6 Ways to Improve Your Self-Discipline

We all want to improve our self-discipline.  Why?  Because it is only through self-discipline that we can achieve our goals. 

For example, you can’t lose weight, master a skill or become professionally successful without being disciplined.  In short, self-discipline is necessary to accomplish anything meaningful in life. 

However, being self-disciplined is hard!  Most of us would much rather watch television and eat chips on the couch, than do the hard work required to achieve a goal.  Television and chips are relaxing!   Self-discipline is what gets us off the coach and ready to do the hard work necessary to achieve our dreams.

Below are ways that you can improve your self-discipline.  Follow them, become a more disciplined person, and see your life improve in all areas!

Step One to Improve Your Self-Discipline – Envision the Life That You Want

It is hard to be self-disciplined if you can’t see the value in it.  For example, I know a lady whose elderly father was told by the doctor that he needed to go for a walk every day.  The purpose was for him to get some exercise.  Her father was a cantankerous type, and he said, “That makes no sense.  I can’t go for a walk to nowhere.”  Walking without a destination seemed pointless to him!

It is a funny story.  But the truth is that most of us don’t want to go for a walk to nowhere.  That isn’t motivating!  So, if we are going to be self-disciplined, there has to be a point to it. 

As a result, the first step in becoming self-disciplined is to identify why you want to become self-disciplined.  And that involves envisioning the life that you desire. 

For example, let’s say you love watching HGTV, and you admire all the beautifully decorated homes.  You can’t make your house look like those designer homes if you never make your bed, or if you chronically have dishes in the sink. 

So, if you want to develop the self-discipline required to have a beautiful home, envision it!  Find pictures on the Internet of beautiful homes to inspire you.  As soon as you do that, suddenly being self-disciplined enough to make your bed, do the dishes and declutter seems easy.  That is because those tasks are getting you to the dream home that you want.

So, the key when trying to be self-disciplined is to identify how being self-disciplined is going to make your life better.  Once you do so, the motivation to do the hard work naturally will follow. 

Develop Great Habits

Being self-disciplined in any area is easier when you turn your task into a habit.  For instance, if you want to discipline yourself to eat a healthy breakfast, then make eating healthy foods each morning a habit.  Try eating the same healthy foods every morning.  Pretty soon, that will be the only breakfast you want. 

For example, every morning, I have fruit, yogurt and a cup of coffee.  That is my habit, and I feel strange if I don’t start out the day that way!  I don’t crave pancakes, French toast or a sugary cereal.  Rather, I just want my normal, simple, healthy breakfast.  By making a healthy breakfast my habit, it is easy to be self-disciplined!  I simply don’t want to eat bad foods in the morning.

The same holds true for making my bed, brushing my teeth and doing the dishes after every meal.  Those are just my daily habits.  Sure, you could say that my doing those things on a daily basis shows self-discipline.  But really, I’ve become self-disciplined by making those chores a habit.

Make Small Modifications to Your Routine

Self-discipline may be difficult for you in a certain area of your life.  For instance, you may struggle with your diet.  You want to eat healthier foods, but overhauling your entire diet seems daunting.  Realize that if you want to become more disciplined in what you eat, you can’t change your diet overnight.

Instead, choose one small area to change.  For instance, if every day at mid-morning, you eat junk food as a snack, whether it be a candy bar or chips, try changing that one habit.  Switch to eating a piece of fruit and having a cup of tea. 

Realize that the key to self-discipline is to attack only one small area at a time.  Once you have disciplined yourself to eat a healthier mid-morning snack, then you can tackle other meals.  Pretty soon, you will be highly disciplined with respect to your diet. 

This same approach can be applied to any area in which you want to become more disciplined.  Make one small change at a time.  Pretty soon, people will start citing you as the most disciplined person they know!

Use a Work-Reward Approach

If you have trouble being self-disciplined, incentivize yourself!  For example, if your goal is to be more disciplined with respect to your exercise routine, then find a way to reward yourself for consistently working out.  You might tell yourself, “If I work out five days a week this month, I’ll buy myself a new exercise outfit.”  The ways that you can reward yourself are endless.

The challenge is to become comfortable with rewarding yourself.  We typically look to others to reward us, whether they be teachers, parents or supervisors.  However, when we become adults, we should be rewarding ourselves.  We should be treating ourselves for a job well done!

If you use a work-reward approach, you’ll find that being self-disciplined is much easier.  We all need ways to motivate ourselves, and if a new workout outfit is the carrot that you need to get yourself to the gym regularly, then by all means use it!

Become an Achievement Junkie

A great way to become more self-disciplined is to fall in love with conquering goals.  It is fun to work hard and see the fruits of your labor.  The key is to set small goals that can be achieved quickly.

For instance, if you want to become more self-disciplined about exercising, then set a goal to be able to lift a certain amount of weight or run a certain number of miles.  Our bodies love to be exercised, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you reach those goals.

Once you accomplish one small goal, then set another one.  Pretty soon, you’ll find that being disciplined becomes almost like a game.  Can I achieve this next goal?  How fast can I do it?  People will look at you and wonder how it is that you are so disciplined.  Little will they know that you are really just enjoying a very fun game of challenging yourself to get better and better.

To Improve Your Self-Discipline, Take A Positive Approach

To become self-disciplined, you have to focus on the positive.  For example, let’s say that you want to be more disciplined about your snacks.  Trying to discipline yourself to not to eat candy bars or chips isn’t the right approach.  Instead, you have to take a positive approach.

So, if you are trying to improve your diet, don’t try to stop eating certain foods.  Instead, say to yourself, “I am going to have a piece of fruit every day as my mid-morning snack.”  That is a positive approach to developing a good diet.  And after you have the piece of fruit, you won’t be hungry for a candy bar, or anything else that is bad for you.

When we think of being self-disciplined as a negative (“I’m going to stop doing this bad thing.”), then being self-disciplined seems like drudgery.  Instead, we need to approach it in a positive manner.  For instance, don’t think of making your bed every morning as a chore.  Rather, view making your bed and tidying up your bedroom as a way to make it a beautiful space to enjoy at the end of the day.  It is all a matter of perspective.

Becoming a highly disciplined person is doable.  Try the approaches above and learn how to improve your self-discipline and achieve any goal that you set your mind to!  (To read more about how to develop your focus and self-discipline, click here.)