Why and how with self-discipline

by Chun ko Lin

For some people, self-discipline, influenced by various factors, may have already manifested as an inherent trait during their upbringing. However, this is a negligible minority, and even such individuals can continue to work on strengthening and developing this ability.

When we want to change something about ourselves or in our environment, self-discipline is essential, along with other necessary prerequisites. Those who are aware of the significance of self-discipline for a higher quality of life and wish to enhance this ability within themselves will sooner or later engage in self-improvement in this regard.

Self-discipline is exceptionally important because it acts as a significant multiplier of all our other abilities.

Here we are going to look at four different facilitating tools that facilitate the strengthening and development of self-discipline for those who seek improvement in their quality of life.

1.

The first facilitating tool for strengthening self-discipline is:

A daily reminder of the reasons why we decided to change our behaviour.

The great importance of daily reminders which awake our awareness of the reasons for our decision is that it stimulates our will and energy to make it happen.

A good way to remind ourselves is to write a sentence describing the reasons for our decision on a piece of paper. This paper can be placed on the bathroom mirror, various locations in the house, or the workspace. It's also beneficial for such sentences to appear when turning on our electronic device screen or intermittently.

2.

The second facilitating tool for strengthening of our self-discipline is particularly crucial, especially at the beginning of any new behavioural task:

Set our work on behavioral task at the same time every day.

at which we are going to dedicate ourselves to concrete work on our decision to change something in our behaviour. 

This consistency makes it easier for us because performing a task at the same time every day becomes a habit. Eventually, paying attention to such work will become more manageable and even a pleasant and easily achievable activity.

3.

The third facilitating tool for the development and strengthening of self-discipline is:

Gradual difficulty selection of tasks that we will work on. 

This means initially choosing goals that are relatively easy to work on but require daily effort. We can start with any useful and easily achievable activity.

Every day, we'll remind ourselves of the reasons we want to engage in that activity and dedicate time to it daily. It could be anything: a 10-minute daily walk with the smartphone turned off, a 5-minute meditation, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, 15 minutes of learning foreign language etc.

This third facilitating factor is significant because it allows us to gradually set more demanding goals. 

Just as in bodybuilding, we can't immediately lift a 100-kilogram weight if our muscles are only capable of lifting 20 kilograms. With daily regular exercise, we will eventually be able to lift 100 kilograms effortlessly and then move on to even more challenging goals.

If we know that we need stronger self-discipline, it is not advisable to choose overcoming an addiction or breaking a strong habit as the first task. This will come later when our self-discipline has developed stronger muscles, enabling us to initiate more significant changes in ourselves or our environment.

When we reach a point where we effortlessly perform a certain behaviour every day and want to continue it in our lives, that is the point where we have successfully overcome that level of change and can move on to more demanding tasks.

If, however, we are unable to maintain a behavioural change, it means that the task at that moment is too difficult.  We need to look for a new, easier task to develop our self-discipline. This is similar to bodybuilding: if the weight is too heavy, we temporarily switch to a lighter one until we strengthen ourselves.

4.

The fourth facilitating factor or tool is:

Self-observation.

Since every person is unique, it is very useful to identify some of our inspiring and motivating factors that make it easier for us to develop self-discipline. 

By observing ourselves during our daily efforts to adopt new behaviour, we can discover our supportive factors and our internal resistances in strengthening our self-discipline.

Especially at the beginning of such self-improvement work, it is good to detect and avoid circumstances that hinder our progress.

Later, as our self-discipline develops, we may find ourselves seeking precisely those circumstances that disrupt our work to further develop the muscles of our self-discipline.