Imagine if instead of reaching for your favorite unhealthy snacks, switching on Netflix, and binge-watching TV till the wee hours of the morning, you instead ate a healthy dinner, worked on yourself, exercised, meditated, and went to bed on time?
How would your life change?
How much closer would you be to your goals?
Creating a life you love requires self-discipline. Studies show that people with self-discipline are happier.
Why?
Self-discipline gives you the self-control to accomplish the goals you actually care about, rather than living for short-term gratification, which ends up leaving you unsatisfied.
For most of us, life would look completely different.
But if that’s the case, then why is it so hard to choose the action that brings us closer to our goals?
The answer is a lack of discipline.
In order to take action and achieve your goals, you need self-discipline.
Mastering self-discipline is a superpower. Self-discipline gives you the ability to achieve what you want, even when it is difficult or uncomfortable. Self-discipline helps you push forward and stay motivated, regardless of how you’re feeling, whether you had a long day at work, or had a fight with your partner.
So how do you build discipline? Keep reading.
1. Visualize Success
One of the best ways to stay disciplined and do the hard thing is to visualize success. Visualization is proven to be an effective way of using your subconscious to help you get where you want to go. Visualizing both taking action toward your goal and then successfully achieving your goal in the end are powerful in building self-discipline.
When you imagine achieving your goal, you will start to make decisions throughout your day in a way that aligns with your goal. For example, if you want to go to the gym after work, by mentally picturing yourself wearing your workout gear in the gym and doing reps, your subconscious will automatically begin to guide you towards going to the gym after work. You might wake up and pack your gym clothes with your office bag. You may tell your partner you will be home later than usual. When your colleague invites you to happy hour, you will say no. Before you leave work, you might grab a smoothie to fuel yourself.
In addition, when you visualize your end success, your body and mind are a lot more motivated to take action even when it is uncomfortable. So, by imagining how good you look with 6-pack abs at the beach, it will be a lot easier for you to find the motivation even after a long day to take consistent action and get your workout done.
2. Learn to Be Okay with Discomfort
Whenever we do something new, we are stepping out of our comfort zones. That’s why implementing a new habit feels so difficult and takes more energy, which can lead to procrastination or giving up.
Hence, it is vital to be prepared for some degree of discomfort as you work towards your goals. As you practice taking action despite the discomfort, you will get stronger and find it easier to push through. Soon, facing discomfort will be a part of your comfort zone. Facing and overcoming discomfort is one of the best ways to build the practice of being disciplined.
3. Do the Basics
In order to be disciplined, it is important to set yourself up for success. It is a lot easier to focus and stay motivated when you aren’t running on 4 hours of sleep and a bag of potato chips for dinner.
So, if you want to achieve your goals, you have to take care of yourself. You wouldn’t be able to get any work done on your laptop when its battery is dead or it is overheating, right? Similarly, you can’t get effective work done when you are running on low energy.
So make sure you get 8 hours of sleep a night, workout regularly, and eat healthy food, so that your body and mind are in the optimum space to get things done.
Conclusion
Self-discipline is the magical ingredient that helps transform the goals you want to achieve into goals you have successfully achieved. As you build discipline, you give yourself the power to successfully do all the things you plan to do, so that the goals you set suddenly become achievable.
A self-help guru is a person who has undergone a dramatic, but positive, change in his or her life and uses what he or she learned from this change to help others better their own lives. Normally, a self-help guru provides insight and advice as well as challenges people in need to help them reach their own life-changing realizations. This is done either in an individual or group setting.
