How to Get Better at Self-Discipline

As you might know by now, self-management is one of the pillars of emotional intelligence. Self-management covers quite a few different things, ranging from emotional maturity and self-control, to goal-setting and managing your personal performance. What I wanted to focus on today related to self-management, is self-discipline.

What is Self-Discipline?

The dictionary defines self-discipline as both the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome one’s weaknesses, and the ability to pursue what one thinks is right despite temptations to abandon it.

Harry S. Truman said, “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.”

If you’re at all like me, you might shrink inside when reading those definitions. In some ways self-discipline is terrifying to me. It carries so much personal accountability, and of course the possibility of failure. I mean, for me at least, controlling my feelings is hard. I don’t particularly enjoy confronting my weaknesses. Procrastination is definitely a problem for me. I sometimes look for the easy way to get something done, or talk myself out of something if it seems too hard.

But then I think…I have big dreams. So much I’d like to get done in my life – and life is short! I have to make the best of the time I have. To do that, to accomplish all the things I’d like to try before I die, I need some self-discipline. Today, I’m going to focus on the aspects of self-discipline related to getting things done.

A Skill, Not a Trait

While there may be some out there who find it easier to be self-disciplined than others, self-discipline is a learned skill, not a trait or characteristic. Like so much of what we talk about on this blog, it’s something you can practice and get better at.

Think of self-discipline as a habit that lets you stick to other habits. You can then use those habits to achieve your goals. Just like procrastination is a habit, so is getting things done. Doing things before they need to be done is a habit just like doing them at the last minute is.

Find Your Reason

As I was looking for articles and other information on how to build self-discipline, one theme that came up over and over which made a lot of sense to me is that in order to be disciplined about anything, you need to have a good reason. You need motivation.

If self-discipline is the ability to pursue something you think is right even when you are tempted to quit, then you first need to define what you want. What is right for you. If what you want to do doesn’t inspire you, if it doesn’t feel right, you’re making it much harder for you to stick to it.

Having a mission statement or vision can help you frame your purpose and goals. Spend some time finding what you’re passionate about. Find your reason, your motivation, and then work on your self-discipline.

Here are a couple articles that may help with motivation:

• 10 Things That Steal Our Motivation and How to Get it Back | Shine
• How to Get Motivated Every Day When You Wake Up | LifeHack

Set Some Goals

It’s a lot easier to work towards something when you have a sense of the finish line. Identifying your goals, and the steps you need to take in order to get there, will help channel your motivation and help you become more self-disciplined. Especially if your goals are based on something you’re truly motivated by.

Get clear on what you want to accomplish – and why – when thinking about your goals. With only a finite amount of time in a day, we can derail ourselves by pursuing goals that don’t support what we want out of life.

Conquer Your Fear of Hard Work and Failure

Sometimes when I think about my goals, I tend to be afraid to make them too difficult. I start to fear what will happen if I can’t achieve them, or can’t do the work. It can be hard to be disciplined about our goals when we are paralyzed by a fear of failure, or if we’re concerned about the amount of effort that will go into trying something different.

In order to grow our self-discipline, we need to conquer our fear of failure and hard work. The things we want that are worthwhile will probably take a lot of effort. They will probably be hard, and we will probably fail more than once on the way. Being able to move past the failure and not let hard work stop us is a key part of self-discipline.

The Two Minute Rule

With the right motivation and a good idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, it will be easier to stick to your self-discipline habit. One of the things I found that will help is to have a two-minute rule: if it can be done in two minutes, do it now.

You can apply it to things like email and housework too: if the email can be answered in two minutes, just answer. If it can’t, leave it for now. Set aside time for going through your emails and use the two minute rule to determine what to work on later.

Likewise with housework. I have a hard time setting aside hours at a time to do housework. So I look for little chores that can be done in two minutes or less. For example, while my coffee is brewing, I wipe down the kitchen counters. Or take out the garbage. Or put away a few dishes. I can’t clean everything that needs to be cleaned in two minute increments, but I can do small things to make the bigger things easier.

Work in Intervals

When you can’t finish something in two minutes, another trick I found might help. The idea is that you set aside time where for a short period of time (think 5-10 minutes) you do nothing but one specific thing. The key is to keep it short, then take a break before you get overwhelmed with the size of the job.

This works in working out, too. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a type of workout where you push yourself hard for a short period of time, then take a break. Then repeat. This works because instead of biting off a huge chunk of work to get done over hours, when you might experience distractions or be tempted to multitask, you only have to stay laser focused for a short period of time. It’s easier not to procrastinate when you know you only have to spend 10, 15, or 20 minutes before a break, rather than dreading staying buckled down for a longer chunk of time. For more on this, refer to A Guide to Developing the Self-Discipline Habit by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits.

Build Good Habits

Building good habits can help you with self-discipline because by having a routine, knowing what comes next, means fewer decisions have to be made about “what next”. There are a ton of great resources out there on the topic of building habits. One of my most favorite is a book I just finished reading called Atomic Habits [affiliate link] by James Clear. I reviewed it a few weeks ago. If you are looking to learn how to build habits that stick, you may really enjoy this.

Over to You