If one has to single out one particular aspect of personality which is most important for the success and the happiness is the concept of “SELF DISCIPLINE”.
What is self – discipline?
It Is your personal ability to control your impulses, your emotions, reactions and the behaviours. The impulses are the things what you like to do and the triggers and temptations of doing that. It is irrespective of what you are supposed to do at that particular moment. Self-discipline teaches you to actually control these impulses. Often you are led away by these particular emotions and also we sometimes get into a fit of anger as a reaction to a person or a situation. Self-discipline enables you to overcome these negative and harmful tendencies. Thus the self-discipline actually encourages you to forgo the short term gratification in favour of the long term satisfaction and gains.
Self-discipline also very much inspires you to stay very much focused on all your goals. We know that your goals when pursued properly brings results in the form of success. It also helps you to stay in control of yourself and your reactions in any situations whether they are good or bad.
Why are we not self-disciplined?
One of the major causes for the lack of the self-discipline is our inability to do something again and again. Doing something again and again sometimes becomes monotonous and therefore we `sometimes drift away to all our favourable things.
Another major cause of lack or self-discipline is lack of strong desire & purpose. So without any compelling purpose, it actually becomes very difficult to stay on track.
Lack of focus is another very important reason which leads to very poor self-discipline. When we cannot concentrate on something even when we know that it Is very important, we are in dire need of correcting our perspective and improving our focus.
The nest reason for the lack of self-discipline is too many interruptions. Due to whatever reasons when we have a lot of interruptions in whatever we are doing, we cannot actually maintain our focus. We also sometimes loose our interest in the task at hand, which sometimes leads to self indiscipline.
Last but not the least, the habit of being very lazy actually adds to the lack of self-discipline. Often there are times that laziness leads to procrastination, which is even worse.
The following steps must be consistently taken to make yourself self-disciplined:
- Develop a very strong desire of your work and also become proficient. The strong reason to pursue your duty will help you to find such reasons.
- Whatever you begin, practice to your best ability and continue practicising until you excel in the job you are doing. This should be applicable to anything and everything that you take up.
- Connect yourself with your best efforts and not with the results of your efforts. Sometimes the results come faster, sometimes they are delayed. Vow to yourself that you will never leave anything incomplete. Completion of the project that you take up must be your priority. You must hold yourself accountable for anything that is going wrong on this project.
- Rely on the principle of inside out and not outside in, meaning that you rely on yourself, more than anything else. If you do not know something, it is your duty to learn all the necessary things about the work at hand. If there is a necessary learning required from a consultant or a teacher, you must go ahead and learn from there.
- You should never play the victim card or hold circumstances or people for your inabilities to do justice for your particular work. Develop and derive your mental strength. Also develop emotional intelligence to remain cool in all circumstances.
- You need to avoid people with negative attitudes or those who try to harm your interest. Keep them at bay at any cost.
- Believe in yourself and practice undergoing momentary hardships. It is often necessary to stretch yourself to meet deadlines. At the same time be compassionate with yourself.
- Lastly you must honestly review your each day and assess whether it was good, bad, ugly, mundane, or just mediocre. The daily assessment will surely help you to keep on improving.
