SELF DISCIPLINE : How It Rules

Salad or fried chicken? Study for the due exam or hang out with friends for just another hour? Sleep late or take an early start? Mindlessly surf web or read life enriching books? Be irresponsible with money or create a budget and savings plan?

Telling a good habit from bad, or what is important from what is not is usually simple. However, taking action accordingly can cost a person every ounce of his will power, ( we have all been there ). And what we settle for, easy or tough, good or bad, important or trivial, says quite a  bit about the amount of self discipline we possess. This in turn predicts the amount of success we will achieve while chasing our goals, the rate at which we will do so, and the probability of failing at it.

Much like any organization or company that needs structured planning and disciplined operating, our lives do too. When our lifestyle consists of oscillating between taking control over life’s situation and things for some days and being controlled by them for the rest, we usually end up feeling devastated. Every time we might vow to never fall for the same approach ,but being low on self restrain, we can’t help ourselves much. The resulting fresh disappointment only leads us to beat ourselves all over again, and the cycle continues. Life is too precious to be lived off in such a haphazard manner.

We all know people who have excelled in different areas of their lives like business, academics etc. They didn’t have wonderful strokes of luck, or were born with some magical capabilities. They stand out because they learnt to discipline themselves better, set their priorities and goals straight and achieved them. No matter what life threw at them, they stayed true to their cause and themselves. Successful people are just different in the weight of their muscle; muscle of self discipline that grows stronger with use until it is built solid.

Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results. There’s a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.

-Gary Ryan Blair

For some of us, phrases like self-discipline and self-mastery sound dire, intimidating even threatening. We think it might stop us from enjoying life as we should or limit our joys. This is not how self-discipline works at all. In contrast, it lets us enjoy life in a better way while being mindful and productive. We can follow our instincts or run away from them. We can distract ourselves, excuse our ways out, blame the environment, bad habits, food, our genes or God, but at the end of the day it’s just us and the weak muscle.

The sooner we take responsibility of our actions and discipline ourselves, the quicker we can move to the top, reach our targets and goals. Getting good results or getting anywhere in life is just not possible without discipline. And it actually gets fun and can get quite addicting once you get the hang of it. So hey, let’s build our self-discipline muscles so we can flex them as we enjoy the long term fruits it brings.  

Do take a moment to share what the phrase self- discipline means to you and in what way has it affected your life.