How to Build Self-Discipline. Discipline is freedom.
You may disagree with this statement, and if you do you are certainly not alone. For many people discipline is a dirty word that is equated with the absence of freedom. In fact the opposite is true. As Stephen R. Covey once wrote, “the undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions”. Self-discipline involves acting according to what you think instead of how you feel in the moment.
Work on an idea or project after the initial rush of enthusiasm has faded awayGo to the gym when all you want to do is lie on the couch and watch TVWake early to work on yourselfSay “no” when tempted to break your dietOnly check your email a few of times per day at particular times In the past self-discipline has been a weakness of mine, and as a result today I find myself lacking the ability to do a number of things which I would like – e.g. to play the guitar.
If you struggle with self-discipline, the good news is that it can be developed. Self-Discipline. This week I’ll be blogging a series on self-discipline.
New posts on this topic will appear every day Mon-Fri. I’ve also added a new self-discipline category. In this series I’ll be focusing on what I call the five pillars of self-discipline. The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. The Power of Habit and How to Rewire Our "Habit Loops" By Maria Popova What Iraqi kebob vendors have to do with your New Year’s resolutions.
As a young man, Benjamin Franklin set out to improve himself by devising a chart-based log for tracking his progress against the virtues he identified as essential to good personhood. Each week, he would pick a virtue to cultivate, then put a black pencil mark in his calendar chart on any day he failed to uphold the virtue. This visual feedback on his progress encouraged him, and allowed him to move to a different virtue the following week, hoping that each week would leave him with a “habitude” for that particular virtue. We try to reverse-engineer willpower and flowchart our way to happiness, but in the end, it is habit that is at the heart of our successes and our failures. Duhigg first became fascinated by the power of habit eight years ago, while in Baghdad as a newspaper reporter. So the major summoned Kufa’s mayor and made a strange request: Get the food vendors out of the plaza. Donating = Loving. Start Your Day in 33 Different Ways.
Mornings are underrated. I consider them fundamental for the whole diurnal experience. What you do in the very first moments of your morning will fundamentally and inexorably shape your entire day. Most of the time you spend your mornings by routinely performing some habits, on auto pilot. Hence, your days will routinely unfold towards you, the same way day after day, on auto pilot.
Consciously inserting your intentions in these very first moments will have a huge effect. Here are at least 33 ways in which you can transform your days by only spending 5 minutes every morning. 1. I love the morning stillness and the unspoken promise of something ready to start. 18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything run on autopilot?
Chores, exercise, eating healthy and getting your work done just happening automatically. Unless they manage to invent robot servants, all your work isn’t going to disappear overnight. But if you program behaviors as new habits you can take out the struggle. With a small amount of initial discipline, you can create a new habit that requires little effort to maintain. Here are some tips for creating new habits and making them stick: Turn To-Dos into Habits to Make Hard Work Effortless and Easy. 5 important questions each day. How To Create A Habit In 15 Days. Most of our life is lived by habits. We learn how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, we even learn how to speak and read. And then we do all of these with minimum effort and implication. Basically, all of these are habits.
They allow us to focus on other things while pushing the routine into background. It would be quite difficult to learn to drive the car every time you need to go shopping, isn’t it? As any other things in our life, habits are just tools we use in our joyful exploration of life. In today’s post I’ll share some of my experiences with habit creation using one of my favorite activities: journaling. Why Do You Need A New Habit? Well, let’s say you want a new habit in order to:
Habit Change.