Become Rock-Solid! How To Build Discipline Effectively
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Do you ever wish you had self-discipline so strong that you could easily reach any goal you wanted?
Learning new skills, losing weight, staying organized, getting healthier – anything that requires determination and repetitive work could be achieved so much easier with some will and self-discipline.
Believe it or not, learning how to build discipline that’s rock-solid is not impossible.
Buddhist monks and meditation practitioners all over the world have been successfully doing it for years.
And if you think well, you’ve probably done that a few times too.
If you ever did something you didn’t really want to (eating clean, working out, studying for an exam, going somewhere you don’t want to go), you also practiced being self-disciplined.
You had to do something not entertaining, but you pushed through with a little self-discipline and it helped you to do something that needed to be done.
The problem with self-discipline is that for most people, it tends to run out, especially if it wasn’t practiced or encouraged in your childhood.
It’s either the motivation that runs out or life just gets in the way and the whole “being more disciplined” wish just fades away like the wind.
So if you’re wondering how to build discipline that helps you to reach your goals…
Here’s exactly how you can do that!
Become Rock-Solid: How To Build Discipline
1. Practice Being OK With Discomfort
Let’s admit it – the reason everyone wants to know how to build discipline is that it helps you push through the unpleasant and boring things that ultimately give you the desired result.
The most common example is losing weight.
In order to do that, you need to keep a healthy diet and skip those tasty, salty, fatty, or sugary foods.
You need to exercise regularly to build lean muscle that makes your metabolism faster.
And both of these things are pretty hard to keep up with – they are uncomfortable.
That’s why most people who start losing weight, relapse after a few weeks or months.
So how to build discipline that helps you push through weight loss or any other goal achievement process?
By practicing to be OK with discomfort.Â
“Okay, but how do you do that?”
To do that, gently ease yourself into discomfort daily.
You can choose one thing you don’t like or don’t want to do and do it.Â
Start with something small, like doing a few reps of the exercise you hate the most.
Or you can pick a home task you hate doing and do it.
If you do that every day, eventually your discomfort tolerance will increase and it will become much easier to do other things you don’t want to do.
2. Minimize Temptations Until You Feel Stronger
If you have a specific thing you want to learn how to build discipline for (for example, finishing a big neglected task), making a decision is not enough.
But pushing through can also become complicated if you are surrounded by distractions or temptations.
To learn how to build discipline, minimize the number of possible distractions while you are getting used to the thing you don’t like.
For example, if you want to start eating a cleaner diet, remove all unhealthy food items from your kitchen.
Push through a week or two and you will find yourself easing into healthy eating like a pro!
And once you develop enough discipline to eat healthy every single day, you will also learn that you can enjoy an occasional sugary or fatty treat in moderation, without overeating.
3. Visualize Rewards You Will Get For Being Disciplined
How to build discipline in the most pleasurable way?
The answer will soothe your soul…
You do that by constantly dreaming!
That’s right.
Regularly dreaming about how your life would feel after your discipline paid off is a very motivating thing to do.
Burning motivation, along with self-discipline, makes everything a lot easier.
So go ahead and visualize yourself having whatever it is you want to have!
Picture yourself with your achievement and whenever you need to work on something that brings you there, keep that image in your mind.
4. How To Build Discipline If You Keep Failing?
Use Failures For More Practice!
Please don’t think that being self-disciplined means you will never fail.
That’s impossible.
Even the most disciplined people sometimes fail with their obligations to themselves.
Failing is a part of the human nature.
But here’s what helps those people push forward – they use failure to become even more disciplined.
So if you want to build discipline, treat failures as possible opportunities to get even better!
Broke the streak of your diet and overate tonight?
Go ahead and read about what triggers overeating and how to deal with it.
Felt extremely lazy and skipped working on that project you need to finish?
Go on and look for ways to get motivated again.
(Here are a few ideas:
How To Get That Burning Motivation To Reach Your Goals
30 Quotes That Motivate You To Work On Your Dreams )
Can’t even do that?
Realign yourself with some alone time and practice self-care to recover – you are probably mentally and physically tired.
Take some proper rest, relax, and get back to being disciplined once you feel ready.
While you’re recovering, I recommend reading a few self-discipline books to get re-motivated and gather the mental will to do better next time:
The Science of Self-Discipline by Peter Hollins
(You can also get them as a Kindle or e-book version).
5. Have a Clear Reason To Build Discipline
Probably one of the more important steps in learning how to build discipline in your life is refining a reason why you want to become more self-disciplined.
What do YOU want to build self-discipline for?
Keeping a clear reason in your mind at all times can help you remind yourself why you are doing this when life happens and things get hard.
If your motivation is all over the place or if you don’t really know why you’re personally developing self-confidence (maybe you just think that that’s what people do, so you should do it too), you can very quickly lose your way.
Whether it be eating clean or exercising regularly or learning a new language – keep it in your mind at all times.
It will provide you with the necessary motivation to keep moving forward in learning how to build discipline.
If you’re a little scatterbrained and tend to forget stuff easily, write it down on a piece of paper and hang it where you’ll always see it!
6. Set SMART Goals
Have you ever been in a position where you wondered how the hell people learn how to build discipline?
Sometimes it may seem like sticking with it is mission impossible, but I promise you, it’s much easier than you think.
You just need to be a little more strategic about it.
For example, start with setting SMART goals for yourself.
SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound – goals have been scientifically shown to help people with productivity and general goal attainability.
Although SMART goals are most widely used in professional and academic contexts, you can apply them just as well to your personal life.
So basically, your goal should target a narrow and specific area you want to improve, its progress should be easily measured, you should make sure that it is indeed attainable within a set timeframe, it should be relevant to your long-term objectives, and you should set a realistic timeframe to achieve said goal.
By making sure your goals are SMART, you set very clear rules for yourself that provide you with direction as well as an understanding of what needs to be done to achieve your goals, which helps you focus on preserving your self-discipline.
SMART goals essentially eliminate the distractions associated with goal-setting – you don’t need to fuss about the what, how, and when – that’s all sorted now.
You only need to focus on maintaining your habits that help you learn how to build discipline.
7. Routine Is Your Friend
Do you sometimes go to bed and remember – shoot, I forgot to exercise / do my language exercises / meditate / … ?
Happens to me more often than I would like to admit.
What’s more, it can really make you feel like a failure (although you never should – failing is a natural part of life!) and bring the morale down, making it easier to skip tomorrow’s tasks as well.
But that’s why it’s so important to build a daily routine that incorporates the habits you want to cultivate self-discipline for!
Making sure you stay consistent with your tasks every day can really help you learn how to build discipline.
Try to schedule a specific time in your day to perform the tasks related to your goals.
If you stick with it for long enough, you won’t even have to think about it anymore!
You’ll see that it’s, let’s say, 6 PM, and you’ll know that it’s time for your daily habits, no questions asked.
8. Start Small
One of the biggest threats to learning how to build discipline is becoming overwhelmed with it all to the point you quit whatever you were cultivating self-discipline for.
If that’s you, start with small, manageable tasks first – a few minutes of meditation, a few minutes jogging, you name it.
And then, once you feel like you’re ready for a bigger challenge, gradually increase the amount of effort you put into the task, like adding a few more minutes to your language exercise in the morning or adding a few harder exercises to your curriculum.
Bit by bit, you’ll be able to build momentum and before you know it, you’ll be so surprised with your progress!
Another helpful tip if you find yourself getting overwhelmed when learning how to build confidence is breaking your big tasks into smaller ones.
That way they will seem much more achievable and hence will help you maintain your self-discipline!
9. Get Yourself An Accountability Buddy
If you keep struggling with preserving your self-discipline over and over, getting an outside influence to keep you in check might be just what you need.
An accountability buddy is someone you share your progress and goals with, and ask to check in often to see how you’re doing.
Your accountability buddy can provide you with a lot of encouragement and support to keep your discipline journey going, as well as accountability to not quit!
There are a number of different examples of how to build discipline…
Yet it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Most of the discipline-building habits will still require some effort (and honestly – is there anything that doesn’t?..), but these techniques can truly guide you through your journey to a more disciplined YOU.
And if you’ve been thinking about how to build discipline…
It means you are ready.
So go on!
Try it, master it, and rock your goals one after another – you’ve got everything you need inside you.
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