Welcome to The Simplify Your Life Podcast, where we talk about how to create a life you won’t need an escape from! I’m Coach Simona, author of the book “111 Ways to Simplify Your Life”, and I’m glad you decided to tune in. In today’s podcast episode, we’re going to answer the question: “How can I become more disciplined?” and I’m going to share with you 5 ways to master self-control, starting today.
Now, before we get into my practical tips on how to build self-discipline, let’s talk about why you lack self-discipline in the first place. To get to the root of the problem, I want you to ask yourself the following questions: 1. Have I always lacked self-discipline, or is this something I’ve been struggling with in the past week or month? 2. When did I start feeling lazy and unmotivated? 3. Have I made significant changes in my lifestyle lately?
4. Has there been a rapid change in my working environment? 5. Am I taking good care of myself, or have I neglected my needs lately? 6. Have I experienced a loss of some kind and not given myself the time and space to process it? By finding out the reason behind your lack of discipline, it will become much easier to master self-control.
Now, let’s get into my first tip on how to become more disciplined: Acknowledge the long-term consequences of your actions I want you to get real with yourself: What is lack of self-discipline costing you? It may seem fun to postpone something you really don’t want to do right now, but I want you to think about the long-term consequences of your choices. Let’s fast forward 5 years from now. Where will you be in life if you’re
still struggling to get motivated? And where will you be in life if you actually achieved your goals? How would you feel in both cases? The key to mastering self-control is realizing that lack of self-discipline is robbing you of your one and only chance to create something while you’re still here. To leave something behind. Not being disciplined is a defense mechanism. The problem is it’s protecting you from growing as an individual and providing value to the world.
Not doing something that you don’t want to do is easy, it’s familiar. Our minds love what’s familiar and would do anything they can to avoid the unfamiliar. So, your job is to realize that lack of self-discipline is an old way of thinking and acting, and it’s time to move on from it if you want to change your life for the better.
Which actually brings me to my next tip, which is to: Move into action quickly If you want to master self-control, you need to realize that every time you think to yourself: “I’m going to do this later” or “This can wait”, you’re lying to yourself and solidifying the belief that you lack self-discipline. So we need to flip the narrative in your favor. How can you start believing that you’re a disciplined person? By accumulating evidence that you keep the commitments you make to yourself.
Meaning, you actually do what you say you’ll do. In the case of self-discipline, the faster you move into action, the easier it will be to actually keep your word and build momentum. Next time you want to move into action quickly, try out the 5-second rule by Mel Robbins. It goes like this: Count down from 5... 5,4,3,2,1, and simply do it. Otherwise, you’re going to get distracted and completely forget about it.
Which brings me to my next tip which is to: Stop overcomplicating things When everything seems hard, boring, and overwhelming, it might be easier to just do… nothing. It takes a lot of courage to go after the things you want. So, my challenge for you is to stop overcomplicating things. Take a piece of paper and write down one of your goals or one of your daily tasks. What is the first small step you can take to achieve it?
How much time will it approximately take you to do it? When will you start executing on it? Come up with a simple plan, and most importantly: take action. Don’t postpone it, don’t rely on your future self to do it, just start. Mastering self-discipline and self-control is about knowing that no matter who is or isn’t there, you’ll still get it done. Because you know you have yourself.
Which actually leads me to tip number 4, which is to Reward yourself One of the best ways to stay disciplined over time and actually get excited to take action consistently is to reward yourself every time you have a small win. Let’s say you’re a small business owner and you want to build a six-figure business, but you lack the self-discipline to put in the work since you know it’s such a big goal and it’s not likely to happen right away…
But you forget that you have 500 customers that are relying on you. Every time you close a client, celebrate. Every time you enroll someone in your program, reward yourself. It doesn’t have to be a big goal to be meaningful to you. Keep in mind that rewarding yourself might seem a bit weird initially, since you haven’t built that muscle. But I want you to keep going, no matter how
foreign it feels. The more you celebrate your wins, the more excited you’ll be to execute on your daily tasks, and that will help you build self-discipline and self-control. My next tip is to Accept that failure is inevitable This might seem a bit discouraging, but I want you to keep in mind that in order to succeed at anything in life, you have to be willing to endure failure. If you’re not failing, it simply means you’re not doing enough. If you’re never failing at anything,
you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. You’re not putting yourself out there enough. And if you’re being truly honest with yourself, you know that you can do better. This doesn’t mean to be hard on yourself or not appreciate all the hard work you’ve already done, but be more realistic when it comes to the things you’ve chosen to do in the past and the amount of self-discipline and perseverance it’s going to take you to get to the next level.
Which actually brings me to my bonus tip, which is to: Resist the temptations by introducing friction If you’re someone who gets easily distracted, bored, or overwhelmed, I have a ninja hack for you. The best way to resist a temptation is to keep it as far away from yourself as possible. Here are some examples of introducing friction: You can turn off your phone while you’re working or not keep any junk food at home. Whatever your temptation is, make it harder to access.
The funny thing is that once you get over the initial panic, you’ll gradually notice that you’ll need it less and less, to the point of probably even forgetting about it. Now, if you tend to give up on things easily, make sure to check out episode 173 next. Thanks so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please like it, subscribe, and I will see you in the next one.