Article Summary

What is self-discipline to you? It has been said that self-discipline is the single most important attribute to becoming successful. Now that’s a pretty bold statement but I have content to back it up.

Today we discuss 11 important and simple self-discipline ingredients and how you can start building on these EASILY starting today!

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The single most important attribute to becoming successful is self-discipline. I realize that is a bold statement but I have content to back it up.

 Self-discipline helps you to stay focused on reaching your goals, gives you the gumption to stick with difficult tasks, and allows you to overcome obstacles and discomfort as you push yourself to new heights. I think it is safe to say this virtue ranks right up there at the top in our virtue-building process.

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Motivation

Self-Discipline happens to be very important for a person to build motivation. It allows one to exercise control over oneself and avoid thinking or feeling negative.

One of the biggest challenges I see in fitness is motivation. Motivation comes from the inside. As your personal trainer, I can't teach you motivation. But I can give you actionable information so you can do those great feats and set new year's resolutions that actually stick.

Have you ever been in a place where you do not feel motivated? Yeah, me too.

I remember a time when I did not feel a true purpose and calling. I did not want to wake up and get in my exercise. I wanted to sit around and watch mindless tv, eat junk food, and just hang out with the only ones I felt loved by my dogs, Rusty and Sadie.

But this is never a good thing. This leads to a spiral of more bad habits of mindless social media scrolling, eating junk food, and drinking alcohol to numb the pain.

Oddly enough, if you start to develop new skills that help you acquire self-discipline you find yourself motivated, inspired, and even motivated despite what is going on in your world. This will spill over to different aspects of our lives in so many different ways.

Goals or Aims in Life

If you do not have any goals or aims in life you tend to drift as mentioned in Outwitting the Devil a great book by Napoleon Hill. It’s actually one of my top 3 books. Check out book recommendations here.

And if you do not take any action to improve your life you can likely stay stuck in a bad habit. This can lead to a lack of self-discipline. This habit is one of the reasons for the lack of self-discipline. Lack of willpower, motivation, and ambition are also causing a lack of self-discipline.

But how does one build self-discipline? Well, today we discuss this very thing and I am bringing you 11 important self-discipline ingredients.

Napoleon Hill was a famous self-help author and speaker who is best known for his book "Think and Grow Rich," in which he teaches the power of positive thinking and self-discipline as a means to achieving success. Building self-discipline is a process that takes time and effort, but there are some things you can do to help develop it:

#1. Know your strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths are defined as character traits or skills that are considered positive. Strengths include knowledge, attributes, skills, and talents.

Weaknesses are just the opposite. Weaknesses are defined as character traits or skills that are considered negative or not as well developed. Weaknesses include blind spots, poorly developed skills, or problematic personal behaviors.

When we know our strengths and weaknesses we can identify the tools to help us develop self-discipline and of course, know the things that hold us back.

#2. Set clear goals and have an execution plan.

Self-discipline requires a clear goal to work toward diligently. Without a clear plan in mind, self-discipline is ineffective in reaching the goals you set for yourself. Without clear goals, you might succeed but not achieve your goals. Without clear objectives and persistence, your efforts may fall flat.

Oftentimes we are met with the end of the calendar year and the goal pursuit was not met. We stayed stuck in our so-called comfort zone and did not reach the end of the year meeting our goals and plans. Don't worry we will discuss the next steps so you can leave this article with new action plans so this will not happen to you in 2023. 🙃

#3. Remove temptations.

This one may seem obvious but have you ever given in to temptation without paying any attention to what you were doing? Don’t feel bad, we’re all guilty of this behavior.

Studies show that distracted shoppers are more likely to sample food at the sampling station in the supermarket. And why wouldn’t they? If you’re distracted, the logical part of your brain is gone and you’re left with that nasty, spoiled brat part of your brain that wants everything now.

Set yourself up for success by managing yourself and your surroundings by removing temptations. When you do this it helps to make decisions automatic and self-reinforcing, so you can focus on priorities and decisions that matter more. It's almost like you are removing the root cause of those external threats when you remove temptations from your life.

# 4 Have an execution plan.

Going in with a plan will help give you the growth mindset and self-control necessary for the situation. You will also save energy by not having to make a sudden decision based on your emotional state, as we saw in the previous example of resisting temptations.

Benjamin Franklin originated the idea of the 12-week virtue-building plan that you are in the midst of right here. He said,

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."

I couldn't agree more.

When you have an execution plan you take control of your life. You grab the bull by the horns🐮 (as we say here in Texas) and set the best intentions for a better future.

#5. Create new habits and rituals.

I remember the Christmas of 2007 like it was yesterday. I was alone, well my dogs were there, but technically I was all alone. I had people I could have spent the holiday with but I did not want the reminder that my family was no longer the same. At that time I made the best use of this wonderful “opportunity” and I created new habits and rituals around Christmas. This action step proved helpful to this very day.

Habits, routines, and rituals provide structure and stability when everything else feels chaotic. By creating them, we can take control of our lives to direct our focus toward what is truly important to us. Talk about long-term success! 🎉

#6. Practice daily diligence.

Diligence is defined as careful and persistent work or effort. This reminds me of Homework for Life. I first heard of this process of storing stories of our life from Matthew Dicks in his book Storyworthy. Homework for Life is a trademarked process by which a person can begin to find and document the stories that already exist in their lives.

At first, it took an effort to practice this daily, but the next thing I know I needed persistence. Once I became persistent and took those daily notes it became a habit. How will you practice daily diligence?

It may seem like hard work but the good news is once you get started it will help you create good habits of daily persistence. This happens in successful people, I'm just saying. 😉

#7 Change your perception about willpower.

According to most psychological scientists, willpower can be defined as the ability to delay gratification, and resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals. The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse.

Making flow a priority has drastically changed my life for the better. I am more productive and effective with my time, energy, and resources.

Popularized by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura, the flow state describes a feeling where, under the right conditions, you become fully immersed in whatever you are doing. It's where challenge meets skill. It is where willpower kicks into high gear, without you even giving conscious effort to it.

Flow is the most important state for productivity, but it is not only when you are concentrating on a single, interesting, complex-but-not-too-complex task outside of your surroundings and time at peak concentration. 

In the flow state, willpower is not technically used. Endurance and patience are also a big part of flow. And that my friend is the power of self-discipline in a nutshell.

#8. Give yourself a backup plan.

When you have a backup plan you give yourself a way forward. If you are not making traction in your current goals and plans a backup plan can be a great way to switch gears easily.

You can put timelines on different phases of your work. For example, you can focus most of your energy on your main plan until a specific date and then switch to your backup if you think you are not making enough progress.

Backup plans are vital. Knowing you're prepared for unexpected eventualities allows you to be flexible, and roll with the punches. To me, that is a great place to be.

#9. Find trusted mentors or coaches.

I read this post from a fellow coach today. It said this, "I regret venting to my husband, friends, (or anyone that would listen...) about work, and here's what I would do instead. She went on to say it would be better to vent to someone who could ACTUALLY HELP me.

• Someone who had experienced similar challenges

• Someone who could help me see my blind spots

• Someone who knew the right questions to ask to help me better understand my abilities

• Someone who could help me feel empowered to lead

A coach or a mentor can be just that person. And trust is the keyword here. I prefer my trusted mentor Joseph Rodrigues over those who market in force. The positive outcomes that came from my coaching interactions with Joseph have been a powerful tool in my business and life. BTW, I am a Certified Life Coach and Fitness Trainer and have been since 2002. You can always contact us to see about coaching with Kathie.

#10. Forgive yourself and move forward.

Forgiveness is huge! If you do not forgive yourself it can lead to guilt. And guilt is a quick destroyer of dreams.

If you fail at resisting temptation, don’t criticize yourself, and don’t make yourself feel guilty. Accept that you had a slip-up and move on. Self-guilt can contribute to your levels of stress, thus leading you to weakened willpower (and even more problems resisting the temptation on another occasion). 😬

Just let it go, and try to do better next time. And definitely don’t be so hard on yourself.

#11. Practice patience.

Building self-discipline takes time and patience, so be patient with yourself and don't get discouraged if you don't see results right away.

Having patience allows us to absorb a setback and keep going. In essence, maintaining our determination. It's important to understand, situations will not always go according to plan. See #8!

Having the mindset to make adjustments to our plans when undesirable circumstances arise is one way to stay on task.

Let go of all that mind chatter. Realize the desired outcome will be here, it just takes time. Old habits die hard. But patience will take you a long way on this journey.

Bonus tip:

Empower your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is one of your most powerful assets. The thing is we tell our subconscious minds the wrong things. You see our subconscious mind takes everything literally.

We must know and question our belief systems. When we do this we discover our strengths (remember #1?) and our core values. Our choices and decisions then become clear.

That is the power of self-discipline. It is a process. But you will find with greater self-discipline comes greater motivation. You will have the mental toughness it takes to get through the toughest times.

Here are some more resources on self-discipline (aka some of the best books)

• No Excuses! by Brain Tracy

• Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister

• The 7 Laws of Productivity by Bryan Cagneey

Remember, building self-discipline is a journey, not a destination. It takes time, effort, and practice to develop, but by consistently working on it, you will be able to achieve greater control over your thoughts, emotions, and actions, and be able to reach your goals.

But you can do it. I have faith in you!

Thank you for spending part of your day with me. I trust that you found this helpful. If you know someone who can benefit from this please share it with them using the simple share buttons to the side.

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