Self Talk and Positive Thinking.com

How to develop self discipline. There is a prevalent erroneous idea that self-discipline are difficult to develop and require practicing various kinds of very tough and pain inflicting activities. This is incorrect. The truth is that the whole process of developing them can be turned into a pleasurable and fun experience. It is a gradual process that consists of simple exercises you can practice wherever you might happen to be and at any time. Many of these exercises relate to common, everyday activities. Let me give you an example before we proceed:

You are thirsty and wish to drink something. You might wish to drink beer, juice, soda water or any other kind of beverage, but instead, you intentionally drink just plain water, in spite of your desire to drink something else.
This simple exercise will cause you some subconscious resistance. By resisting the temptation and desire to drink your favorite drink, you strengthen your willpower and self-discipline. It is like lifting barbells to strengthen your muscles, only that here you strengthen the muscles of your willpower and self discipline.  Actually, the body is thirsty and needs water to quench its thirst, but the mind automatically suggests something else, according to its. Your decision, and your abidance by your decision to drink plain water, exercises your power of choice and the power of your will.  As you see, it was not hard at all. You didn’t need to do anything extraordinary or spend some special time practicing this simple exercise.  After practicing the exercises several times, and being able to abide by your decision to drink water, you can revert to drinking you favorite beverage when thirsty. You have proved to yourself that you can overcome your instinctive desire and use willpower and self-discipline. Such exercises strengthen your inner powers, and make it easier to use them when you need them for anything else, not just for drinking water.

Here is another example how you can develop self discipline;

·  If you have an appointment at a certain hour, you are there on time.
·  If you make a promise to finish some work at a certain hour or date, you finish it by that time.
·  If you promise yourself to start a self-improvement program, study, exercises or meditation, you keep this promise.
·  If you decide to slim or eat only healthy food, you abide by your decision, even if you have to give up your favorite tidbits and snacks or change your eating habits.
·  A self-disciplined person does not produce excuses, but keeps and fulfills the promises he makes to himself and to others.

Acting contrary to a habit, even if this is unpleasant and uncomfortable, strengthens one’s power of will, self-discipline and endurance. Just to set your mind at rest, after mastering any exercise, you may, if you wish, return to your old habit, if it is not harmful and you still like it.  Training your willpower and self-discipline  is similar to training your muscles by lifting heavy weights at the gym. You make some effort in order to gain inner strength. You “sacrifice” some pleasure for the sake of gaining something better.  I wish to share with you some experiences, which I went through at the beginning of my training. I started reading a very thick book, with many pages, but after reading a few pages I put it aside, finding it too boring. At that very moment I remembered that one of the ways to strengthen willpower and self discipline  was by practicing actions that bring up inner resistance and completing them. At that very moment I decided to read the whole book, no matter how boring it was. I stuck with my decision, and went through each page to the last one.  Though it was a small accomplishment, it was a great victory for me, since I was able to overcome the opposition of my mind. This incident filled me with strength, and the faith that I can overcome any inner resistance I might encounter. I felt that if I could read a boring book, I would be able to do greater things that need more inner effort and strength.  Later, I have noticed that this exercise, and similar ones, developed my ability to go through and finish whatever I started to do, not just reading
books. I hope you will do the same,and you won’t stop until you achieve whatever you desire to accomplish.

Have a great day!

Self-discipline is- the companion of willpower and appears in various forms, such as staying power, perseverance, restraint, and as the ability to carry out one’s decisions and plans, in spite of inconvenience, hardships or obstacles.  One of the main characteristics of self-discipline is the ability to forego instant and immediate gratification and pleasure, in favor of some greater gain or more satisfying results, even if this requires effort and time.  It’s  a very useful and much needed skill in everyone’s life, and though most people acknowledge its importance, yet very few do anything to develop and strengthen it. There are several reasons for this state of affairs, some of them being lack of enough information available on this subject, laziness and ignorance. In addition, the term self-discipline often causes some discomfort and fear, due to the erroneous notion that it is something unpleasant, difficult to attain, and which requires a lot of effort and sacrifice. It does require some effort and practice to attain, but it is a skill that everyone can develop to a lesser or greater extent through special training. The same exercises that develop and strengthen willpower also develop and strengthen self-discipline. True self-discipline is not a punitive or restrictive lifestyle as some people think, and has nothing to do with being narrow minded or living like a fakir. It is inner strength and staying power, vital for dealing with the affairs of daily life and for the achieving of goals. It enables you to overcome laziness, procrastination and indecisiveness. It also helps you take the necessary action in every situation, even if it is unpleasant and requires effort, also enables you to exercise moderation in what you do, become patient, and have the strength to avoid impulsive actions. In addition, this skill enables you to withstand external pressure and influence.
A self-disciplined person does not produce excuses, but keeps and fulfills the promises he makes to himself and to others.  A person can be talented, bright and educated, but without self discipline he or she will not reach far.
You need willpower in order to make decisions and start working toward accomplishing them, and you need self-discipline in order to stick with your decisions and goals until you accomplish them.  Perhaps the best definition of self-discipline comes from Elbert Hubbard, “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. I  know that this is most important  thing that  you should do if you want to develop self-discipline.  There is no other way how can you develop it. It’s got to be done this way,whether you feel like it or not, do it anyway.  The habit of self-discipline is closely tied to the Law of Control.   The Law of Control says that, “You feel happy about yourself to the degree to which you feel you are in control of your own life.”  Self-discipline is the key to self-mastery and self-control. The more capable you become of disciplining yourself to do what you have decided to do, whether you feel like it or not, the more positive and powerful you will feel. There is a direct relationship between self-discipline and self-esteem. The more you discipline yourself to behave in the manner that you have decided, the more you like and respect yourself. The more positive and confident you will feel. The stronger and more in charge of your life and situation you become. Every act of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline at the same time. Every weakness in self-discipline weakens your other disciplines as well. Like working a muscle, your ability to discipline yourself to behave in the way that you have decided grows stronger each time you exercise it. This is why the happiest, most successful and most respected men and women in our society are all men and women of great self-control, self-mastery and self-discipline. ( The Part 2 will be on How To Develop Self-Discipline )

Building up self-discipline is sometimes hard to do. We all need discipline in order to be successful with all the challenges and problems in our daily life. Build up your self-discipline with positive thinking and self-talk. In order to be successful, we need to be strong and use our positive thinking skills to keep our self-discipline in control. We need to be in control of our lives in order to succeed in the world today. Learn to stayin control with self-discipline by thinking positive. If we thinking negative things like “this isn’t going to work” or “if I hadn’t done this it would never

have been this way” Be positive and say, “this is going to work” or “I’ll have to manage and do it differently next time.” When you tell yourself this aloud, it is telling your brain positive things that it needs to hear in order to overcome the negative thoughts. What you keep hearing all the time, eventually you will believe. It doesn’t meter weather it positive or negative. That’s why you need to keep an eye on your self,what you keep listening and what kind of people surround you. We have to like ourselves to be successful in life. Self-discipline with building a positive thinking will help us to become the person we want to be by making goals. Write down your goals that you want to achieve and work hard by thinking positive and telling yourself that you can and will reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As you reach each goal, reward yourself by doing something special. Think positive what you’d like after reaching each goal. For instance if you want to stop smoking set a date like three months than take a shopping trip and than at the end of the first half a year take a vacation. You’ll save a lot of money as well as becoming healthier and you will feel better about yourself too. And remember positive people create positive emotions and positive atmosphere,but negative people create opposite.  I like one proverb and that’s what it says “Bad people spoil good habits”