way #3: Stay focussed. Staying focussed means setting goals and devoting your time to achieving those goals. A focussed mind is harder to dissuade than an unfocussed mind. An unfocussed mind is constantly open to influence from whatever sources of distraction happen to be around. I find it helps to actually write down on a piece of paper when I have to train and what goals I want to work on in a particular session. It’s harder to argue with yourself when the task at hand is there in front of you in black and white.
Way #4: Work on developing yourself. I’m very into personal development and I find that constantly working on yourself to change negative behaviours and create more positive habits has an over all affect on your sense of self-discipline. The more success you have in your life and the more things you do in your life, the more motivated you become and the easier it gets to be more disciplined with things.
I have found that success breeds success. There will always be things in our lives that feel like chores sometimes but these things are easier to get on with if you know that doing them will bring you success. It’s about trusting in the process of achievement. Sometimes it feels like a chore to keep updating this blog with new articles but the fact that I know that each new article published brings me closer to my goals really helps me to keep working.
Way #5: Move towards discomfort. A lack of discipline tends to leave a great big hole for a nice big comfort zone to develop. It’s like moss on a stone, it only grows when we stand still, so we have to keep moving and to keep moving we actively have to seek out discomfort and move towards it. It is only in discomfort that we grow. There is no growth in remaining at home in your comfort zone when you should be experiencing a bit of discomfort down the gym or dojo. As I talked about before in an article about how to break out of the comfort zone, discipline comes from not allowing yourself to sink into a comfort zone. Accepting discomfort into your life and realising that it is necessary for growth will by default make you more disciplined in yourself.
Learning to Bite the Bullet
The crux of the matter here is that you have to keep working at things all the time. Discipline, like most other qualities, does not come naturally or easily to most of us. We have to practice at developing it. Just as Soctrates says in Peaceful Warrior, “I practice everything.”
Everything in life has to be practiced to some extent. In the case of discipline this means continually pushing yourself to do what you have to do, no matter if you feel like doing it or not. Moods, emotions, circumstances don’t come into it. That’s what marks out successful people from those who never achieve anything. Successful people know they have to keep working on their goals everyday, even if they don’t feel like doing so, in fact, especially if they don’t feel like doing so. I of course realise that this is easier said than done most of the time, but then nothing worth achieving is ever easy, is it? If it was we would all be raging successes in our lives.
So the next time you don’t feel like training, block out the chatter from your inner-opponent and remind yourself of why you chose to train in the first place and then tell yourself that you’ll never be any good unless you get of your ass and get out the door.
Accept the discomfort and just do it.
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