A better question is to ask yourself, What am I prepared to do to grow into a version of myself I can be proud of 10 or 20 years from now?
Ultimately, it’s how you talk to yourself that will determine the outcome. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” In other words, it’s all about what you believe you are capable of doing. It’s the story you tell yourself that will ultimately determine the course of your life and the ways in which you can change yourself for the better.
Changing yourself does not happen automatically over time. You are the person who can make the future version of you happen. One skill that will help you achieve this goal is self-discipline. It is an essential life skill and also an attitude, a mindset, even a way of life. There are three main qualities that self-discipline will bring into your life:
- It will put you in charge. This means it is you who decides today that you’ll get better at something, create something of value, or commit to a goal that will benefit you 10 or 20 years from now.
- It will help you gain freedom. Freedom to grow. Freedom to achieve mastery. Freedom to lead a life with more purpose.
- It will give you the strength to take that first step. It helps you do something important today. And when you do, you’ll notice how self-discipline can transform your life.
How can you develop this skill to make changes in your life? I’ll give a few examples.
#1. Focus on it early.
If you are determined to make a change in your life — any change — get a head start early the day. Mornings are when you set the tone to the next 12–16 hours of your life. You can choose to be reactive, which can mean you wake up, get your phone, and start checking emails, Twitter, or Instagram. You might watch the news and get caught up in world events, none of which you can control. Or, you might answer calls or respond to text messages that your friends start sending you during breakfast. If you’d like to create a different beginning to your day, train your brain to be focused as soon as you wake up.
How to do this?
Start your day with this question: “What is the one thing I am committed to completing today?” It can be getting work done to avoid procrastination, making progress towards a goal, or starting a new fitness habit to help you lose weight. Whatever it is, put it in writing. Write it in large letters on a sheet of paper and hang it on your bedroom or bathroom wall. Read it out loud as you start your day, for example as you’re brushing your teeth. Come up with an answer on the spot and answer it out loud. Then follow up by taking action — focus your energy throughout the day to completing your one thing.
#2. Get hard work out of the way as early as possible.
Leading a self-disciplined life is critical to making real changes, and you can’t achieve it by letting each moment distract you. There will always be emails to read, friends to exchange messages with, TV shows to watch, and so on. Timing — just like in most other aspects of your life — is everything. Being self-disciplined means you do your hard work first before you do anything for pleasure. It means you are aware of which times of day should be devoted to doing hard work, and which times can be allotted to entertainment and socializing.
How to do this?
Make the most of your mornings by building a habit of doing your hard work early. This means taking full advantage of your circadian rhythm. For most people, the early morning hours are optimal for doing deep work—work that requires a lot of concentration. Specifically, the brain’s peak performance is 2-4 hours after we wake up. So if you wake up at 6, then your peak times are between 8 and 10 a.m. Working early allows your brain to focus fully on what is important to you: a cognitive task, a goal, a skill you’re working on, or a positive habit you want to practice.
#3. Leave the pleasant things for later.
If doing hard work early helps you focus better, the natural side effect of self-discipline is that you start postponing things that are more pleasurable. Why should you do something difficult first then reward yourself later? You’d be surprised how far-reaching this practice can be. In a study performed by Stanford University scientists, results showed that delayed gratification can increase your chance at succeeding in many areas of your life — your education, career, short and long term goals, even your personal life choices. This study is now famous and is called the Marshmallow experiment.
How to do this?
Start by observing the things you’d like to indulge in whenever the opportunity presents itself. It can be scrolling through your Instagram feed, or watching funny videos on Reddit, or getting a second helping of leftover cake from the fridge. Resist the temptation to immediately choose to treat yourself by thinking of one reason why not to indulge: maybe you’re starting the month with new fitness goals, better eating habits, improved focus on your studies. Then follow up — take your attention away from the distractions and focus on your priorities for the day. Think about how they will help you make the changes you need to become that future version of you.
#4. Say no more often — to yourself and to others.
Leading a self-disciplined life means that you learn to say no to many different things: giving in to temptations to indulge in pleasant activities, curbing your desire to procrastinate on daily priorities, and not letting distractions take over your day. They may seem harmless to begin with, but distractions can easily make you slip from your work. One minute you’re just catching up with an old friend on WhatsApp, and the next thing you know it’s two hours later and you haven’t picked up your notes to start prepping for your exam. When you turn off what distracts you, you have a better chance to actually get stuff done — and this is where the real change happens.
How to do this?
Start with your personal devices. Set your phone to Airplane mode when you need to focus on your work — try it for a 2-hour period to begin. Let people around you (family members, friends, or roommates) know you won’t be available to respond to messages and calls for a few hours. Check your email and social media apps at certain intervals only 2–3 times a day. Avoid browsing the Internet or reading news throughout the day, and close all tabs in your browser so you’re not tempted to do yet another Google search on a random topic.
#5. Practice more optimism about what you already have.
Optimism — being hopeful and confident about the future — can give you a jolt of energy in moments when you are feeling down. And yes, we all need more of it. There’s quite a lot of negativity people bring into their daily lives and it’s often based on how they compare themselves to other people. Why can’t I do what he did? How am I not that successful? Why does it look so easy when she does that, but it’s hard for me? This way of thinking is disempowering and limiting. But when we practice gratitude, we can rewire our brain to think about positive things (the things that we do have going for us) instead of obsessing about everything we don’t have that leaves us feeling frustrated and unhappy.
How to do this?
Practice gratitude early so you can feel the effects throughout the day. Take a few minutes when you wake up and before you start getting ready for work or school. Focus only on three things you are grateful for today — having a warm bed to sleep in, a job that pays the bills (or a school that will enable you to get a degree necessary for getting a job), a friend or a partner who you trust, even a dog or cat that you have as your pet. Be specific. If it’s one person you’re grateful for having in your life, emphasize which of their qualities you are grateful for: they’re smart, funny, honest, and so on.
📖✏️ If you are determined to change some things in your life, self-discipline will help you get there faster. I put together an e-book package called My Complete Self-Discipline Kit which includes two e-books (a workbook and journal) you can use every day to build out this valuable skill. Read more about it here.
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