How to Develop Your Focus and Self-Discipline

Focus and self-discipline are necessary for success in any endeavor. Whether you want to lose weight, advance in your career, or build a business, you cannot accomplish your goals without laser-focused, disciplined, hard work. The challenge is that focus and discipline are not qualities that we naturally possess. Rather, we have to develop them.

Admittedly, developing our focus and discipline in today’s world is hard! We are surrounded by distractions. Social media, emails, and texts all vie for our attention. In addition, we are overloaded with information, from the news to the constant chatter of Twitter. And of course, there are hundreds of television channels, Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, all providing us with mindless entertainment. With so many ways to avoid work, it is amazing that anyone gets anything done.

As a result, in order to accomplish your goals, you have to be focused and disciplined. In today’s world, that truly is the difference between those who achieve, and those who don’t.

Below are some ways to develop your focus and self-discipline so that you can achieve your greatest goals.

To Increase Your Focus and Self-Discipline, Make Working Toward Your Goal A Daily Habit

Accomplishing any task is easier if we make it a habit. For instance, I would suspect that most folks are fairly disciplined about brushing their teeth. Why? Because it is a habit. We feel weird if we don’t brush our teeth first thing in the morning.

Like brushing your teeth, if you make pursuing your goal a daily habit, it will be easier to be disciplined about doing it. It will feel strange if you don’t make some effort toward that goal each day. For instance, my goal is to make sure Create A Great Life is successful. The most important way that I can do that is to regularly write articles that help people.

As a result, without fail, I write every morning. Of course, I write at other points during the day too, when I have free time. But my habit is to start each day by drinking a cup of coffee and writing. If I don’t start the day that way, it feels wrong!

When we make pursuing our goals a daily habit, it becomes so much easier to be self-disciplined. It doesn’t take as much willpower. Instead, pursuing our goals becomes a natural part of our day, like eating our breakfast or brushing our teeth.

Make Your Goal Your Personal Interest and Hobby

I am a big believer in transforming your goal into a hobby. When you do so, it makes focusing on your goal so much easier. For example, if you are interested in losing weight, then study everything about diet and exercise. Throw yourself into the topic! Read about the latest scientific research on weight loss. Buy some terrific cookbooks that focus on healthy recipes. Pick a mentor, like Jillian Michaels, who has made teaching people about healthy living her mission. Then choose a type of exercise to do on a daily basis, and become an expert in it.

When you have a goal, you should take a complete interest in it. That way, it becomes interesting to you. If you don’t, pursuing your goal will just seem like work, and you will give up.

As another example, let’s say that you want to learn French. Well, simply studying French vocabulary and grammar quickly will become boring. Instead, immerse yourself in all things French! Read about the culture. Watch French television shows and films. Learn about French history and cuisine. In doing so, your language studies will come alive.

If you take a holistic approach to any goal, you will find working toward the goal to be so much more interesting. Then, being focused and disciplined won’t be hard work. Instead, pursuing your goal will be something that you look forward to each day.

To Increase Your Focus and Self-Discipline, Get Rid of Your Distractions

It is hard to focus and get down to work in today’s day and age because we are overloaded with distractions. Back in the day, pre-computer, our main distraction was daydreaming. And that was a big enough obstacle!

Nowadays, thanks to the Internet, our distractions are endless. Surfing the net. Internet shopping. The 24-hour news cycle. There are so many distractions that we have to avoid when trying to focus.

Of course, to increase your focus, you just can’t eliminate the Internet from your life. Most of us have to use the Internet for work or simply to communicate with family and friends. But you can set it aside for a certain period of each day to work toward your goals. For example, when I am writing, I only look at my phone if I get a text from my daughter. Otherwise, it stays off!

We also can be distracted by entertainment, from television shows to movies. Now I will admit that it is nice to watch a show and get a break from reality, now and then. But you have to put time limits on those breaks. Most days, I don’t watch any television at all. And if I do, I limit my television watching to a 30-minute show.

The harsh reality is that the television and the Internet simply allow us to watch other people be productive, while we accomplish nothing. For instance, if you watch a football game, you spend 2 hours watching other people work hard and make a lot of money. And while you observe them do it, you’ve made no money, and you’ve accomplished nothing.

So, don’t allow the Internet and television to distract you. Stay focused on your goals. There is nothing wrong with distractions – on occasion. But realize that distractions are simply time wasters which prevent you from achieving your full potential.

Visualize Accomplishing Your Goals

Often, our lack of self-discipline results from the false belief that we can’t accomplish our goals. So, when presented with the choice of working toward our goal or just relaxing on the couch, we relax on the couch! After all, the likelihood of our accomplishing our goal is nil, so why bother? Right??

Wrong. You can accomplish your goals. But the first step is to believe that you can do so. One way to train your brain to believe that you can accomplish your goals is to practice visualization. When we visualize, we simply imagine ourselves being successful. We visualize ourselves accomplishing our goal, whether it be to lose weight or to run a successful business.

Visualization is a great technique to keep yourself focused and motivated while you work toward achieving your goal. For instance, your goal may be to get out of debt. Getting out of debt, admittedly, is challenging. You have to maintain your income while dramatically reducing your expenses. That takes self-discipline.

If that is your goal, visualize yourself being out of debt. Imagine yourself having zero credit card debt and having extra money to put in a savings account at the end of each month. See yourself feeling relaxed and at ease about your finances. Better yet, envision yourself being so well off that you are in a position to help others financially!

If you do so, suddenly getting out of debt will feel realistic. Then you will be mentally ready to do what is necessary to wipe out your debt and live debt-free. That is because your efforts won’t seem futile. Instead, your efforts will feel like they ultimately will pay off.

That is the power of visualization. When you think your goal is realistic, then you won’t talk yourself out of pursuing it. Instead, you gladly will do the work to achieve your goal because you believe the goal will happen.

The rewards of developing your focus and self-discipline are numerous. If you develop these skills, you can achieve any goal that you set your mind to. So, follow the approaches above. Learn to be focused. Develop your self-discipline, and see how much you can achieve! (To read more about staying motivated to achieve your goals, click here.)