The Easiest Ways to Understand and Practice Self-Discipline for Better Results

Self-discipline may sound like a cliché because you hear it all the time. You listen to it from the religious leaders, especially when you attend a spiritual gathering. You listen to motivational and inspirational speakers whenever you turn on your radio or meet them on social media platforms, and all you hear and read is self-discipline this and self-discipline that. You can also attest to the fact that self-discipline echoes and re-echoes in your head from time to time? Okay, let’s continue.

But the main question is, what is the real meaning of self-discipline? Is it just a walk in the park? Or is it as serious as an unimaginable herculean task? That world has become so common in the ear that people now begin to misunderstand its true meaning, and that is why many people find it so difficult to acquire and apply self-discipline.

The primary reason you must ask and also get the answers to the above questions is because you need to understand the true meaning in other to make it easier for yourself to apply so that you will become more disciplined than you are today, that is the only way you can achieve what you want in life and live your dream life.

My main objective for writing this article today is to break it all down to you in the simplest form, so that you will understand what it truly means for one to be disciplined and then apply it in a way that will be more suitable for you. I promise to break it down to you in the simplest form that you will understand easily. After reading this post today, you will come to realise that self-discipline is not really what you think it is.

So What Is Self-Discipline?

To break it down in simple terms, it means SELF-DENIAL. Whenever you refuse to grant your body access to that which it craves, you are then subjecting your body to discipline. Whenever you refuse to grant yourself the opportunity to do that which you know you can easily do without anyone trying to stop you from doing it, for example, you want to take a night out and go clubbing, because that is what your body craves.

You know you have all it takes to do this and experience the best of it, but on a second thought, you still choose not to go for the clubbing and also deal with that urge that is pushing you towards it. That is called self-discipline.

The reason you fall for whatever you see is that you lack discipline. The truth is that learning how to hold yourself and never to fall for anything you see will save you from a lot of problems. Even in your neighbourhood, you need self-discipline to stay and enjoy it all, because you may not have any family member within that neighbourhood who would always keep an eye on you. All you need to do is discipline yourself just to be okay.

How Do You enforce self-discipline On Yourself?

Let us look at self-discipline as a vehicle, and we all know that cars need fuel to move and move smoothly. So let us now look at goal and purpose as the fuel. To enforce discipline on yourself is simple. The first thing you need to do is to create a goal; secondly, you need to have a purpose. Now, I’d like to talk about these two steps in detail below. Could you follow me?

Set A Must-Achieve Goal For Yourself.

When I say ‘Goal’, I do not mean just any goal; you need to set a goal that you know you must achieve. A goal which you will be willing to work hard for as if your whole life depends on it. This is the primary reason you will become so dedicated to achieving this particular goal of yours, because your entire life and success depend on it.

Now you are beginning to smell and approach responsibility, you are now thinking like someone who is set to achieve something so important, in fact, as important as your breath. The zeal and the burning desire to accomplish this go of your will naturally get you to start disciplining yourself in a manner that you are now ready to let go of whatever it is that will make you not concentrate on this set goal of yours and achieve it just the way you want.

Make Sure You Have a Stronger Purpose for Your Goal

Most people would set a goal for themselves without a well-defined and specific purpose. When you embark on a journey without a strong reason, the truth is that it will be hard for you to complete it. This is because many challenges will surely confront you in that journey, and you are most likely to give up and stop on the way, since you do not have a strong purpose for embarking on that journey.

A lot of people find it so difficult today to achieve anything tangible, and this is the reason. They give up so soon because they have no reason to continue with the struggle. For example, during high school, many of us didn’t know that we were already building our future. Most of us were there, but they didn’t see the reason they were there. They spent their time playing and struggled to concentrate and read.

Then, when they get to the university, many aspects become difficult for them to understand. As a result, some of them started dropping out of school because they could no longer cope. This is because they didn’t even know why they were going to school in the first place.

So, when next you embark on a journey, the first thing you should do is to make sure you define what success of that journey means to you, and this will give you a definite and clear purpose for this journey. With this, you will be sure of reaching your goal.

Take Away

Self-discipline is not something you were born with, you have to learn it and acquire it, and you can go about this gradually and one step at a time. Do not be too hard on yourself. Just take it one step at a time. The truth I must leave with you before I end this post is that you can never achieve anything tangible in life without learning to discipline yourself. You must deprive yourself of one thing to accomplish another better. This is a simple principle of life and nature. So get serious today, get disciplined today and see how better your life will become.