Over the last few weeks I’ve been gaming a lot and ignoring my blog. I know when I’m due for a new post, but, I’m consciously ignoring it. The game is just too good to postpone playing & neither is the guilt for not writing. I’ve found myself many a times in such situations – postponing because I hate to do certain errands or ignoring duties because I love lazing around with a book or in this case a game. I really wish I had more discipline. What is ‘Discipline’ by the way?
Discipline is described as the ability to do what we think is right for us instead of what we feel is right for us at the moment. It’s the ability to motivate oneself to do the right thing in spite of negative emotional states, temptations and time killers. In short, it is the ability to do what we should do, whether we feel like it or not 1. I looked back into my past to see how I ploughed through tough times, how I reached my goals to check if I had any lessons I could relearn and share and ‘looked out too, to add to my learning, and hopefully action. At the core, these steps help us in getting disciplined:
Know thy Self: Do we know what we want for us? Do we know where we want to go? How do we know what is best for us, if we don’t know what we want from life? Only when we know this, can we model our behaviour accordingly. I used the flower diagram from the book “What color is your parachute” to understand my passions and built a mission statement accordingly. Try the book or this another good resource Mission Statement Builder.
Think Long-term: One of the reason many are not disciplined is because they give in to short-term gratification. What they can get right now in the present moment. Ask any cigarette addict, ask any TV addict. If we are to succeed in disciplining ourselves then we need to postpone gratification – delay gratification till we reach our goal. We need to believe that reaching our long-term goal is worthier than the pleasures we are giving up in the present.
Hold on: Sometimes we are tempted to buy something or quit something even when we know it is counterproductive to do so. Next time, just sit through those uncomfortable feelings. Most of the time the urge to do what we felt will pass and we can continue with a clear head.
Remove distractions: It is tough to control ourselves from eating cake if we have it in front of us. Likewise, it is difficult to concentrate on our goal if we have a lot around us to distracts us. Out of sight is out of mind. Hiding everything other than the equipment needed to complete our work is a very good idea. In this case, my Playstation needs to be replaced by my laptop.
Setup routines: Fighting against moods, emotions, impulses is tough. A lot of energy is drained in the process. The easier we make it to ourselves the better. By setting up routines we bypass friction and automatically start executing work scheduled as part of the routine. So setup routines for morning, evenings, and any time where high impact work can be completed.
Work in chunks: How to conquer a mountain? One step at a time. In short, divide & conquer. If a goal is too big that it scares you, break it to smaller, manageable pieces and, tick each one-off as you make progress. And, as we tick them off, we boost our self-confidence.
Eat the frog first: Tackle the worst first. Do the most unpleasant thing first. Tackling the worst thing first, gives us a positive boost and improve our outlook for the rest of the day. We can use this momentum to get the rest of the work done.
In the end, we need to realize that discipline is not about hard constraints and compulsions – forcing ourselves to do what we don’t want to – but, conditioning our minds to do what is right rather than give in to the whims of the moment.
1: Quote by Elbert Hubbard
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