Self- Discipline Can Be Taught: Here’s How

Self- Discipline Can Be Taught: Here’s How

Jul 13, 2017

Would you believe that having a lack of self-discipline is one of the biggest things that can cause you to fail in your life? It may sound like a strong statement but let;s break it down for a moment. You need the self-discipline to do pretty much anything in your life. Sure, some things are easier to do than others, but this could be because we enjoy the tasks that are set for us. It still requires some sort of discipline to tell yourself to do the task.
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Self-discipline is something that can be hugely beneficial to you in all aspects of life, we may all have an ounce of it in us, but what if we could tackle tasks not matter how grand they are, and overcome them powerfully? Self-discipline can work for you in your career, in your relationship, in many aspects of your life. Which is why I thought I would share with you some of the ways you can teach yourself to be more disciplined. Through changes in habits and trying out new things, you could create a better version of yourself.

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Make a commitment

If you really want to achieve your goals, then the best way to do it is to make a commitment to be disciplined. It isn’t necessarily a skill you have, it is something you do. So making yourself accountable for it is a great way to become more disciplined in general. Discipline your habit and every aspect of your life. Your health and your commitment to good nutrition, your dedication to exercise and fitness. Even control your reactive emotions and have the discipline to control how you react to different circumstances and scenarios. Put your responsibilities before leisure and see the difference it can make to how you react to different situations and circumstances. Helping you also to keep a positive mindset.

Stay focused on the task at hand

A great tip to remain disciplined is to wake up each morning and review your goals for that day. Make a plan of how you want to tackle the day set out in front of you, paying particular attention to when you can do things and when you can simply complete tasks. Think about the time it takes and the best time of the day in order to achieve your goals. Attempt to do this every morning and make it a part of your routine that you have in place. Choosing a quiet place and time to reflect on your personal goals. It can actually be a part of your day that you learn to look forward to. As you visualize your goals make sure you also visualize yourself ticking off and completing the tasks successfully.

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Consider playing sports

Sport and exercise is a great way to teach yourself self-discipline, as you automatically conform to following the rules and regulations of sports. Sometimes if you can’t get to the gym, it’s worth looking at ways you can enjoy sports at home. Enjoy golf? Get yourself a pro return golf practice net. Enjoying running? Head out for a run from home. Play football? Organize something locally with your friends. Sport is an excellent way to remain focused on your discipline, but it can also help you keep things in perspective throughout other aspects of your life.

Prioritize your tasks accordingly

As you plan your day try and be specific with the tasks you have an prioritize them. This is another habit that can help you be more focused throughout the day and get more out of the time you have available. Try an accomplish the harder and more stressful tasks first, the feeling of success and accomplishment with help you stay disciplined to continue to complete your tasks and reach your goals.

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Change your mindset

The way you think is vitally important to how you discipline yourself. Being negative will have an instant effect on how you do things and when you do them. You begin to choose not to want to complete your tasks, being disciplined in all of the wrong ways and even heading down a road leading towards depression and anxiety. A change in mindset is a great habit to accomplish. Working on positive thoughts, and being disciplined in this way to do it, will automatically make life much more enjoyable. It may seem hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will start to do it automatically. If you are struggling with your mindset, try and figure out what might be causing you to feel that way. Eliminating the problem can often be the result and resolution you need to carry on.

Make sure you get rest

There is nothing better for being disciplined and having high concentration levels is to ensure that you get some decent rest. It can be hard with lots going on in your life to take the necessary time out to rest up. So it’s important to develop your own bedtime routine where you focus on switching off from the day. A great tip is to shut off from all technology during the evening, or at least one hour before you want to head to bed. Instead, indulge in a warm bath, read a book and drink a hot drink. Camomile tea is especially good for helping you sleep at night. Being disciplined also means developing other habits that run alongside it, things like being grateful for what is going on in your life and showing gratitude. A good idea is to start journaling before bed. This can also be a way of mentally downloading what you have on your mind, ready for you to prioritize the next morning.

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Good nutrition can vastly improve your chances

There is no hiding the fact that good nutrition means a healthy and smarter brain. So it’s important to have a well-balanced diet when it comes to good nutritional health. Ensuring that you are eating all the food groups and nourishing your body with what it needs to function. Having more energy and feeling able to tackle the day is an excellent way to remain disciplined with what you have and need to do.

Follow through on your decisions

Making decisions ahead of time means that you have no choice but to follow through on your promises. A great way to encourage yourself-discipline. If you plan on exercising, then do it. If you want to complete a work project, then set about completing it. Without the skill of following through on your plans, then you have no discipline at all. Which is the skill you are trying to improve. Again it is about making the commitment to yourself to take action.

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Consider doing just one thing at a time

Doing just one thing at a time is a great way to become accountable for your actions. Multi-tasking may be admirable, but if you can’t commit your whole self to one task, then you may not be completing anything to the best of your ability. This is when prioritizing your day and giving yourself tasks to complete is a great way to place your focus on one thing. Enabling you to have the discipline to follow through and complete the task. Everything falls in line with one another and each point raised in this article will help you in other areas of your life.

Reward yourself

Finally, reward yourself for doing a job well done. We all need motivation as well to remain enthusiastic with the tasks we have to do. We don’t all love our jobs, or enjoy what we have to do on a daily basis. Be happy and proud of yourself. This can also help with your positive mindset.

I hope these tips help you to improve your self-discipline.





See also at leading disruptive business and politics site zenruption

Escape To The Country: Why People Leave City Life Behind

Escape To The Country: Why People Leave City Life Behind

Apr 27, 2017

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When people live in cities for a long period of time, the idea of leaving the hustle and bustle behind is either very appealing or totally unthinkable. Depending on which side of the argument you fall down on will determine whether or not a life in the countryside is for you. Whatever your reasons for contemplating a move, it is worth considering the top reasons that people decide to escape to the country, so here are a few of the top reasons why people up sticks and leave city life behind.

A Chance to Get More Affordable Housing

Right near the top of the list, life is simply much cheaper when you move out to the countryside. Property prices fall significantly, with estate agents such as www.prh.com.au specializing in rural housing. Rather than spending a huge amount of your monthly paycheck on renting a tiny apartment, you could end up with a whole house for the same price if you do decide to rent rather than buy.

A Less Stressful Pace of Life

Between crowded streets and overflowing public transport networks, life can be pretty hectic in the big cities. One of the main reasons that many people dream of getting away is because

everything tends to move a lot slower. Being surrounded by nature and greenery has been proven to reduce your levels of stress and depression. Rather than waking up to the sounds of car horns, you are much more likely to wake up to birds singing.

A Sense of Community

Whereas some people complain that city dwellers tend to be unfriendly, community life is a firm feature in a lot of rural locations. As people settle in rural locations for longer periods of time, there is much more of an opportunity to get to know your neighbor. If being in a place where everyone is curious about your business sounds like your worst nightmare, then this may not be the type of lifestyle for you! But you can also be rewarded by making lifelong connections and feeling very much like you are part of a community.

A Place to Start a Family

A huge number of people decide to move away from city life as they decide that the countryside is a better place to start a family. We have already talked about how housing tends to be much more affordable, but as well as this, people like the idea of having plenty of space where their kids can play safely in the great outdoors and lead a more active lifestyle.

A Sense of Adventure

There is something about the countryside that evokes incredible images of days gone by. Simply the act of discovering what is in and around your home can provide you with endless pleasure and adventure. After a while, you start to choose which are your particular favorite spots and your most treasured countryside walks. Soon, you will start forgetting why the city ever appealed to you in the first place…or you won’t be able to stand it any longer and you will hightail it back to civilization!




Also co-founded leading business site zenruption

A Dying Horse (A Move Towards The Collective)

A Dying Horse (A Move Towards The Collective)

Feb 20, 2017

By Skot Ward

What I see is a system collapsing due to the course and evolution of an inexorable progress made within the dynamic nature of the human animal. What I see within the eyes of those who refuse to allow this process to happen, is a palpable fear and anger, an aggression seasoned so strongly with desperation that it is impossible to swallow any longer. They are clinging tightly, they are fighting so hard to remain relevant that their actions appear stupefying and ludicrous to anyone with a modicum of common sense. The vitriolic hatred being stirred incessantly by these contemporary influential poster children and demagogues, is fanning the flames of divisive intolerance, and the result is nothing more than that of a last-ditch effort to beat a few more miles out of a dying horse, and the death of a self-serving desire for narcissistic self-deification merely to secure a place in our collective history. And that’s the irony right there now isn’t it? Individuals, seeking to secure a place in collective history?

Everyone is looking for a superhero, a savior, but no one wishes to sport the cape themselves, or to help others put them on THEIR shoulders. The saddest thing that there is to conceive of is the knowledge that our potential as human beings outweighs any other thought we can think of, but we choose instead to scatter those squandered possibilities and probabilities across a vast wasteland of nothingness, hoping that one day someone or something will come along and put all the pieces back together again; giving us all something to believe in once more.

By wasting our collective potential, we are doing nothing for the good of mankind, we are merely trying to keep ourselves from waking up from a shared dream which is quickening into a nightmare. We deny the reality around us because we are comfortable with persisting in our illusions. Illusions are something we can control, they’re not as scary as the results of the decisions we’ve made which we refuse to be accountable for. All of our little temporary dreams causing so much permanent damage. Are we ever going to acknowledge it? Or are we just going to let everything collapse into ruin?

We are the energy we prepare the spaces for within ourselves. We are whichever wave we choose to surf into the twilight of our horizons. It seems as though as of late upon this planet, we fear the burden of a struggle. We perceive the passage of time to create and formulate the solutions to our problems as a waste of our time, as if solutions are just supposed to magically appear before us whenever we make decisions. Or that a divine intervention will happen, just when we need it to, in order to steer the course of the planet so that it doesn’t tumble over the edge of the falls. So, inevitably we give in don’t we? We acquiesce to the flow of energy around us no matter what it consists of, and if it happens to run contrary to our values and belief structure, well, then just we hope that one day we may have the ability to reconcile its tenants against our own so we can justify all of our thoughts, actions, and inactions.

We don’t need a superhero. We don’t need a savior. What we need it’s to subvert the dominant paradigm of thinking about who we are, and what we’re capable of as human beings. We need to become familiar with the concept that “we” can become “I.” That the self can be plural. That we can be of one mind, with 7,000,000,000 vessels to work it’s concepts and ideas through. We need to stop with our incessant, selfish, individualistic “me first” thinking, which has succeeded only in destroying our world and driving it insane. We are constantly looking for simple, yet comprehensive solutions, a better way outside of ourselves, the highest yield with the least amount of labor. We elect officials to deal with global problems so compounded that delving into them at length would be an impossible task for one person to handle, and then we rant and rave, cry foul, and spit vehement hatred at the very person we have made solemnly responsible for them when they cannot follow through with what we’ve expected of them.

When in the course of our history have we ever ever looked in the mirror to realize that the overall solution has been there all along? Have we ever once pointed our fingers back at ourselves in that reflection and simply just asked, “Can I do it?” Could it possibly all start with me? Yes, as a matter of fact that’s the only way that it very well can succeed.

Do it. Come together. I dare you.

°8°

 

Skot Ward describes himself as such:  I’ve had 41 trips around the sun to make sense of this little blue dot floating inside infinite space. I truly believe that if enough people care, we can all make sense of it together.

Brian McKay describes him as the coolest guy he has ever met at a wedding.

Image courtesy of Flickr, under a creative commons license.

Happiness Is The Path, but…

Happiness Is The Path, but…

Jan 29, 2017

By Jerry Mooney

There is a secret within us that typically takes a great deal of unraveling to discover. I’ll just blurt it out though, not that anybody will listen, but here it is. Happiness is the only achievement. Money, fame and power are attempts to acquire happiness, but their ironic result is generally the opposite: misery. Why is this? Because we confuse desire with happiness and expect that fulfilling our desires will make us happy. But, there is no path to happiness, happiness is the path.

This idea can be upsetting, because we operate as if happiness is the result of achievement. When we accomplish something awesome, we feel great. But this feeling is fleeting. Simultaneously, accomplishing nothing in a world rewarding achievement can trigger depression and low self esteem.

So happiness is tricky. It is found internally, but there are many reasons to not look inward. To start with, it is too abstract if you are suffering physically. We need food, water and shelter before we can begin to grapple with ideas beyond survival. This is not a commentary on implications of raising the minimum wage or whether or not a rich man can enter heaven. This is merely an understanding that feeling hungry, thirsty and physically at risk because you don’t have the basics removes your focus from a path of happiness to a path of survival.

Typically, however, once our basic survival has been secured, there is still a lot of stress and struggle to free our minds to happiness until, at least in our western culture, we achieve some success. Studies, data and observations have indexed all of the variables and come up with these few things. There is a sweet spot with income. It is $75,000 a year in the US. Reported levels of happiness trends up the fastest with income to that point. After that, happiness and income start to drift apart. While happiness still goes up with income for a while, it doesn’t go up nearly as fast as before that $75,000 mark.

$75,000 a year also correlates with the happiness and health of your children. Lower than $75,000 can indicate struggle and a reduced focus on them while over $75,000 can lead to spoiled children, also with a reduced focus on them while the parents focus on careers and earnings. Poor families spend so much time trying to survive that children suffer from a lack of attention and incorporate philosophies founded on scarcity and being alone. Children of wealthy families also commonly feel neglected by the fact that so much attention is placed on maintaining wealth, while the parent’s attempts to assuage their guilt with gifts leads to spoiled and dysfunctional children.

Now when we look at our society and recognize that wages have remained stagnant over that several years, and that there is a diminishing return as far as what more money can do for us, we must ask the question, why are we operating this way? It is true that our pursuit of happiness is personal and it is true that money can’t buy happiness. But it is also true that we must create the conditions where happiness has the chance to develop. And as a society it is difficult to witness others suffer when our personal goal is happiness.

Photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license

 

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