Building self-discipline might be the most important thing you do in life. After all, if you have a robust amount of self-discipline, you’ll likely stay healthier, be happier, be calmer and have a clearer picture of what you want your life to look like. Self-discipline can affect every aspect of every moment that you experience. I’ve often thought that if I just had a bit more self-discipline, I’d be able to finally get a better job, a better home or maybe even finally be able to get six-pack abs. It seems the only thing stopping me from having the things I want is putting in the required consistent effort.
“No man is free who is not master of himself,”
Epictetus
In my experience, there are many things you can do to build self-discipline but in this post, we’ll look at the 6 things that have helped me the most. I’m certainly not the most disciplined person in the world but these pointers have helped me move from unambitious and lazy to active and focused over the last few years.
So what is self-discipline? Here’s how Wikipedia defines self-discipline;
Self-discipline refers to one’s ability to control one’s behaviour and actions to achieve a goal or to maintain a certain standard of conduct. It is the ability to train oneself to do things that should be done and resist things that should be avoided. This includes setting goals, staying focused, and making sacrifices to achieve those goals. Self-discipline requires practice and effort, but it can lead to improved productivity, better decision-making, and greater success in life.
1. Build a solid foundation
Most of us understand the general gist of what self-discipline is from a practical point of view but you may find a combination of a philosophical & a practical approach more helpful just as I have. The above quote from the philosopher Epictetus serves as a reminder that freedom in all its forms comes from mastering the things that are within your control and your own mind is one of those things. If you allow yourself to be affected by everything that happens around you, you become nothing more than a puppet, constantly pulled around at the will of others and you lose self-discipline.
The ultimate thing that you can control is each moment that you live in and how you react in each moment. Understanding this can allow you to become more patient and compassionate towards others and at the same time, more disciplined with yourself. You can then use this understanding to build self-discipline when you get distracted by the people and things that pull at your focus.
This will remind you that no one is going to do those push-ups for you, no one is going to do that studying for you and no one is going to write that essay for you but you. In my experience, building self-discipline has been hard. We’re told by our parents what we can eat, where we can go and what to spend our money on. At school, we are told when we can eat, what we can do and what we should learn.
We’re rarely told how to build our own discipline and how to resist the things that harm us and consistently show up for the things that enhance us. Building self-discipline is a personal journey that you have to learn for yourself, hence, it can be a difficult thing to do but ultimately, extremely useful in everything you do.
2. Build up from the bottom
“We should discipline ourselves in small things and from there progress to things of greater value,”
Marcus Aurelius
When I was a teenager I had very little self-discipline. My room was messy, I didn’t make my bed and I completed my homework last minute. However, the one thing I did do was exercise on a frequent basis. I bought my first dumbbells when I was just fifteen and spent plenty of evenings locked away performing poorly thrown-together workouts that I’d sound on YouTube.
The workouts were short and probably not very effective but I always made sure I did them. The point is, that I started off small and carried that discipline to today, building on it over time as it got easier to do.
You can make building self-discipline easier by doing the same with everything in life. For example, if you’re trying to study consistently and it feels intimidating, begin by doing a solid block of 20 minutes distraction-free. You can then move us to 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes and then one hour.
If you’re trying to make healthier food choices, start off by changing only your breakfast. Once you get used to eating a nutritious breakfast, swap out your lunch and then finally dinner.
When you start small and build up you’ll find it easier to say no to your friends when they ask you to go out with them during your scheduled study time and you’ll find it much easier to ignore unhealthy food choices when your body starts to crave the new foods in your diet.
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3. Remember your why
Why do you want to be self-disciplined? Why do you want to change the way you eat, sleep, study or work? With building any new habit or lifestyle, there has to be a strong ‘why’. Is it so you can enjoy certain things? Is it because the alternative is too painful?
Why is building self-discipline important to you?
Why does anyone do anything? do they do things to be happy? or because someone told them to? or because they want to be liked? or to be rich? or to feel accepted? Perhaps we do most of what we do through autopilot.
Becoming self-disciplined means having a focused understanding of why you want to become better at something. This ‘something’ will have to be worth it, not something superficial. If your ‘why’ doesn’t have enough long-term importance to you you’ll find it very hard or even impossible to build self-discipline around it.
When your friend calls you up to go out and party, the temptation to take the evening off your work might feel too great. Is that work more important than a night out?
For example, when I decided to take control of my weight and nutrition consistently, I did so with my health in mind 10 or 20 years from now not what I wanted to look like on the beach 6 months from that moment. I started to make changes with the thought that what I was doing right now would be an investment in the future. Perhaps I will still be as mobile as I am now in 20 years if I try and look after my body today.
This was and is my why.
4. Just show up
“Once begun, a task is easy; half the work is done,”
Horace
Half the battle is just showing up. Want to start studying for an hour? Just sit down and start researching. Want to get fitter? Just show up to the gym. I think it really is that simple although taking that initial push can sometimes feel uncomfortable. In fact, every single week I challenge myself to a game of soccer against players much better than me, usually on cold dark evenings. I’m sat at work all day thinking about how tired I’m going to feel at 5.30 pm and all the excuses for why I might call it off run through my head. Every. Single. Week.
Each week it feels like I’m dragging myself to get my kit on and drive to the park after a long day of sitting at my desk. I try and remember my why when I feel this way and it helps to push me forward. I choose to do this because one day I know I will be too old to do it. I don’t want to look back and realise I never tried something physically demanding when I had the opportunity to, not to mention the exercise benefits.
Once I’m on the field, I feel great. Sure, I may get knocked around a few times and get sore legs but I know I did something healthy and I always come away feeling good.
When I look back at anything I’ve done that has been worthwhile, I can see I have always had that initial discomfort but once I begin something, it’s not as bad or as difficult as I think it’s going to be. The best things I’ve achieved are when I have just shown up and tried. Eventually, these kinds of things have become habits and things that have taught me something about myself – that I’m much more capable than I realise if I just show up.
Excuses are easy to come by, after all, building self-discipline in whatever you do is uncomfortable but showing up is half the battle.
I love the Nike slogan, ‘Just Do It’, because sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and start whatever you’re trying to do. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
5. Become a different person
“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person,”
Seneca
Building self-discipline means you have to become a different person altogether. You have to go from saying; “Thanks, but I shouldn’t eat that cookie,” to, “I don’t eat cookies,”
Instead of feeling like you’re denying yourself something to stay disciplined, design your identity to be the kind of person who doesn’t even need to say no. There will be many occasions where your self-discipline is tested so understanding the kind of person you want to become is important.
When you say, “Thanks, but I shouldn’t eat that cookie,” you leave that door open to temptation just slightly ajar. Saying, “I don’t eat cookies,” completely closes that door and helps you to stay on track.
For example, when I was first starting to write, I found it hard to be consistent even though I spent many parts of the day wishing I could do it. I was a new father, and husband and had many daily commitments. My focus was pulled all over the place. I was fitting a small amount of writing in here and there and kept making excuses as to why I would skip my habit. Someone would ask me to go out one evening and I’d say to myself, “Okay, I’ll do some writing in the morning instead of this evening,”
When the morning came around I’d sleep in and keep pushing my writing back again and again. Until I said, “I am a writer, this is what makes me feel happy,” the cycle would continue. Once I came to the realisation that that was the identity I wanted for myself, it was easier to make the consistent time to write.
When I wanted to lose weight it became easier when I asked myself, “What would a person trying to lose X amount of pounds be eating for this meal in order to lose that weight?”
When I wanted to engage in a weekly challenging physical activity, it became much easier when I asked myself, “What would a person who wanted to get fitter be doing?”
Once I decided I wanted to be that person, it didn’t feel like I was depriving myself of easy comfort food or the warmth of sitting on a cosy sofa in the evening, I was simply performing the things that the person I wanted to be performed and the resistance to building this self-discipline felt much less.
6. Don’t beat yourself up
Unless you’re David Goggins, you’re going to fall off the wagon from time to time, even if you have perfectly designed the person you want to be. From time to time, you will fall off. Human beings are imperfect and whilst you can find yourself being very self-disciplined, we live in a world with other people. You’ll come across occasions where you’re on vacation, a birthday party or a wedding. There will be temptations wherever you go.
I don’t think it’s always helpful to remain rigidly self-disciplined. After all, if you’ve been eating well and you go out for a pizza, it doesn’t mean you have failed. If you’ve been studying consistently and you take a night off to see a friend you haven’t seen for a long time, it’s not a big deal.
Life is also for enjoying yourself. As long as you’re self-disciplined when it counts and tomorrow you go back to being self-disciplined, you can enjoy yourself from time to time and if you have found yourself being truly disciplined consistently, you’ll enjoy it even more when you let your hair down, knowing that those occasions are a true treat and not your habits.