Most of us have a dream or a vision for our lives. We want to be someone great or do something meaningful. The world needs leaders, and you don’t have to be a CEO to be one. Whatever passion you have, self-discipline and habits are essential to making it happen. To go beyond dreaming and bring your ideas into being requires time, consistency, flexibility, and enduring motivation. Below are seven proven keys to helping you achieve your goals.
7 Ways to Become More Disciplined
1. Learn your Strengths and Weaknesses
Before you can effectively lead others, you must be able to lead yourself.
That is what self-discipline is all about. The better you understand yourself, the better you can pursue your goals. What are your talents? Are you good at organizing, thinking on your feet, or getting people to work together? Are you a morning person? What motivates you? Knowing your strengths and working style will help you design and implement attainable goals. While you can slowly modify your habits over time, making goals contrary to your working style will probably fail and leave you even more unmotivated.
In the same way, don’t be afraid to admit your weaknesses. No person or leader is perfect at everything. Good leaders learn to recognize their leadership styles and weaknesses and learn how to deal with them. You always have an opportunity to make an excuse for your weaknesses or to work through them, giving your strengths a chance to shine.
For example, maybe you work diligently once you start on a project, but you don’t work well in a noisy or overly stimulating environment. You could say, “Oh, well. I guess I can’t work on it today,” or you could make the extra effort and find a working space where nothing can bother you.
2. Don’t Wait
There will likely never be a perfect time to start. If you are waiting for someone or something to push you forward, your motivation is reliant on an outside force. If you want to be a leader, your motivation needs to come from within. Why are you doing this? What drives you? Your motivation must compel you to keep moving even when your environment says otherwise. Learn to recognize external justifications that cause you to procrastinate or avoid your goals. When these obstacles come up or things get tough, self-motivation is key to maintaining discipline.
3. Remove Distractions and Temptations
The first tip on Forbes’ list for self-discipline is removing temptations. This habit will help you stay focused on the tasks at hand. Before you start working, clear your space of distractions. This includes mental distractions, too. If you are thinking about all the other things you need to do today, write them down and set them aside. If you need to check social media, schedule a block of time for it and then put it away. Turn off your cell phone if you need to. If you are trying to eat healthier, remove any junk food from your house. Try to create an environment that is as ideal as you can to reduce distractions and temptations.
4. Make Attainable Goals
It’s great to have a long-term dream, but breaking it down into steps is how you build the bridge to a seemingly unachievable goal. In a study from the American Psychological Association, people who set specific and challenging goals are 90% more likely to succeed in their endeavors than those who set easy or no goals at all.
One way to design goals is the SMART method:
- Specific: Who, what, where, when, why?
- Measurable: Can you track your progress?
- Achievable: Is your goal realistic? How much time, money, and resources will it take to complete?
- Relevant: How will this goal connect to the next step? How will it progress your project? Is this the right time? Would someone else do it better?
- Time-bound: Set a target date. When are you going to work on this? Is it a daily goal? Do you want to complete it in 6 weeks or 6 months?
Write your goals down. Make them tangible. Setting daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals may be useful to you. By writing goals down, you can visibly see the progress you make as time passes and feel a sense of accomplishment as you complete each one.
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5. Reward Yourself
Schedule in rewards for yourself. Have a cheat meal on Friday night. Buy yourself something nice when you reach a goal. Design rewards that work for you and make you excited to succeed so you can receive the prize. This helps you recognize your accomplishments and stay motivated.
6. Take Care of Yourself
Just because you want to be self-disciplined doesn’t mean you have to be inflexible. Trying to do too much will only burn you out. Regulating your sleeping habits is as important as your working habits. Without adequate sleep, your body and mind will not function efficiently. A vicious cycle begins where you overwork, get inefficient sleep, can’t keep up with your work because of your lack of sleep, and so on.
Schedule breaks. Walk around, exercise, and get your body moving. Stay hydrated and eat healthily. Forming healthy habits will improve your other aspects of life, making health an excellent place to start for self-discipline.
7. Get Back Up
It’s okay if you mess up. What is more important is that you get back up immediately. Forming habits takes time and effort. You won’t reach your goals perfectly every time. Things happen that you can’t foresee. You may miss a workout. You may blow your diet one week. If you wallow in shame or failure and give up, that is when you actually fail. Remind yourself of your vision, revise your goals if you need to, and keep moving forward.
Take the First Step
The fact that you’ve taken the time to read this article demonstrates a willingness to learn, change, and challenge yourself. You are taking the first step in improving your self-discipline. Not everything on this list may work for you. Pick the ones that resonate with you and try them out. Find out what motivates you to keep going and start forming self-disciplining habits. Leadership begins when you grab hold of the reins in your own life and take that first step.
