9 Ways To Conquer Self-Discipline

January 17, 2023

Self-discipline has been one of the hardest things for me to learn.

Growing up, my parents spoiled me more then they pushed and this caused me to nurture a poor relationship with my self-discipline. Later, I realized I could not do anything consistently, which affected how I built my relationships and reached my goals.

The only consistent thought I’ve had is how much I loved speaking to people through written words. I dreamt of graduating college and becoming a writer with a successful blog, novels, and hundreds of written jobs under my belt.

However,

After graduating, I quickly realized that without dedicated discipline, it would be impossible for me to reach my goals. Nobody could give me my dreams; I had to secure them myself.

This was when I realized I needed to rewire my daily routines and habits. This took and is still taking an incredible amount of self-discipline.

I decided to compile a list full of everything I’ve learned while trying to conquer my self-discipline.

I hope these tips will help you build the systems in your life needed to reach your goals.

Gratitude

I remember a few months ago, I was repeatedly getting TikTok’s mentioning how important it is to recognize what you have in front of you in order to get where you want to go.

It sounds silly but it really is a powerful tool.

You quickly realize that there is always something to be thankful for regardless of where your starting point is, and this helped me understand why I wanted to reach my goals so badly.

For example, I have the blessing of having an incredibly loving and patient family and friend group. I want to take care of them the way they have always cared for me.

In order to do that, I must show up every single day.

Exercise

Exercising is 100% necessary when wanting to work on self-discipline.

Believe me; I searched for a way around exercising for years because nobody hates doing it more than me.

However, exercising often teaches you discipline, allows your body to be in the best shape to serve its purpose, and frees your mind from intruding negative thoughts.

When you build an exercise routine, your mood gets enhanced tremendously, and you feel more productive.

If you hate exercise as much as I do, simply walking around your house a few times in the morning when you rise is better than nothing!

Try it for 2 weeks, and you will see and feel a difference.

Shadow Work

Shadow work is a great tool to use when wanting to rewrite the way you react to certain things. It is a little confusing at first so let me try to explain it.

If you’re on the internet these days, I know you’ve heard about the importance of healing your inner child but what does this mean? How does one do this?

The short answer is shadow work!

You need to sit down and visualize thoughts you used to have as a child or things that were often taught as a kid. Personally, I had a poor relationship with the thought of making money on my own because my mother often preached how unstable it was.

She would tell me phrases like, “most people can’t live successfully without a 9-5 job” and “making a lot of money by yourself is extremely difficult.”

These phrases did not seem to be a big deal when I was a child because my dream of not working a typical 9-5 did not waver. However, as I aged and began working towards my goals; I could not understand why I felt like failure was in my near future.

It was crippling and made it extremely difficult for me even to give my dreams a fair chance. Then I watched Lynette Adkins YouTube video (you can watch it here) on shadow work, and I quickly understood that I just have an unhealthy mental relationship with my goals.

I needed to write a new narrative.

To do this, I made a list of the things I used to be told as a child and then made a different list saying the opposite of those things.

I then read the second list of things out loud every night. Over time, I quickly started to believe the things on my new list.

Shadow work is a bit confusing, so if I did not explain it well enough, I encourage you to watch the video I mentioned above.

Set Timers

Setting timers has been extremely helpful to me for multiple reasons. For starters, I have the attention span of a 7-year-old, which has always affected my work.

In order to battle this, I started setting short timers and allotting myself a small reward after I worked through my set time.

When I started doing this, I set short timers (like 20 minutes) and then allowed myself to mindlessly scroll on TikTok for the next 20 minutes.

Although 20 minutes is not a long time, I’d finish more within the time frame than I would in 2-3 hours because I would completely focus during that time.

It also helped teach me how to stay focused; now, the timers I set are much longer.

This is a great exercise to try if you are struggling with splitting up your time throughout the day.

Ask Yourself Why

Why is it so important that you work on self-discipline? What are the long-term goals you are trying to reach? What rough timeline do you want to follow for success?

Before you can genuinely work on your self-discipline, you need to ask yourself the questions above in order to understand your why.

After you find your answers, you can revisit your why whenever you’re in a slump.

In order to pull yourself out of bed, remember why you must continue to work hard and what you are striving for. When all else fails, remembering my why always snaps me back into the present and forces me to continue working hard.

Understand Your Divine Timing

Something that took me a while to come to terms with on my self-discipline journey is divine timing. I felt like I had been working hard with nothing to show for it.

I would go on social media and see that my friends were all blossoming in their new careers and being able to afford vacations, new apartments, fancy cars, and nice clothes.

Meanwhile, I was putting in the same effort as they were, with little to nothing to show for it. This depressed me and completely derailed me from my routines.

I had to search for answers and find out if I was completely wasting my time on the wrong path. While in this negative headspace, I asked my therapist what she thought about my situation.

She assured me that social media is a mental game and to not take things too seriously.

Everyone always puts their best angle forward on social media regardless of how their life actually is.

We also discussed why others doing well has anything to do with me, and she was right to bring this up.

I quickly understood that there is enough space for me wherever I want to go.

Just because my friends are successful does not mean that I can’t be.

It does not mean I’m behind either because everyone has their divine timeline for these things.

You can’t allow yourself to succumb to the pressure of other people’s journeys. They are focused on themselves and battling their battles on their respective timeline that don’t align with ours. . .

Build a Successful Circle

I know that every self-help book has a chapter on “building successful circles” and how repetitive it is for me to be saying it now.

However,

I am restating this law because it can be crucial.

When you are trying to follow the path of your dreams amongst those that aren’t aligned with their journey, it can be

. . . draining.

I’m not going to say you have to drop everyone you know if their biggest goal is not extreme financial success; I just think it’s important to have a circle of those that know what they want and are actively working towards it.

Doing this was beneficial for me because when they saw me fall out of my routines and work less on my passions, they helped me find a way to realign with my path.

Having something like that is inexpensive.

A great rule of thumb to follow when searching for new friendships is to befriend those you admire.

Set Your Boundaries

Setting boundaries has helped me immensely. My job allows me to set my own hours; this has proved to be a blessing but was a curse at the beginning.

I struggled to find my most productive hours and then turn down invitations during those hours.

My friends and family understood that I could set my own schedule and, to most of them, this meant I could hang out with them whenever.

I quickly realized that I need to talk to everyone about my new boundaries due to my new goals. For some reason, I was scared to mention it because I, of course, want to help them and hang out with them all the time.

But in order to get where I wanted to be, that was not going to be possible.

I also hate saying no to people, forcing me always to say yes or completely ignore people and ruin relationships instead of nurturing them.

This is why I had to create a boundary and stick to it. This has helped me carve my routine into my reality.

Self-discipline is extremely important to have when wanting to fulfill aspirations.

Without self-discipline, you cannot grow; once you work on it, you can reach goals outside of your imagination.

Doing this is one of the things that makes me the proudest because I have always struggled with it. I’m so thankful that I picked up on these through various experiences, and I hope they are as helpful to you as they have been to me.