If you have decided that enough is enough and you need to get your life back on the path to success, you need to first develop self-discipline. At some point, you might have looked at your life and gotten disappointed at how much of a mess you have made of it. Most of the problems might be traced back to an undisciplined life where you did things the way you wanted when you wanted.
4 ways to develop self-discipline
1. Control temptations
The main enemy of a self-disciplined life is temptation. People can be tempted by many things, get addicted to them, and end up ruining their lives as a result. It might be alcohol, gaming, luxury items, and so on. If you have any such addictive temptations, you need to first bring such tendencies under control. And the best way to remove temptations from your life is to keep the source of such temptations away from you.
For instance, if you are tempted to keep drinking regularly, make sure that you do not store alcohol at home. Avoid setting up meetings in pubs. Do not visit the homes of your drinking buddies. When you adopt such strict measures of keeping yourself away from temptations, you will soon find it easy to deal with them and even overcome them one day.
2. Set a goal
Define a goal in your life. What do you want to be? How do you want to live your life? Be very specific about this. A vague goal like “I want to be rich” won’t do. You have to be extremely specific, like “I want to make $1 million in 2 years.” Such specificity gives you a defined target and a time limit. You can then set up a long-term plan and targets that will help you achieve this goal. The entire process will easily structure your life and make it more disciplined.
3. Create habits
Developing habits is a good way to discipline your life. First, define why you need discipline? Maybe you are someone who plans a lot of things but does not get anything done. If so, look into why this happens. Maybe you are so obsessed with chatting on social media that you tend to overlook the work involved in realizing your plan.
If so, you can develop a habit of only checking social media for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night. Outside of this schedule, you should not log into your social media accounts at all. This habit will help you avoid wasting time. A number of such habits, each carefully designed to overcome your negative tendencies, will contribute significantly to your self-discipline.
4. Get comfortable with discomfort
In your journey toward self-disciple, you will be faced with many discomforts. You may feel disappointed, irritated, and helpless facing such discomforts. However, keep in mind that all such discomforts will eventually pay off. Try to accept the discomforts as they are, like a part of your life.
When you become comfortable with the discomfort, you will feel that leading a self-disciplined life is easier than thought. For instance, when you plan on strictly sleeping for 6 hours every day rather than the usual 8 hours, things can get uncomfortable. You might feel sleepy and stressed out for the first few weeks. However, your body will soon acclimatize to the new routine and you won’t feel much discomfort after some time.
