HOW TO BE SELF DISCIPLINED

HOW TO BE SELF DISCIPLINED or HOW TO IMPROVE SELF DISCIPLINE

We all grown up listening to the word discipline. But what it is? It is that on the new year we make resolutions the whole year we do this or that. But mostly these are not followed by everyone. Discipline is that which we make for ourselves for our better present or future and stick on that.

Sometimes one side of us wants to engage in a productive activity such as working on a report for work, cleaning the kitchen, or balancing the checkbook. But another side of us wants to watch television and eat chocolate chip cookies, or anything else to avoid doing something we consider a productive use of time. In other words, there is a part of you that does not want self-discipline. This part is our emotional mind (feeling or energy). Logically we want to do something productive but we generally don’t feel like doing it and that is why we don’t get energy and that is the emotional mind.

Do not, however, think of your emotional side as an enemy. Think, instead, of emotions as the part of you that is creative, fun-loving, and pleasure-seeking; the child side of yourself. You do not want to do battle with emotions, but you want to recruit emotional energy as a partner who supports your self-discipline efforts.

Emotional mind believes:

If I begin a structured, organized journey toward any chosen goal:

•I’ll become a slave to routine

•I’ll lose my freedom

•I’ll lose my sense of fun

•I’ll drown in a sea of responsibilities

•I’ll put too much pressure on myself

We all have a rebellious side to our personalities that resists any form of structure. We bring this rebellious seed from our childhood. One of the first words a child learns to say emphatically is “NO.” The child we once still lived inside us, and every child battles authority. Emotional mind, the name we will call your inner childlike rebel, battles any form of authority, even if the authority is you. The emotional mind subconsciously says:

  “Nobody can tell me what to do, not even me.”

The emotional mind not only knows all your weaknesses, fears, and insecurities but also knows how to use them against you.

The emotional mind knows that once you develop self-discipline, you’ll be your own boss. That means curtains for Hyde’s reign. You’ll no longer be a slave to the self-defeating traits that keep you from transforming your desires and ideas into actions and accomplishments.

Rest assured that the Emotional mind will childishly resist cooperation. So, your best strategy is to familiarize yourself with emotional mind tactics, most of which operate on a subconscious level, where you are not aware of them. But by familiarizing yourself with the Emotional mind method of operation, you will soon have Hyde working with you rather than against you.

To maintain discipline in life is not easy for everyone.  Because discipline is that in which we make a schedule and strictly follow it. It indicates your goal and task to be done accordingly. But we all know that reality is something else.

We all make an impressive plan which boosts our motivation, but when the time comes to perform, we just start doing temporizing. In a day we make different types of plan to be performed but at the end can only a few of things done. Did we ever think about why this is so? This is because of a lack of planning. For example, we make a plan to get up early in the morning, after that doing exercise, healthy breakfast, using stairs in place of a lift or elevator but in the end, we just get mentally tired.

Let’s look into what all excuses we give to ourselves when we are on a strict plan to follow:

• Cynicism: A cynical person is inclined to question the goodness and value of everything. And because nothing in life is perfect, the cynic can always find a flaw in absolutely anything. Once found, the flaw is then magnified until it overshadows everything else. The cynic is a genius at pointing out why a particular plan, idea, or choice is no good and won’t work.

The external cynics such as sarcastic friends, pessimistic relatives, and loser co-workers who delight in finding flaws, can be avoided when you realize that their cynicism is contagious. But the emotional mind, the inner cynic, goes everywhere with you. So, you will hear whispers from within: “You can’t learn self-discipline from this article.” “What has this exercise got to do with self-discipline? Why not skip it?” “All this self-help stuff is a lot of fluff.” Beware of the emotional mind.

• Negativism: Whatever you tell yourself, negative or positive, your subconscious believes. Your subconscious mind does not weigh the evidence and then evaluate your claim. It simply believes what you tell it. Moreover, your subconscious finds reasons to prove you are right, even if you are wrong. Then your subconscious begins to tailor your attitude and behavior to whatever you have told it.

So, in essence, you create your attitude and behavior by what you tell yourself. If you say positive to yourself you have a positive attitude if you say negative to yourself you have a negative attitude.

• Defeatism: Emotional mind will attempt to drown your enthusiasm by pointing out all your perceived shortcomings, then use them to trick you into self-defeat. The emotional mind will use any perceived inadequacy to dredge up feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem which will, of course, lead to your either giving up on the system (in reality giving up on yourself) or going about it so halfheartedly that all benefits will be minimized.

• Escapism: Emotional mind will go on to say, “why not go eat that slice of pie in the fridge? Or make a phone call? Television! Of course, that’s the ticket. On the Public Broadcasting Network, they’re showing a swell documentary about horseshoes!” In other words, the Emotional mind will point out other “important” tasks that immediately should be taken care of, anything rather than doing your self-discipline exercises.

The emotional mind will try to divert you from the day’s exercise, especially if the exercise in question involves any sort of self-examination. The emotional mind will coax you toward another activity that will instead provide some sort of escape.

• Delayism: “I’ll do it later,” is one of the Emotional mind’s favorite sentences. Often one of the previously described tactics will be used as the reason to “do it later.” Other times a piggyback reason is offered: “I can’t begin a weight-loss program until I buy a decent outfit to work out in.” The emotional mind has then succeeded in putting a hurdle between you and your goal.

Then Emotional mind says, “And I can’t afford to buy a new outfit until I have lowered the balance on my credit cards.” Yet another hurdle. On and on it goes until you are completely immobilized by the hurdles between you and your original goal.

Now that you can recognize the Emotional mind’s five major methods of sabotaging self-discipline, you can see also that each one is a fraudulent, self-defeating form of self-talk.

Remember: Emotional mind constantly uses negative self-talk to sabotage you.

Do not think of the Emotional mind as an enemy. Such thinking puts you into a combative state of mind, into an inner conflict with yourself. When you fight against yourself, you lose valuable energy that could be used in the drive toward accomplishing your goals. Think of the Emotional mind like an unruly child living inside you. This little kid has no self-discipline, no self-restraint, and no ability to delay gratification. Like any little kid, the Emotional Mind will be manipulative to get what the Emotional mind wants.

Don’t try to crush this side of yourself, it won’t work. You’ll simply end up being a walking mass of inner conflicts. Moreover, the Emotional mind side of your personality is also the source of your playfulness and creativity. So, think of the Emotional mind as a part of you that can be won over by cooperation and compromise, not combat.

Now how to handle the negative self-talk by our emotional mind it is by positive action-oriented self-talk:

• Positive action-oriented self-talk:

To make self-talk work for you, you need to know its three basic requirements. It must be Positive, Specific, and Present Tense.

With that said, let’s take a look at the overall self-talk process. Self-talk always goes on, even when you don’t consciously hear it. That’s right, you constantly receive messages from yourself, they never stop. Every second of your day you make choices based on these messages. Whether you are deciding what to eat, what to wear, or what to do, a process of choice is taking place. The choices that determine your actions are based on self-talk.

Self-talk is a conversation you have with yourself. Often, this occurs subconsciously. This inner conversation is comparable to the background music that plays while you shop in a supermarket. The music plays but you don’t really hear it unless you consciously and purposely focus your attention on it.

But even though you aren’t consciously aware of it, this background music has an effect on your behavior. Why does your local super-market play background music while the customers roam the aisles? Research has shown time and time again that background music influences our buying patterns. The stores wouldn’t do it if it didn’t increase sales.

Subconsciously, there are debates going on within us that we seldom actually hear, but that severely influence our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Sometimes Emotional mind wins a subconscious debate that we didn’t even know was taking place. This is precisely why you often find yourself doing things that you don’t really want to do, or conversely, not doing things that you do want to do.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I don’t know why I did that? “ Have you ever started to watch television rather than work on an overdue task that you had been putting off? This happens because the part of you that wants to get the task done didn’t get a chance to join in on the debate.

The emotional mind, you see, has played the game of backroom politics on you. That’s how the Emotional mind works, subconsciously, in the backroom of your logical mind. The conscious part of you that wanted to be productive didn’t get an opportunity to influence your behavior.

Remember: Emotional mind works subconsciously.

So, how can you expect to win a debate when you don’t hear half of it? You can’t! In order to counteract the Emotional mind’s influence, you need to turn up the volume on your subconscious self-talk. You can then begin to program your subconscious mind to support, rather than inhibit, your efforts at accomplishing your goals. That’s the only way to diminish the Emotional mind’s control.

By replacing self-defeating subconscious messages with positive, specific, present tense messages, you will find that your powers of self-discipline are instantly improved. Believe me, this simple concept will change your life. Action-oriented self-talk overrules self-defeating self-talk by being Positive, Specific, and Present Tense. Why? Your subconscious mind believes whatever you tell it. It looks to you for reality.

If you tell it that, “I am now working on my report,” then your subconscious mind will turn all its attention to your report, no matter what you actually are doing when you say it. The subconscious mind understands only the concept of the present tense. So whatever message it receives that is stated in the present tense, it believes. Then it directs all your inner resources toward carrying out that message.

If your conscious self-talk says, “I should work on my report,” or “I ought to work on my report,” then the message your subconscious hears is, “I am not currently working on my report.” So it doesn’t move you toward working on your report. Moreover, while you are saying to yourself, “I should work on my report,” Hyde is sending a present tense message that says, “I am now watching television.“

You need to know that your subconscious mind sends messages to your motor functions, emotions, and other members of your physical and psychological network.

To be effective, the Emotional mind’s ploy needs to implement self-talk. But because you now are aware of what the emotional mind is saying, you can dispute that message and repeat your message over and over, and overrule the Emotional mind’s message.

Your subconscious mind will respond to only one message at a time. Try it. As you repeat your message over and over to your subconscious, observe how your body and mind respond. You’ll be surprised. Repetition is the key to success. The more you repeat your message, the harder your subconscious mind will work toward your desires. The emotional mind is good at self-talk. But with practice, you soon will be even better.

Hey! Watch your language! The way you use words during self-talk has a tremendous impact on whether your subconscious mind works for you or against you. For instance when you say, “I can’t…,” rather than, “I choose not to…,“ you convey to your subconscious mind that you have no choice in the situation. This creates a helpless attitude about your behavior and weakens your resolve.”I choose…” implies that you have a choice in the matter.

Likewise, when you say “I must…,” and “I have to….” you are telling your subconscious mind that you have no control over your behavior, that someone or something outside yourself is in the driver’s seat. This does not enthusiastically work to move you toward your goals.

Therefore, always say “I choose to…,“ which, after all, usually is the truth of the matter. Also, beware of using “I should…” It implies to your subconscious mind that your choice of behavior is being made from a position of guilt, which serves to undermine your self-discipline power.

Remember: It’s “I choose …” When your subconscious mind hears your priorities stated in a forceful, positive manner, it feels your power. It then uses that power to mobilize your inner resources toward achieving your priorities. In other words, words count.

A final tip: If you state your self-talk messages aloud, then they will be even stronger because your message will involve two physical components, speech, and hearing. Your messages will have the power and support of not only your mental network but also your physical network. If we take a step toward what we want to do then that has the maximum impact.

Before we look into how to be self disciplined let’s first look at what is Self-discipline: A skill that can be learned. Becoming aware of your subconscious resistances to action, then overcoming those resistances.

The process of coordinating your conscious and subconscious psychological elements. Sometimes our emotions pull us in one direction while our intellect pulls us in another. Sometimes our desires try to lead us down a certain path but our fears won’t allow us to follow.

Self-discipline, then, is the skill to direct and regulate all the various parts of our personality so that rather than being immobilized by inner conflict, all of our psychological elements are pulling together in the same direction—toward our consciously chosen goals.

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Self-discipline is that which has the internal desire and derive which possesses yourself to do the work on a time and achieve the goal. Discipline is that which keeps you always focus on your work and goal.

“How can I get myself to do what a part of me doesn’t want to do?”

How you can erect self discipline in your life which other people have?

To understand how to be self disciplined here are some ways which help you to maintain self-discipline in your life:

How to be self disciplined: Take a decision on what you want to achieve:

To complete any task in time first what we gave to decide the task. What is the task and how much time we have to complete it? And one more thing is you will always have to give up something in order to get something. We have fixed 24 hours and we generally have many tasks to do.

So first we have to decide on what task we want to do and what task we won’t do, both are important otherwise while doing one task we will be kept on thinking of the other tasks which we are not doing. We have to make a clear decision before starting anything so that we can complete it on time. This clear decision help to be self-discipline.

All you need to do here is write down your goal across the top of a sheet of paper. Then on the left side of the paper list the benefits of pursuing and achieving your goal. On the right side list the drawbacks. Nothing fancy. The point of this process is to make sure you bring all the negative aspects of your goal, and the pursuit of it, into clear focus.

How to be self disciplined : Keep your eye on the goal and make an action plan:

Everybody wants to win, but not everybody wants to prepare to win.“ So, when you decide to make the trip, preparation is a necessary piece of luggage.

Preparing for action means that you need to make a daily plan. Your plan will, of course, contain steps that need to be accomplished by certain times and dates. Without question, self-discipline flows much better when you receive daily reminders about what to do and when to do it. Moreover, self-discipline works better if the reminders are written onto the paper rather than left floating in your head. All we are talking about here is a simple “to do” list.

Remember: Every daily plan needs to be a simple plan, an uncomplicated “to do” list. Unless you have a written plan, the Emotional mind will overwhelm you by subconsciously convincing you that your goal is just too big for you to accomplish. But a simple daily “to do” list reminds you that every big accomplishment is nothing more than a lot of little accomplishments added together.

And, surprisingly, ten minutes of daily planning, making a simple “to do” list, will actually generate extra free time for you. I repeat A simple “to do” list will give you access to hours of time you never knew you had. That newfound time can be filled anyway you want, work or play, your choice. So, if daily planning will give you more self-discipline and more time, then why not give it a try? It will be the best investment in self-discipline you will ever make.

• Make 6 steps daily plan

• Look at your Goal Sheets and pick a goal. Do you want to work toward more than one goal? If the goals don’t conflict, no problem. But don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do too much too soon. Every work requires his own time to finish and that depends on our skills. So we need to estimate it right.
•  Choose a launch date when you want to begin action.

• Make a “to-do” list for the day you plan to begin. Be sure to date your list. Write down a few of the easier actions you need to do in order to reach your goal. No matter what goal you choose, there is something you can do about it on the launch day. Then, next to each action step, whenever possible write a guesstimate for the time it will take to complete each action Don’t just think about it. Write it.
• Next to each action step write, in abbreviated form, a reward for yourself. This will help you recruit the Emotional mind’s cooperation. Don’t just think about it. Write it. Remember that the most motivating rewards are the rewards that can occur soon after the completion of the action step. Make the size of the reward equivalent to the size of the step. Some people find it motivating to have a bonus reward when they do everything on the list. This will be your call. If you like, you can attach one large reward to several small steps. Again, this is your call. You will quickly find out what works best for you.

Remember: Acknowledge the Emotional mind, and the Emotional mind will respond with cooperation rather than roadblocks. Also, remember that no matter what rewards you choose, you always need first to give yourself hardy self-congratulations upon completing any action step, no matter how small.

• Upon completion of each step, cross the item off your list.
• At the end of the day, review your progress. This is an important step in the self-discipline process. If you got stuck on an action step, then you know that you need to take a look at whether the Emotional mind had anything to do with it. Maybe you simply misjudged the time needed. But then again, maybe the Emotional mind slipped into a roadblock on you. Daily reviews are a simple way to keep track of exactly what you actually do. Daily reviews will also keep you thinking about what you need to do to stay on the right path toward your goal, and help you get back on track when you falter. Sound easy? It is. After the launch day, you will start making a short, simple daily “to do” list.

How to be self disciplined: Allot time to each action item

Next to each action item write a guess at how many minutes you plan to work on the action item, not prepare for, but actually do the step. When writing your steps, always keep them small.

Remember that you are likely to overestimate the time needed for an unpleasant step, and underestimate the time needed for a pleasant step. The good news is that your uninviting steps will be over quicker than you imagined. Do one minute of relaxation before doing each step. Put a line through the step when completed.

At the end of the day take a look at your list. Reward yourself, no matter how few steps toward your goal were completed. Small steps add up fast. So thank yourself and your emotional mind for each completed step, then remember to place each uncompleted step on tomorrow’s “to do” list. If you carry the same step for more than five days maybe you need to break that step into smaller steps. Or take a look at what you are telling yourself about that step that is making it difficult for you.

If you occasionally slip up during the Action Stage, do not get on your own case about it. This is a normal occurrence; something to be expected. Do not expect Perfection and berate yourself for not achieving it. Do the opposite; give yourself credit for at least trying. This approach to dealing with slip-ups will give you psychological encouragement to quickly get back into action. Self put-downs are one of the emotional mind’s tricks. Don’t fall for it!

How to be self disciplined: Work on Maintaining the result

In fact, regained pounds after a successful diet is an example of action without maintenance. So is a cleaned out garage that gets junky again after six months. When we are near completion or we have completed so goal and need maintenance then Emotional mind uses your success against you.”I worked on that report all weekend, so I deserve a break tonight, right?” Or, “Heck, I haven’t smoked for three weeks, why not have a few tonight?“ In other words, the Emotional mind tries to erode the commitment you made.

So, suddenly, as you near completion of your project, the Emotional mind brings up all the negative aspects of achieving your goal. Then, after having used self-discipline quite successfully during the Action, you find yourself making excuses rather than continuing action. This is when you need to use Awareness, Attitude, and continued Action.

Awareness: Be alert! Don’t let the Emotional mind subconsciously use rationalization and justification to make you slack off on your self-discipline. Don’t minimize the importance of each little step you need to take in order to get where you want to go. Use Relaxation to turn the volume up on the Emotional mind’s messages. Then you can find out specifically what you are telling yourself that blocks your progress. When you can hear the Emotional mind’s specific negative self-talk, you can counter and replace it with supportive messages.

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Attitude: Your feelings play an important role in self-discipline. If you feel you can reach your goal, then you are already halfway there. During the Completion/Maintenance Stage, the Emotional mind will try to short-circuit your attitude in many different ways. You can counter the Emotional mind’s influence on your attitude by using positive Self-talk.

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Action: You need to be aware of your consistency level during the Completion/Maintenance Stage, the same as you were during the Action Stage. People who have self-discipline difficulties tend to slack off as they get closer to the finish line. To guard against this tendency you need to pay close attention to your daily plan. Make sure you are actually doing things, not just thinking about them. In other words, monitor your progress daily, especially as you get closer to completion. Here you need to use Rewards more than ever.

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Self discipline is very important for each and every individual that is why I have explained it in detail. I have learned this from one book: Self discipline.

After reading always how to be self disciplined I am sure you would want to read about how to enjoy life: https://sudarshanpurohit.com/how-to-enjoy-life/