Excellent question!
Punishment is a penalty imposed by someone in a position of authority as a response to another person’s action or behavior that is considered undesirable or unacceptable.
For most of us, it’s likely that this word reminds us of childhood and being punished by parents for breaking things in the house, not cleaning up our room, getting a bad grade in school, and so on. If you were to ask many parents, in this “traditional” sense they saw discipline as a learning tool to correct their children’s behavior, which was often administered as either physical punishment (spanking), verbal punishment (yelling or belittling), isolating the child (being sent to their room), or giving children chores like mowing the lawn or washing dishes.
As adults, on the other hand, we hear the word discipline as something that is self-imposed — often as the concept of self-discipline. Because we’re used to linking the word discipline with punishment, we may immediately think this is something harsh, unnecessary, and extreme. That’s why many people don’t like to explore this concept and how they could benefit from it.
Self-discipline is the ability to control yourself and work hard or behave in a particular way without needing someone else tell you what to do. Rather than a punishment that is linked to an undesirable behavior and needs to be imposed for a limited time, self-discipline is a broader concept. It is a skill, a lifestyle, an attitude, and a mindset. We can practice it for as long as we want, in any way we want, and in any area of life we choose (personal or professional) so that it can help us get from point A to point B. And not only that: it can make our goals feel real, not abstract. Close, not far away. Achievable, not unrealistic.
In summary, self-discipline can give us freedom to design the life we want for ourselves instead of going aimlessly from day to day, month to month, year to year, without an idea of what we’re supposed to do and why.
It can be achieved in many ways. Some examples include:
- Starting your day with a question to boost focus: What is the one thing I am committed to completing today?
- Doing deep work in the first 2–4 hours after waking up: these can be complex cognitive tasks like studying, reading, problem-solving.
- Making it a goal to do the hard work first, then reward yourself later (a.k.a. practice the Marshmallow experiment).
- Eliminating distractions and don’t let social media run your life.
- Practicing a growth mindset way of thinking to continuously challenge yourself to learn something new and get better at skills every day .
📖✏️🗓 If you are interested in this topic, I put together an e-book package called My Complete Self-Discipline Kit (Workbook + Journal). You can learn more about it here.
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