Category: Personal Development

5 Ways to Become a More Disciplined Person

 

At this time of year, more than any other, many of us are eager to implement positive changes in our lives. But the truth is, if we don’t have the discipline to work on making those chances, we won’t reach our goals or get the outcomes we desire. Discipline is an essential ingredient in the process of creating change. But it’s something a lot of us are lacking.

 

Discipline is a multi-dimensional skill. It consists of elements such as focus, commitment, structure, consistency, and the willingness to tolerate discomfort. Practicing discipline means choosing to make the effort, even when you don’t feel like it. It means committing yourself to something when you’re tempted to avoid it. It means keeping changed behaviors in place, even after you’ve reached your original goal. Motivation helps you set new goals; commitment helps you start working on them; but only discipline can help you keep the changes and place and turn the goals you achieve into new ways of being.

 

If discipline isn’t your strong suit, don’t stress! There are many ways you can start to develop it, no matter how old you are or how undisciplined you might be. Here are 5 simple ways you can get started:

 

• Identify the areas where you struggle most. For some people it’s following through on a task or commitment; for others it’s finishing what they’ve started. Some people have the hardest time with implementing new behaviors on a consistent basis. Others struggle most with making excuses and talking themselves out of their efforts to change. Take an honest look at your own challenge areas, so you can see where the work is most needed.

 

• Set yourself up for success. Sometimes, the things that get in the way of being disciplined are things people tend not to consider, like getting enough sleep and maintaining proper nutrition. Paying attention to these lifestyle basics will help you access the energy and mental focus you’ll need to stay disciplined.

 

• Notice the thoughts and emotions that drain you of discipline. It’s one thing to work towards a goal when you’re motivated; it’s another to keep at it, even when you don’t feel like it. This is what discipline is all about. Your thoughts and feelings, which are constantly changing, can easily keep you from making good on the promises you make to yourself. To keep this from happening, pay attention to the emotions and feeling states that tend to derail you, and be mindful of the kinds of thoughts that keep you from sticking to your commitments.

 

• Write things down and set reminders. Distraction is a big barrier to discipline. To keep it from taking you off course, organize yourself by writing down your goals/intentions/tasks and keeping them somewhere you’ll be sure to look at on a regular basis. Get a calendar or planner, if you don’t already have one, where you can write things down and keep yourself organized. Set reminders in your phone or use organizational apps and digital tools to keep yourself on track.

 

• Practice delayed gratification. Our world is wiring us all for instant gratification, and it’s never been easier to take shortcuts and stay on the comfortable path of least resistance. But discipline requires delayed gratification—the ability to sustain effort in the absence of reward. This can be incredibly difficult, especially if you didn’t develop the ability early on in life; but you can train yourself to get better at it. Start with small practices, like not turning on the TV until you’ve completed all the essential tasks on your to-do list; not opening TikTok until you’ve sent those important work emails; or waiting to enjoy your morning coffee until after you’ve finished a 30-minute workout. Eventually, you can build up to setting bigger goals that require discipline and delayed gratification to complete.

 

It’s a natural human tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. And much of our lives is shaped around this instinct. We’re innately inclined to turn away from what hurts, and to seek safety in what’s pleasurable and familiar. But moving through life along the path of least resistance comes with a certain set of consequences.

The reality is, pain is fundamentally inescapable. It’s an undeniable fact of life that we will, at some point or another, experience some form of pain. That’s a fairly obvious thing. We’ve all experienced pain in our lives. But knowing that it’s true doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

Pain can be catalyzing. It can force us to grow and get stronger. Without it, we don’t learn what we’re capable of enduring and overcoming. But even if we understand that pain is inescapable, and even if we know it can be good for us, we’re still conditioned to avoid it at all costs. And we’re socialized to believe that if we’re careful enough . . . if we buy enough . . . if we work hard enough . . . if we’re thin enough . . . if we get rich enough . . . if we stay busy enough . . . we can live a pain-free existence.

This indoctrination gets us highly skilled at designing masterful maneuvers to dodge what we don’t want to feel (or don’t want others to feel):

• We reach for a drink any time we feel stressed
• We leave a relationship every time things get tough
• We people-please until we’re spread paper thin
• We procrastinate on important tasks and projects
• We hover over our kids to try and spare them negative feelings
• We talk ourselves out of our dream or ambitions

At first, these methods can be pretty effective, since they keep us in a relative comfort zone. For a while, we can get tricked into believing we’ve outsmarted what we don’t want to feel. But over time, we start to feel a different kind of discomfort. The kind that comes with consequences . . . often painful consequences.

We aren’t wrong for wanting to avoid feeling pain. It’s a perfectly human, perfectly natural thing to do. It just turns out to be ineffective. Our efforts to escape just take us right where we were trying not to go. Heraclitus, a philosopher from the late 6th Century BCE, taught that everything, pushed to its extreme, becomes its opposite. He was right. We can try to run from pain, but we can’t hide from it. Eventually, some form of it finds us.

Eventually, whatever we’re trying to escape will just pop up somewhere else, in some other form. We might find ourselves sliding down a slippery slope into the agony of addiction. We might develop patterns of relationship avoidance that get more and more alienating over time. We might miss out on our lives and wind up deeply unhappy with the way things turned out.

It’s normal to want to numb bad feelings; it’s understandable to want to run away from what hurts. But sooner or later, running away won’t work anymore. It’s going to catch up; and it may hurt even worse than when it started. If we want to survive—and, no doubt, if we want to thrive—we have to develop a tolerance for pain. We have to train ourselves to stay present to what we’re feeling and breathe through it until we come out on the other side.
All pain is temporary. All bad feelings pass.
And when we learn to lean in and let ourselves feel, we can turn these transitory feelings into sources of strength.

Over the last few months, I’ve heard a lot of similar statements from the clients I’ve seen . . .

“I’ve felt all over the place lately.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“I feel shut down.”
“I’m exhausted all the time.”
“All I want to do is crawl in bed and stay there until this is all over.”
“I can’t believe the world I’m living in.”
“I’ve been so reactive with the people I love.”
“It’s hard for me to think about the future.”

Did any of what you just read echo your own thoughts lately? If I had to guess, I’d say that at least some of it resonated on some level. I know it resonates for me. For the last several months, I’ve felt shifts in my energy, my mood, my attention span, and my tolerance. I’ve felt changes in my body and noticed alterations in my perception of things. For a lot of us, the collective experiences we’ve been going through have completely disrupted the predictability we tend to count on in our lives. It’s torn a hole through the fabric of our lives—one that we’re finding can’t be sewn back the way it once was. What we’re living through right now resembles little of what we’ve lived through before. We’re in unfamiliar territory. We’re standing on shaky ground. And the shockwaves of these disruptions are moving through us in many ways.

Under these unusual circumstances, it makes sense for us to feel pretty unusual ourselves. Our minds, our bodies, our emotional systems, and our relationships are all responding to the changes and attempting to adapt accordingly. This process of adaptation isn’t always smooth or straightforward—and it can take a heavy toll on us if we aren’t mindful about responding to it. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we work on attuning to our needs so we can care for ourselves as much as possible. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Keep a journal and regularly write what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, and what you need
• Set limits on your consumption of news and social media
• Spend time outdoors, and connect with nature as much as possible
• Be willing to disengage from conversations about what’s happening that cause you to feel anxious
• Try your level best to get 7-9 hours of restful sleep each night
• Move your body as much as you can (spontaneous dance parties are highly recommended)
• Keep essential oils on hand (lavender, cedarwood, and frankincense are particularly helpful for soothing and grounding). Rub a couple of drops into your palms, and breathe it in
• Start a meditation and/or breathwork practice
• Engage in self-massage, or ask your partner to massage you (then, of course, return the favor)
• Take intentional breaks from your phone and computer
• Keep lots of nutritive whole foods in your diet, and consider pre- and probiotics to keep your gut happy and healthy
• Make a teletherapy session to process what you’re experiencing and help you stay balanced
• Keep yourself hydrated
• Practice grounding exercises (such as tuning in to your 5 senses, 1 at a time)
• Connect with your community and contribute to others in whatever ways you can
• Commit to spending time on the things that make you feel most relaxed and joyful
• Stay aware of your mind’s attempts to predict what the future will look like (because the anxious brain tends to fill in the blanks with worst-case-scenario material)
• Lean on your faith traditions or spiritual practices to support you in trusting life
• Be gentle with the way you speak to yourself
• Be willing to loosen or let go of the standards you held yourself to 6 months ago

This list is by no means complete; there are countless ways to nurture yourself as you navigate these challenging times. But however you choose to respond to what’s happening, I hope that you’ll do it with a sense of self-acceptance, self-awareness, and self-compassion. This, too, shall pass; and until it does, we’ll be best served by being good to ourselves and others.

The Crisis We Didn’t Want But Might Have Needed: 10 Life Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

For weeks now, I’ve repeatedly come to my computer with the intention of writing something about the current state of affairs in the world. More times than I can count, I’ve tried to grab hold of the thoughts swirling through my mind, hoping to spin them into something that makes sense. But every time I’ve ventured to try, I’ve walked away defeated. Clarity and creativity have been evasive, and I’ve found myself devoid of the verve and inspiration that typically find me once I sit down to write. In this way, and countless others, I’ve felt like a different version of the person I was before this whole thing started. It’s been one in a seemingly endless series of adaptations I’ve been forced to make—and I’d be lying if I said I’ve been gracious through the process.

Through my work as a therapist, I’m privileged to be reminded that I’m not alone in my struggle. The people I talk to every day share their own variations on the theme. They tell me about their frustration, their confusion, their fear, their grief. They lament the things they’ve had to let go of; they wrestle with the things they can’t understand. They search for ways to accept what’s happening and adjust accordingly.

It’s this ongoing process, of adjusting and accepting, that we’re all being challenged to endure. And none of us can deny the toll it’s taking. How do we respond to a world that’s changed more swiftly and dramatically than we ever could have anticipated? How do we find our footing on this foreign terrain we’re traversing? How do we make sense of the confusing and contradictory messages about what’s happening and what we should do about it? And how do we cope with what it’s all making us feel?

To confront these questions, and the many others we’re asking ourselves, can be overwhelming. None of us signed up for the disruption of life as we knew it. And none of us can soothe ourselves with any certainties about what lies ahead. In this way, what we’re going through collectively is an existential crisis that, for many of us, is unprecedented. Sure, we’ve all gone through personal struggles and faced hardships of various magnitudes. But none of us have lived through something with such a profound global impact. The idea that every human being on the planet is in some way, large or small, being affected by what’s happening right now is staggering. It’s enough to evoke a deep sense of dread. But at the same time, the universality of this crisis offers a rich opportunity to reflect on some inescapable truths of our existence. If we can manage to stay curious and open, we might find that this breakdown of what we knew can break us open to make room for valuable new understandings.

When I reflect on everything that’s happened and everything it’s revealed, I’m reminded of these unavoidable truths about our existence:

1. We aren’t as in control as we want to believe we are
2. We’re far more interconnected than we tend to realize
3. We don’t need nearly as many material things as we’ve been conditioned to believe we do
4. We all live in subjective realities, and truth is truly relative
5. We’ve been terribly messy and irresponsible guests in the home our Earth has provided for us
6. We tend not to appreciate what we’ve got until it’s gone
7. We’re all together and all alone, all at the very same time
8. We must adapt if we want to overcome
9. We have little without our health (and mental health is as vital as physical health)
10. We all, at some point or another, will die

Perhaps the most painful part of this experience is that it’s forced us to confront realities we so commonly aim to avoid. But if we can find the courage to see what’s left when comfort and certainty are stripped away, some profound understandings are likely to emerge—understandings that can infuse our lives with new meaning, bring us closer to our humanity, and help us stay grounded in the essential truths of this human experience. There’s no doubt this is testing us . . . but what is it teaching us?

Since I was young, I’ve had a strained relationship with the New Year holiday. I can distinctly
remember feeling overwhelmed at 12 years old as I watched my family members count down
the seconds until midnight. What, I wondered, will be different once the clock strikes 12? What
will be different once this celebration ends? What unexpected things will be waiting for us in
the new year? I’d watch the adults in my life resolve to eat better, work better, be better, live
better—and I’d find myself feeling weighed down by the idea that one day I’d have to start
every new year setting the same kinds of expectations for myself.

I still feel the way I did at 12 years old. The start of a new year generates a mixed bag of
emotions that takes me weeks to sort through. When the clock strikes midnight and the
fireworks start shooting into the sky, a jolt of anxious energy rocks my system. Another year.
Another set of pressures. Another burden of expectations.

It’s a cynical perspective, I know. But it’s one I can’t shake, no matter how hard I try. And maybe
it’s not such a bad thing to be cynical about a holiday that marks nothing more and nothing less
than the turning of one day into another—an occasion that we live through (if we’re fortunate,
of course) thousands upon thousands of times without any sort of pomp or circumstance. Is it
so wrong to think that maybe we don’t need to place such extraordinary and disproportionate
emphasis on the dawning of a new day?

To be sure, there’s something beautiful about celebrating the start of a new year. There’s
something psychologically and emotionally refreshing about believing we can turn the page and
start anew. It’s highly encouraging to believe we can begin again, drawing on a blank canvas
that holds endless promise and potential. But why, I wonder, can’t we feel this way about every
new day? Why do we need a designated holiday to remind us of our capacity to commit to
ourselves, start fresh, and build on a new foundation?

The trouble with hyping the start of a new year comes when we forget that every new day
offers the same promise and holds the same potential. It comes when we lose sight of the fact
that we always have a choice to stay the same or start something new. It comes when we
attach ourselves to expectations that eventually overwhelm or disappoint us.

I have yet to find my way out of the struggle this holiday introduces for me every year. But I’m
okay with that. Because it’s led me to find freedom in recognizing that the choice about how to
regard the new year belongs entirely to me. I can celebrate the occasion or sleep through it. I
can resolve to do things differently or do things just the same. I can see the new year as a
special opportunity or recognize the specialness in all new beginnings. And maybe that
freedom—the freedom to choose our own perspective and choose our own way—is the
greatest offering the holiday gives us.

My wish for this new year and decade is that we all find our own unique ways to make the most
of the freedom, joy, and promise available to us—now, and in each new day.

Desmond Tutu once wisely said that “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.” What he meant by this is that everything in life that seems daunting, overwhelming, and even impossible can be accomplished gradually by taking on just a little at a time. If you’ve ever wanted to accomplish something major, you know that getting started can be a bit of a challenge. Maybe you have some vague idea about what you want but not clue how to get it. Or perhaps you sit down to think about everything you have to do and get completely intimidated, freezing up and feeling incapable of taking the first step. This is a common experience, and it’s the reason so many people fall short of turning their dreams into reality. They try to eat the whole elephant in a single bite.

One very important key to eating the elephant as it’s meant to be eaten is setting goals. If you know me personally or have worked with me in therapy, you know I’m a big fan of goals. My life and work have provided me with enough evidence to confirm that human beings are capable of far more than we can even imagine. But in order to tap into our limitless potential, we have to know what it is we want to accomplish. Setting goals is an important practice for creating a meaningful, satisfying, successful life. And while the practice of goalsetting, in general, is important, there are certain ways to set goals that further increase the likelihood of success.

One particularly powerful method of goal-setting uses a clever acronym, SMART, to guide the process of turning big dreams into reality. Once you’ve come up with a goal, check to be sure it meets the following criteria:

Specific – Be clear and concrete about what you want to accomplish. It’s much easier to work toward a specific goal (lose 12 pounds) than it is to work toward a vague one (get in shape). When working on this aspect of your goal, visualize what your life will look like once you’ve accomplished it. That will help you define exactly what you want to achieve.

Measurable – Set a goal that allows you to measure your progress toward achieving it. Ask yourself the following question: How will I know that I’ve accomplished my goal? Some people find it helpful to break the main goal down into small, measurable objectives. For example, if your main goal is to start a business, you can break that down into all the progressive steps you’ll take along the way: create a business name, register the business, set up the tax ID, etc. Making your goal measurable is an important way to keep yourself on track. The bonus is that you can celebrate along the way as you attain each of the objectives that brings you closer to success!

Attainable – Make your goals realistic. One of the biggest pitfalls to success is making the goal too big. You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew, so take some time to think carefully about your goal and be sure that it’s reasonable and realistic. If you’re in your mid-30s and have a passion for baseball, it’ll make much more sense to set a goal of becoming a little league coach than aiming to become a star MLB player. Improve your chances of making your dreams come true by factoring reality into your plans.

Relevant – Set a goal that means something to you. Accomplishing your goals, no matter how big or small, takes work. By setting a goal that you’re passionate about and truly want to achieve, you’ll be more likely to stay motivated along the way. When the going gets tough, you can remind yourself of how much you want to reach the finish life and find the energy to keep going.

Time-Bound: Set a deadline, and commit to it! Putting time stamps on your goals is a way of holding yourself accountable and making sure you stay focused and on task. You may need to do some research to find out how long you can reasonably expect to have to work on your goal before you can accomplish it. If you don’t set a deadline, you won’t be nearly as likely to stay committed and keep the wheels in motion. Check in with your deadline every now and again to be sure it remains realistic, and use it as a way to stay motivated.

Motivational coach Zig Ziglar reminds us that “a goal properly set is halfway reached.” Setting a goal is just like eating an elephant. Bit by bit, bite by bite, you make possible what at first seemed impossible. You get a little bit closer to living your best life. No matter how big your goal is, you’ve got what it takes to make it happen. Get SMART and start making your dreams come true!