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How to Practice Self Discipline Like a Pro!

Self-discipline, for me, has always been that ever-intriguing topic of discussion that I pick up whenever planning my goals in life. Or maybe planning just a single day. We all need self-discipline, absolutely require it; so what would be some of the most effective and promising habits of performing that degree of self-discipline that we only see in the most successful people?

What is Self-Discipline? 

We all know what discipline is: someone may ask us to maintain discipline while we are sitting in an examination hall or a library. Someone may ask us to be disciplined in performing a given task or meeting a deadline. Discipline is what people look for at any given circumstance when they require the best performance from themselves or someone else. 

Self-discipline is also, coincidentally, what people need to reach their goals, faster and far more efficiently.

In other words, people look for maintaining discipline to ensure the smooth flow of tasks at hand.

And guess what, it also improves their mental state because they are confident that they are not making things messy. 

Self-discipline is when you ask yourself to be disciplined. 

It’s when you practice that form of mindset that enables you to become the best, most successful version of yourself. You learn how to control your emotions, when most people sometimes aren’t even able to understand what their emotions are.

Self-discipline is when you direct your own self to work towards a higher level of peace and a better lifestyle. It is knowing when to work and when to rest. Self-discipline is believing that we can achieve all those things we want to achieve that are often out of our reach. 

So what do we do? We train ourselves. 

Now I won’t take up too much time delving deeper into self-discipline and ranting facts you won’t need, I’ll just lay down a 13-step guide which would introduce you to the process of practicing self-discipline in your life and getting the best and most productive results out of it. Here’s how to Practice self-discipline.

1# Know what you want to do—the first milestone of achieving self-discipline. 

I think this is the first step anyone takes in the process of upgrading themselves, their lives or both. They figure out what do they mean to do, want to achieve, or want to become.

This is where it starts from. After all, where are you going to direct all the discipline and skills you gather?

That’s right. 

You are going to direct all of it to this cause. In the initial stages, you don’t need to have a clear idea of what you have to do, even a rough sketch would work. But keep in mind that soon enough you will have to have the clarity in your mind.

 

#2 Tell yourself it’s going to take time, energy, sleep and TV. 

Now, this motive of yours should be something you should be driven about.

So you’ll need to give yourself a mirror talk—telling yourself that if this is what you want, then you will need to give up on many things such as your sleep or Netflix. It comes with a price. 

And it’s going to take time and mental and physical energy. If, and only if, you are willing to sacrifice all of that, then go ahead with reading the rest of the steps. 

 

3# Formulate a plan of how your ideal, most productive, and self-disciplined day looks like. 

You must have enough idea of how your idealistic, productive and best schedule day looks like. If you don’t, think about it. Design it. 

Now put it on a paper.

Let the ideas pour out of your mind and formulate a plan. Once you have gotten the plan ready, all you need to do is act upon it.

And that brings us to the hardest part of it all.

Taking action.

 

4# Tell yourself that procrastination is your worst enemy. 

The world is full of distractions, and all those things that are stopping you from doing what you need to do.

There are just so many distractions, and many of these distractions come from within you.

You are your biggest distraction.

Whenever you are sitting down to work, there is somehow this voice coming from inside you, and it says that you need to do this, do that, you need to check emails, see what your friends on Instagram are liking and posting, you need to see what new notification just arrived, you need to open up your TV and finish that show you were watching.

These were the outer distractions.

Then there are the distractions within you, when all of a sudden you start remembering embarrassing memories and your mind starts going back to some day in the past.

This is when you procrastinate.

This is what you need to stop.

This means eliminating the misconception that something important and really informational is waiting for you behind that fragile black screen. Think of it as just a black hole.

And whatever people on social media are saying, whatever new film is releasing in the cinemas, it can wait. 

 

5# Don’t let opinions affect you, unless they’re facts. 

Many of us experience originally high level of belief in ourselves, but it sometimes falters because of the mindless opinion of someone else. These “someone else” kind of people don’t usually matter. Unless when they do, then you’ll know.

But we need to remember that not everyone is going to feel great about our achievements, so not everyone is going to be happy in our happiness.

People are going to pull you down to their level, and fill your mind up with nonsense that you shouldn’t believe. This disturbs your mental peace.

You need to bring yourself to not mind all that nonsense, because it’s only opinions and not universal facts.

 

#6 Know that half of the things you worry about won’t matter years from now. 

All the trivial things you worry about right now are not permanent.

The only thing constant is change.

It is you who needs to adapt.

We worry about so many things right now but we all need to realize that after 10 years, none of this would matter.

The only thing that would matter would be how much we achieved, how far did we come in life, and what we have made out of our time and energy.

 

#7 Respecting ourselves. Respecting others. 

Self discipline is all about becoming that alpha version of yourself, building a character and an unbeatable and unbreakable mindset.

For that, you need to be proud of yourself.

You need to respect everyone you come across, respect all opinions and personalities. You also need to respect yourself, that’s a given.

We all need to love ourselves. Self-discipline comes with self love. 

Respect for oneself. Belief in oneself. Love for oneself.

 

#8 Stick to your plans and habits. 

We are frequently constructing plans and schedules that put forward how are day should look like. It’s like an overview.

But do we always stick by them? No, we don’t.

I tell myself that it is fine, even if I don’t follow the plan for one day, it’s still okay.

I can feel how it is especially hard to believe that it’s fine when you made plans and habits and didn’t stick by them.

So I want to tell you, it is okay.

Though it’s necessary to follow the rules and procedures and create only good habits, it is fine if sometimes your own bodily health or needs hold you back.

You have a sound mind only when you are stress–free, guilt-free and disease-free.

 

9# You need to make someone proud. 

 Let that someone be you.

Make yourself proud for what you have achieved.

Along with it you need to make your parents proud too, or anyone else who has ever believed in you, even when you didn’t believe in yourself. 

That someone deserves applause.

 

#10 Don’t let emotions overwhelm you. 

 Feelings are nice to have.

But know what’s even nicer—mental stability.

And sometimes the emotions you feel might jeopardise your mental state.

They might overwhelm you to no extent, they might hit you like a bullet train.

The environment inside your mind determines the environment outside in the world. I think this is true, not the other way round.

Because let’s face it, even if you’re sitting on a giant wheel in the top booth and looking at the prettiest scenery, but you are so upset from inside, feeling sad or unwell, then all of it would be for nothing.

You won’t find the beauty in the things around you in other situations, and this instability of emotions will just end up creating a whirlpool inside your head and lower your productivity or happiness level.

So there’s a way out—practice controlling your emotions and feelings.

The goal for right now is to get past the point where the emotions are controlling you.

 

#11 Install the four Cs—Courage, Confidence, Consistency, and Calm. 

These are the four requisites of a disciplined person.

The courageous. Some people are courageous, but we all have the capacity to be courageous.

We just have to put it to use.

Courage is a decision you take, a commitment you make. It’s a leap of faith.

Same goes for confidence. Some people come across as confident, sometimes overconfident, giving the image that they have got it all—talent, skill, and the knowledge of how to put it to use.

While some of us have more time than others, agreed, but all of us have the power to employ the same level of skills into something, and to upgrade our skills as new challenges come up.

But keeping all that aside and going further, we realise that if we want to, we can also incorporate within ourselves a very high level of confidence.

Confidence is after all, courage in a different form. We need to be confident in making decisions and speaking them out. We need to become the charismatic and reasonable person we look up to.

Consistency is also something we can’t overlook. It is something that we need to have because we can’t be disciplined on one good, happy day, and then forget all about our values and beliefs on the bad, sick day.

The key to forming a habit is consistency, so, needless to say, the key to forming a habit of discipline is consistency too.

The fourth and the last thing to be is to be calm.

No, don’t panic. The last thing a disciplined person would do is to panic.

So if things go bad try to look at the solution instead of spending time worrying about the problem.

 

#12 Stay humble. 

 No one likes arrogant and selfish jerks who are full of themselves.

You should know that self discipline is knowing the consequences of your actions and your words, and not just to the benefit of hindsight; you need to know it before you perform those actions or speak those words.

If they’re going to hurt somebody, you need to stop with that.

If you are so full of yourself you won’t have any place left in you, neither for God, as they say, nor for discipline.

 

 #13 Rely on yourself. That’d make you self disciplined.

Rely on yourself. No one else. 

Have your own back.

You won’t let yourself down.

 

Self-Discipline is Not A Schedule

Discipline is not a schedule, it’s a habit.

Self-discipline is not just a one time thing, it’s not something you do just while you are accomplishing a particular goal, or are stuck in a situation and want to come out.

You incorporate discipline into your every moment of every day.

We keep practising it until it becomes a habit, until we start doing it almost subconsciously.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, we behave like the person we want to be, until we become the person we want to be. Until we have the same mentality and mindset as that person, and then only will we come to realise that self-discipline was never about that some other person.

It was never about imitating your role model.

It was about finding your role model within yourself, finding your core strength and belief inside your own heart.

Self-discipline was always about reaching a level of commitment and mindfulness that had been within us all along, something that we all were born with.

We just look into that discipline.

And implement it in our lives.

Signing Off

So this is how you achieve that level of self-discipline and control that all the big motivational gurus and success tycoons talks about. Self-discipline is important and for all amongst us who want to achieve something in life, self-discipline seems like an indispensable part of the process. But of course it’s not the only thing we need. There is a formula for success that differentiates between winners and losers. Winners and Losers Have The Same Goals

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