Living a disciplined life
Self-discipline: What is it?
So what?
Discipline is a way that you live your life. It is systemic and makes you stay on track. The following are a number of benefits that you will enjoy when you’re disciplined:
- You are respected by those around you;
- You have self control;
- You teach and develop others;
- You are organised and on time;
- You reach your life goals; and
- You are physically and mentally healthy.
This post discusses why you need to be disciplined if you want to make improvements in your life. We will talk about how to be disciplined on our next post.
What is discipline?
As I mentioned, discipline is a way of life. It is your ability to control your own emotions, behaviours and thoughts. By having control of yourself, you make sound decisions and establish traits that take you further in life. Being disciplined in one facet of your life is reciprocated through other areas.
Health
You are physically and mentally healthier when you are disciplined. We all know the benefits of being active and regularly exercising. And we all know how difficult it is to wake up in the morning, let alone, go to the gym or a run when doing so. What differentiates those that hit the snooze button and wake up is discipline.
Discipline entails self-control. And one of the most difficult to self-control is food. It takes an incredibly disciplined person to overcome the amount of temptation to eat that juicy Brod from Brodburger when you are on a caloric deficit or order your favourite dessert to cut through the savoury and indulging meal you just had. That is what makes losing weight or maintaining a healthy one difficult or even impossible for those that are not disciplined.
Family
You are not a perfect partner, parent or child. Relationships are hard and require constant effort to maintain and improve. Yelling, screaming, bickering, arguing and fighting require no self-control. Understanding, adapting, conversing, loving, caring and fostering require time, effort and most importantly, discipline.
Career
Deciding to read or study to investment in yourself after a long day of work is an impossible ask for those without discipline. It is easy to sit back on your couch, turn the TV on and drink your favourite alcoholic beverage with your feet up.
Making a difficult decision even those that entails detriment to you in the short term is not an easy task whether you are disciplined or not. What requires discipline is choosing the path that is less favourable in the short term for the greater good in the long term and for others. Deciding to work on that project that you committed yourself to when your colleagues are getting together for an afternoon drink takes discipline.
What now?
- Reflect on the three areas above and identify where you need to improve.
- Read the next post to find out how to be disciplined.