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Following are some of the ways I have used to build my self-discipline up to a respectable level. I am still no where close to where I would like to be but I am still ahead of where I was a few years ago.

• washing my dishes right after I had used them – since I was quite weak, I could not imagine doing this for 30 days straight, so I started off with a goal to follow this for the next 100 times and stop after that. That got me started and I continued this non-stop for the whole year
• no sugar in coffee or tea – again the goal was to follow this for the next 100 cups of coffee or tea, without a break but I ended up doing this for over two months and it’s been around two years and I still drink tea without sugar
• sit-ups every single day for 30 days
• no reading self-help books for 30 days – I was reading too many of the books and not taking enough action. One day I decided that I knew enough so it was time to stop reading anymore and start taking action
• making my bed every single day for 30 days
• not watching any t.v. for 30 days – continued this for over two months
• working out every single day for 30 days – continued this for over two months without a single break, even though a lot of the times I would go to the gym around 1-2 a.m. while having to wake up around 6 a.m. the next morning to go to work
• going to the gym and doing cardio every single morning before going to work for 30 days I continued this for over two months
• going to work at 7:30 every day instead of 8:30-9 a.m. for 30 days- continued this for over two months as well
• studying for 15 minutes a day, learning new ways of improving my job, for 30 days – continued this for over two months, moving to studying for 30 minutes daily after the first 30 days
• folding my clothes right after they have dried, for 30 days – still doing it
• unloading the dish washer right after the dishes have been washed and dried – another 30 day goal and I am still doing it
• ironing my clothes every night for the next day – 30 day goal and I am still doing it
• shower/shave/bathe every single day for 30 days – I used to shower but not shave every single day so this was a challenge as well but I continued for over a year
• learning about real estate market for 30 days by spending 30 minutes daily – continued this for over two months as well
• talk to every single person who serves me for the next 30 days – this was one of the toughest since sometimes I would be in a line up at a cafeteria and I would have to yell to talk to the servers on the other side but still managed for 30 days
• read 50 pages of a book every single night – this is quite tough especially if you’re working full time and you are not a speed reader
• cold calling – speak to 10 people every single day for 30 days regarding real estate – continued this and then increased to 15 people and eventually 20 people every day
• door knocking – again talk to minimum of 10 people every single day for 30 days regarding real estate – continued this and at the end was speaking to around 20 people every day
• throw garbage out as soon as the bag is full and replace a new bag in the garbage bin – initially 30 day goal but served me so well that I decided to stick to it
• do 5 sets of chin ups in my backyard every single day for 30 days – this was a few years ago and was quite challenging as well since there was not a proper chin up bar. I was doing chin ups in the garage which was at the back end of our property. Sometimes I would go there in the middle of the night and little animals running around there and got kind of scary. But continued for over two months
• do push ups every single day for 30 days – still doing them
• do chin ups every day except weekends for 30 days – I am still doing them. Actually there isn’t a proper chin up bar so I am doing them in the washroom stall at my work. The bar that the stall doors are attached to. Hopefully it doesn’t break any time soon
• keep all my receipts in separate envelopes for each month – this is amazing when it comes to organization so still doing it
• keep track of all my expenses by writing them down every single day – still doing them, quite an eye opener

These are the only ones I can remember right now. Some of these I kept on doing because they felt so good and were quite helpful, while others I stopped after my initial goal was reached. It’s also a good way to see if a certain habit is worth keeping.

Just doing stuff like this has built a solid foundation of self-discipline in me. Right now if I wish to do something, I just go ahead and do it instead of trying to motivate myself or finding reasons not to. I usually test theories out myself instead of wasting time deciding whether they’re good or not. I think that is the best way to really find out for sure. Something that might have worked for someone else will not necessarily work for you, so just fold your sleeves and get to work and before you know it you will be done. If it works then great, if not then still you have learned that much more about yourself.

If you want to get good at something, do it often, and do it a lot. Basically if you do something over and over again, you are bound to get better at it! Such a simple formula and yet so neglected. This is what I decided to apply in order to build self-discipline.

Starting point – what’s your discipline level right now?

Before you can embark on a journey to building your discipline, you have to know where you stand right now. It may be painful and hurt your ego but you have to accept where you are in every area of your life if you wish to get better. If you wish to go to the United States, the best laid out plans, best tour guide, best maps are not going to help you if you do not know where you are starting from. Once you have a starting point, you can eventually get to your destination even without the best maps, as long as you keep on moving forward.

So, I had to figure out where my discipline level was in each area of my life. Just like working out. You have to train each body part in order to develop the whole body proportionally. There are exercises, such as squats, that have an indirect effect on the development of the rest of the body. Similarly, if you achieve a big enough goal using self-discipline, it’ll help you in other areas of your life as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is to take it easy and take it slow but never give up. When you have never trained, do not go to the gym the first day and try to lift the heaviest weights that are there. You are going to injure yourself and set yourself back a few weeks easily. More than that, you are going to lose your enthusiasm for working out and eventually give up. Realize that this is something new and start with the weights that you can easily handle and even do not do those to failure. The important thing is that you work out often. It’s the consistency that brings results.

Same thing applies to building self-discipline. Just pick any activity and do it every single day at the same time for the next 7-10 days. This alone will build your confidence. It’s harder than it seems. It’s important not to shoot for 30 days at the beginning unless your level of discipline is developed a bit.

I have personally found that the more boring an activity is, stronger your self-discipline gets. It does not take much concentration to do something that we really enjoy but it’s quite a challenge to concentrate upon something that is boring.

Here are some exercises that I have personally found to be of tremendous help

1. Stare at the same door knob every single day at exactly the same time for up to 5 minutes for the next 7-10 days – this just seems simple but is quite challenging especially after the second day but is one of the most useful exercises
2. Sit in one place for 60 seconds without any movement and work up to 5 minutes - this is very challenging as we have the tendency to itch, move around, some facial twitches and so on – do this for 7-10 days
3. Take a deck of cards – at the same time every day start laying the cards on top of each other as slowly as you can. Each card should be completely covering the card below. Do this for 7-10 days
4. Whenever you’re getting emotional and want to say something, pause until that emotion goes away and then say it – this is very challenging. Often in the middle of some conversation I would get really charged up, either negatively or positively and would want to just say something but that’s where I had to control myself until I calmed down. I would then say it if I still felt like saying it once the associated emotion was gone. This is quite helpful actually as it can prevent you from making a fool of yourself or saying something that you might regret later on
5. Before saying anything, pause (even for a fraction of a second) – sometimes this is enough to make you think before you speak – also quite challenging but very helpful
6. Clench your fists while keeping the back of your hands on a table. Now extend your thumb while focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else. Then slowly extend your first finger, then second and so on until the whole fist is open. Now reverse the process, closing one finger and then another and so on. Now do this exercise with the other hand. Work up to doing this for 5-10 times with each hand
7. Every morning as soon as you wake up, sit up and meditate for a few minutes. It can be 2 minutes to begin with. Do nothing but focus on your breathing to the exclusion of everything else. This greatly helps in putting our mind to ease since most of the time we wake up and are in a hurry to get to work. A lot of the times we wake up feeling negatively so this helps you start your day positively
8. If you can get a hold of an analogue watch or clock, you know the one with hands for second, minute and hour. Concentrate on the second hand for 1 minute. If your concentration goes elsewhere, bring it back and continue with the exercise. Do this exercise for 7-10 days at the same time everyday preferrably
9. Control/resist your urges/cravings – if you want to get a coffee, just resist it until that urge goes away. Same can be applied to any other craving or urge that you have. Initially try this for just 1 day and increase afterwards
10. Reading – read one paragraph and then try to summarize what you have just read in that paragraph. Do this until you can summarize the entire page easily. This helps your concentration while strengthening your self-discipline and also as a side benefit you will get better at studying and retaining the material
11. Try writing with the left hand for every single day for 7-10 days if you are right handed and the other way around if you’re left handed
12. At the same time every single day practice being silent for 5 minutes

As you can see, a lot of these exercises are quite boring and may seem meaningless to you but the value you will receive from them in terms of building your self-discipline can not be expressed in words. You will just have to experience it for yourself. Even if you do a few exercises, after even a few days you will start to notice an improvement.

You are just training your mind to obey you no matter what! Once you can do anything at will without procrastinating or self-doubt, you’ve mastered self-discipline.

Lack of self-discipline is evident everywhere we look. Now why is that? People in general are very nice and hard working but why is it that when it comes to discipline, there are not many people who seemed to have a strong foundation of it?

I figured out that this whole society was built around short cuts. If something didn’t work for us in a short time, it was not worth it. I started seeing signs of it everywhere. Lose 30 lbs in 30 days, learn a new computer language in 24 hours, learn a completely new language in 30 days, build better abs in 5 minutes a day, develop a new habit in 21 days, tv dinners, build a Herculean body in 30 days, fast food restaurants and so on. Now, this is not the only reason that there is a lack of self-discipline but this was one of the biggest factors that I came across.

Hard work, patience, and discipline had taken a back seat. It seemed that people needed to know exactly how long it would take them to achieve a certain thing otherwise they would not start it, shorter the time better it is And marketers had realized that.

This was quite depressing and enlightening at the same time. It meant that it might be easy to succeed if only I would forget about the short cuts and make hard work and discipline my allies. Depressing because short cut way of life had gotten imbedded in my mind and I actually started looking for ways that I could become hard working in 30 days or less.

That is when I realized the first step before embarking on any self development journey. The biggest step, the most important step that many authors fail to mention!

The first step is to develop self discipline!

Nothing is more harmful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army superiority over another.” – George Washington

Self-Discipline divides boys from men, self-discipline enables you to achieve seemingly impossible goals, self-disciplines alone can move mountains!

Such a simple thing and yet such a secret. There are millions of self-help books and many of them quite profound. Yet most of them miss the very first and basic step in personal development. That is self-discipline.

In this self-discipline series, I am going to talk about how I came to realize the need for self-discipline, why there is such a lack of discipline these days, the benefits of self-discipline, and how to build self-discipline.

How I came to realize the importance of Self-Discipline

I have literally read hundreds of books on self help, listened to countless number of hours of audio books, attended many seminars. After reading any self help book, I would get really motivated and during that time I would set quite high goals for myself. During the times I was motivated it felt like I could do anything. I would start off really strong and within a few days things would get in the way and I would quit. That would make me feel much worst because I had failed once again. Now in my mind the thought that I was a failure just got reinforced by another failure. Then I would go into depression for a while until another book came along, or another seminar came along. Now I would go through the same cycle again.
Granted I would achieve some small goals during this time but nothing substantial, nothing solid that I could look back on proudly.
Finally, I asked myself why that was. I was reading the books and could recite almost all the books to anyone but I was no better than before. Actually I was feeling worst. My failure belief kept on getting stronger and stronger.

I thought all these people who were writing these books were fraud and were after only one thing, money! You know how it is! There are a lot of people willing to support your negative views because it puts the blame on something other than themselves. People pointed out to several authors who were bankrupt and were only making money selling their books. A lot of authors were turning out to be real and genuine frauds. People who could not improve their own lives by following their advice and yet were advising others. Like an overweight doctor telling you that extra weight is not good for you. Now the advise is sound but kind of hard to believe when coming from that doctor.
Now blaming others actually made me feel better. But that was not what I was after. I was after genuine happiness where I had total control of myself and my emotions. I just wanted to be happy no matter what the circumstances.

After a lot of soul searching I realized that I was at fault and not the books. I was not doing the exercises prescribed in those books. Then I asked myself why I wasn’t doing those exercises. It seemed like I had no faith in them. I wanted to be 100% sure that those exercises would work otherwise I just wouldn’t waste my time with them. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people who think the same way. At least I was finding out more about myself. If I started following some exercises, after a while I would get so afraid that I was doing something wrong, that I was wasting my time with this when I could be using the same time to do something better, to do some exercises that actually worked. So, I would jump from one exercise to another without completing any exercise.

Now that I knew what was lacking, all I needed to do was to find a way to build my self-discipline and take over the world!

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu