How can it be possible to improve your life by developing self discipline? I will tell you how, I will also provide you with practical examples of how this can be done.
First of all let me give you my definition of self discipline.
Self discipline is a mental strength to overcome a temptation and do what you should do even if you don't feel like doing, self discipline is an internal drive which makes a person, in the long run, successful, happy, more productive, knowledgeable, wealthier and capable to deal with whatever happens in life.
A disciplined person will do what is right even if he doesn't feel like doing it, at the same time he will overcome the temptation to do another activity which won't bring any good into the person's life. For example: today you have to do a certain task, maybe clean the house or do some homework, but instead you decide to watch television or play a video game or spend time on the net, in this case you're not very disciplined as you have decided to do something unproductive, you fell in temptation, instead of doing something more productive.
Every time you give in, to temptation, you loose self discipline, making it harder and harder for you to develop self discipline. If everyday you accomplish a task that you should do, without falling into temptation, you become more self disciplined but you also gain more confidence and strength to accomplish another task the next day.
It's easier to accomplish an unpleasant activity or job in the morning as you have more strength to resist temptation, while later on during the day you may have less energies and so you will fall in temptation much easily.
If you accomplish the hard job in the morning you will feel better for the rest of the day, simply knowing that you have already accomplished that unpleasant task will make you feel good about yourself. By unpleasent I mean something productive like exercising or working on a project.
Now have a look at your life. Do you exercise? How do you spend your free time? How many hours a day do you spend sitting in front the television? I am sure there is something in your life you need to improve on, the sooner you start the better it is for you.
Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to become wealthier? Do you want to become happier? Do you want to learn something new? There are an infinity of things to do on this world but majority of people prefer to sit in front of the television or computer and waste hours like that.
By living in that way you don't develop any self discipline you simply repeat the same actions everyday, how can you expect to improve your life if you keep doing the same things? You are a slave of tasks which give you a brief and immediate little pleasure, these are things which won't bring you any good in life. You need to become more productive, you need to quit wasting time on all those unproductive tasks. The sooner you realise this the sooner you get a better life.
How can you expect to have a better life, to have more money, to have a better relationship to become healthier if you're a weak person which can't accomplish anything? A person which can talk and dream of a better life but can't accomplish anything?
Fall in love with hard work and you will have the life of your dreams if instead you dislike hard work your life will turn into a nightmare! By developing self discipline you will realise of how beneficial hard work is to you.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ECONOMICAL SITUATION?
You may complain that you're not earning enough but I believe the issue is the opposite, you're spending too much! Try to save up, at least, 10% of all your earnings and you will see how much money you will soon have.
Even if you end up earning double your current salary do you actually believe that you will have more money at the end of the week? You will start spending more money on things which you can't afford, right now, and soon you will be in the same situation as before, asking for more money.
I have realised something a few years back, thanks to that today I already own 2 investment proprieties plus I am about get a third one very soon and I just turned 23.
What did I realise? Of course that developing self discipline is extremely beneficial but before that I have realised that I used to spend a lot of money on junk. I used to go on eBay and waste money on junk. Anything I would see I was like; "Oh! Look at this!" and then I would simply buy it, I remember coming up with a silly excuse to convince myself into buying it. I realised then that it was a process I kept repeating on and on, I used to see something, come up with a rubbish excuse why to buy it and then buy it.
What I mean by junk is anything that isn't very necessary to you. I used to buy expensive watches and heaps of other good quality goods but there weren't needed. I slowly realised that I had to stop buying that expensive junk, as all my money was disappearing in no time. I realised that I was simply doing it for an internal little pleasure, buying junk was making me feel good, it was a damaging habit that I had, and I had to get rid of it.
I had no discipline in my life, I couldn't follow through with anything, I would simply give in anytime I would see a little pleasurable thing. At a certain stage I couldn't stop watching pornography, I had no strength to avoid it and of course my relationship with my ex wife deteriorated because of my lack of self discipline.
Let's get back to our topic now!
I had get better with my financial life and so I started organising myself more and more on how to save up money. Instead of buying lunch for work I started organising myself and make my lunch the day before, instead of going out to restaurans I started cooking more, instead of going to the supermarket I started writing down a list of all the things I needed to get and I would stick to what the list said, instead of going into a supermarket and buy whatever looks appealing.
I then realised that I was simply developing self discipline! I started avoiding the easy way, the easy solution and that gave me many other benefits. Instead of buying lunch I would make myself something healthier to eat and at the same time I was saving up money, I then also realised that this effort of me making my own lunch, instead of going for the easy way of buying lunch, was making me more disciplined.
I would then cook more often, by cooking more often I started exercising more often, and then reading more often. It was like a chain effect. By improving in one area of my life I then had more desire to do more activities, activities which before I would simply talk about doing but never actually do.
If I think back of when I used to sit in front of the television playing games I remember not having any desire of cooking, of taking care of myself, of cleaning up my place or exercising I simply was sitting on my bum and wasting time playing games!
I learned that by following the easy option, by doing what I called pleasurable, you actually end up becoming lazy, less disciplined and so very unproductive. You also end up becoming a slave of those little pleasures like I had became a slave of pornography.
I also remember, when I was undisciplined, not being very satisfied with my life, not being happy or content and now it's totally the opposite. That's why I said that once you understand how beneficial developing self discipline is you will never go back.
The more time you spend developing self discipline the better you get, as I said before it doesn't happen over night, it takes time. Easy solutions in life don't really exist, you get back exactly what you have put in.
I will leave you a great quote by Einstein pointing out the fact that little things each day make a big different at the end, so start developing self discipline, put in a little each day and before you realise your life will drastically improve.
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”
