How to Stick to your Goals – Discipline

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“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.” ~ Elbert Hubbard.

Discipline is formally defined as “training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.” It is also defined as “to teach self-control”. Interesting definitions.

Self-Control

Why would you need to teach someone self-control? Surely you are in control of yourself – these are not the days of slavery after all. You control You. So then if you have control over yourself and your thoughts and your actions, your life should be exactly as you want it, right? Is it? I am guessing not. Most of us have some area (or even several areas) of our lives in which we wish we could have some improvement. Maybe we are overweight. Maybe we are just barely scrapping by financially. Maybe we have a controllable health problem like heart disease or hypertension. Maybe we are unfit and unhealthy due to lack of exercise. Maybe we have unsatisfying marriages or poor relationships with our children or parents. Maybe we lack leisure time. Maybe we have a disorganized home or office.

So if you control you, what is stopping you from having a fantastic body, financial abundance, a healthy lifestyle, great fulfilling relationships, and an organized home?

Well there could be any number of reasons. Perhaps you were born poor, or you can’t find the time to exercise or your job just sucks and does not pay you enough money or your spouse is uncaring or your children are demons? Perhaps. But it is very likely that there is more you could be doing to achieve these goals than you are doing right now. It is very likely that you are using these excuses to excuse yourself from working harder to achieve your goals. In order words, you lack self-control.

I don’t feel like it

If you doubt this, consider the last time you were on a diet. When you were faced with that urge to eat the ice cream, what did you do? Did you find reasons and excuses to eat it or did you put it down? What did you do the last time you were faced with a choice to do your exercise or watch TV? Did you find reasons to excuse yourself from exercising or did you exercise? What did you do the last time you were supposed to study? Did you find reasons to excuse yourself from studying or did you sit down and do your studies? Here are some examples of the excuses we give ourselves:

“I worked hard all week, I deserve a break.”
“I had a really rough day, I deserve a reward.”
“It won’t matter if I give in this one time.”
“It won’t make much difference if I continue, I will never reach my goal anyway.”
“I much rather watch TV.”
“I’m tired.”
“I don’t feel like doing it.”

Does not sound like we have control over ourselves at all. This is why we need to develop our self-control, our discipline. Discipline is the simply act of doing what you need to do when you need to do it regardless of your emotional state. The primary reason that people do not stick to their goals is because they don’t feel like it. Now if you pause here and give this some thought, it sounds really silly, doesn’t it? Just imagine someone asks you:

“So why are you overweight?”
“Because I don’t feel like eating right and exercising.’

“So why are earning such a low income?”
“Because I don’t feel like working harder.”

“So why did you fail at school?”
“Because I did not feel like studying.”

“So why do you have heart disease and hypertension?”
“Because I don’t feel like changing my diet and lifestyle.”

You would never give such a reason. You would give one of the excuses you gave yourself – that it’s too hard or that life is unfair or that you are just too busy to do what needs to be done. But it’s time you realized and admitted to yourself that it is because you did not feel like it. It is because you need to develop your discipline and your self-control.

What could you do with maximum self-discipline?

Imagine how much you could have achieved in your life if you had simply done what you needed to do when you needed to do it regardless of whether you felt like doing it or not. Just imagine that for a moment. Would you be healthy? Would you be slim? Would you be rich? Would you have a satisfying marriage? Would you have a rewarding education? Now is the time to find out. Imagine what you can have five years from now or even one year from now if you exercise self-control and discipline. Really imagine it.

Self control is the simple (but not easy) act of deciding to forgo short-term desire for long-term success. Discipline is the simple (but not easy) act of doing what you need to do when you need to do it even when you do not feel like doing it.

Obviously being disciplined is not easy otherwise we would all be very disciplined and have all the successes we would like to have. So how do we become disciplined? The next article in this series on How to Stick to your Goals will begin speaking about this.

“With self-discipline most anything is possible.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt quotes.

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Related Articles:

• Achieving Your Goals – The Power of Persistence
• Achieving Your Goals – The Power of Consistency
• How to become an Optimist – Part I
• Relationship Dynamics – How to get the relationship you want
• How to Fight Depression Naturally
• How to Stop Worrying and Be Relaxed – An Experiment
• How to be Happy – Training yourself to enjoy life
• How to choose your perfect mate, spouse or life partner
• Coping with Stress – Part I
• How to Quit Smoking Naturally – Part I
• Achieving Your Goals Part I – Goal Identification
• Achieving Your Goals Part II – Form a Plan
• Achieving Your Goals Part III – Make a Commitment
• Achieving Your Goals Part IV – Staying Motivated
• Achieving Your Goals Part V – Change Your Environment
• Achieving Your Goals Part VI – Change Your Thinking
• Achieving Your Goals Part VII – Discipline and Vocabulary

Posted in A New Start, Choices, Goals, Motivation, Reaching for the Top, Self Discipline |   No Comments »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 12:31 pm and is filed under A New Start, Choices, Goals, Motivation, Reaching for the Top, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.