Does this phrase sound familiar to you?
“I wish my willpower was stronger.”
How many times have you used this phrase in your life? How
many times have you started to do something and then stopped after a short
while?
Self-discipline is the ability to control yourself and to
exhibit a desired behavior without having to be told what to do by others.
Everyone has habits that they want to overcome, such as
laziness, procrastination, and not being able to follow through. In order to
overcome these, we need willpower and self-discipline.
How to Develop Self-Discipline?
We also need to make time for our hobbies and interests. We need to be in no hurry and start with small steps. Determining a model for ourselves can help us get inspired. We need to learn to say “no” to sudden demands that come from both outside and within ourselves and distract us from our focus. We need to be able to manage our behaviors rationally without being carried away by instant gratification. We need to be able to make behaviors that are good for us a habit.
Habits
We do many actions during the day just because of our habits. Gaining good habits is only possible through discipline. The habits we have had for years have changed the chemistry of our brain. Thanks to neural pathways, we act automatically on issues such as climbing stairs or preparing coffee in a certain way. Some of our actions become automatic so that we can focus on different things. In this way, automated actions prevent the mind from spending energy on certain issues. In this respect, we can gain self-discipline by coding better habits into our minds. You can discipline your actions, habits, emotions and thoughts.
According to a Study…
According to a study conducted at the University of
Pennsylvania Psychology Department, self-discipline plays a more important role
in academic success than IQ. This study, conducted with 140 children with an average age of 13, is as follows: Children, teachers and parents are asked to fill out a
survey when school starts in September. This survey includes questions about
the child’s self-discipline. Each child is given a certain score as a result of this
survey, which investigates issues such as the child’s ability to follow rules,
whether they act without thinking, and whether they sacrifice greater
advantages in the future for instant gratification. At the end of the 7-month period, researchers find that children with high self-discipline are more successful in that academic year than other children and are accepted to better high schools. In the second study, an IQ test is administered to 164 children with an average age of 13 in addition to the self-discipline survey in September when schools start. It turns out that the self-discipline test can predict students’ academic success more accurately than the IQ test. Just by testing self-discipline, it is largely possible to predict how successful students will be.
Habit Jar
You can use this method for any habit you want to gain. The application is as follows, write and paste the habit you want to gain on the jar.
For example, “Reading 20 Pages a Day”.
For each day you read 20 pages of books, put 1 coin or stamp like symbol into the jar. The filling of the jar will both allow us to see how often we do the behavior and motivate us. If you want, you can buy yourself small gifts after filling the jar. With this application, the daily tasks that we need to do periodically will actually become our routines and then our habits.
In short, our habits will add meaning to our lives; they will also make our behaviors easier, strengthen our time management, and create a comfort zone by making us feel safe.
