From the very beginning of our lives, we are bound by a set of rules, governing every aspect. Schools usually start early in the morning, have every minute of the day planned until the bell rings for us to go home. On completing school, we get to college, where we are groomed to enter the corporate sphere which has its own modus operandi.
But let’s think about it for a minute, when we are in school, we wait desperately for the clock to strike 2, so that we can go home. In college, again we wait for the evening when there are no classes and we can just chill. In our corporate lives, we wait for weekends. The point is, ironically, we’re being conditioned to be more disciplined, we end up liking the less tightened times more. Therefore, comprehending self-discipline becomes the need of the hour.
This is the right time for us to understand the difference between externally imposed discipline and self-discipline. Self-discipline is imposed internally, for conditioning ourselves to behave or not behave in a certain manner. And it is overt, for success in any facet of our lives, self-discipline is one of the prerequisites.
Now that we have deciphered the aura around self-discipline, let’s take about a few ways we can build and integrate it into our daily routines.
Alter your mindset
If one is comfortable being the way one is, it makes no sense to go on thinking about how should one go about changing their lifestyle to a more disciplined one. The first step to becoming a regimented person is to change the current state of mind. And substantiate it with a reason, as to why you want to change.
Decide, in your mind, the change that you would like to be. Everything else will follow.
Repetition makes permanent
The process flow of building self-discipline is similar to building any other habit. It requires a tremendous amount of repetition and incessant exercising of your inhibitions. Every time you feel like reverting to your own ways, think about your why. And keep on keeping on.
Run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But just keep going.
Start small
Say you want to be more disciplined with your diet. Start off by changing just one meal a day. See the impacts of it and then go on changing other aspects of it to calibrate the results. This way, you can avoid the risk of getting overwhelmed and also the possibility of burnout.
Remember, slow and steady wins the race.
Give yourself a break!
Weekends are given off in every world for a reason because breaks are just as important as the progress gained during working. However, in this case, breaks are also important to maintain your sanity and again, avoid the possibility of you quitting altogether.
From time to time, allow yourself to take a break from the stringency. Eat something unhealthy, spend a small percentage of your savings. And then, get back on track, without any regrets or guilt.
Give room for the human side of you
Falling off the wagon is a very real possibility, at any stage of the process. Instead of going crazy, thinking less of yourself, always remember, you can start again, but this time you won’t be starting afresh. You will be starting off from where you left off.
We’re all humans, after all.
Most importantly, start now!
Waiting for the circumstances to be just right hardly works for us in our daily lives. And it won’t work here either. Something will always feel off. That’s the way for our brains to trick us into giving in to living the way it is comfortable.
Start now, and you’ll see, this is probably the best thing you would do for yourself.
Read Also: 7 Ways To Practice Minimalism.