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How Do Other People Get Self-Discipline?

Do you know people who have so much self-discipline that it makes everything look easy? Does it sometimes feel like your career would take off if you had as much discipline as one of your colleagues?

That was the case with Doug*, an energetic communications and marketing consultant. He is an expert in his field and his charismatic personality helps him to attract more clients than he can easily serve. He has a strong team to share the work, but when we first spoke, Doug complained that he couldn’t seem to get organized. He had so much going on that he couldn’t keep track of the details. Opportunities would slip away when he failed to follow up, and he worried that his disorganization would result in a serious mistake.

Doug would invent reasonable processes for keeping track of prospects and client projects, and his team would adopt them. But then he’d create chaos by ignoring his own systems. He’d fail to report on his activity, forget about his promises, or reinvent a critical strategy without sharing the plans.

“The problem is I just wasn’t born with enough self-discipline,” Doug said. “It’s easy for people like my assistant Jane, who’s methodical but not so creative, but I’m a different kind of person. So how do I get more control?”

It is true that some people, like Jane, are naturally methodical planners, whereas others, like Doug, are more spontaneous. But, by definition, self-discipline isn’t easy for anyone. A common definition is that self-discipline is “the ability to motivate oneself in spite of a negative emotional state.” In other words, self-discipline is about making yourself do things you don’t feel like doing.

And there’s no single strategy for boosting your level of self-discipline. One reason is that this elusive quality can take many forms. Sometimes it’s about avoiding immediate gratification in order to obtain a greater benefit, like when you quit smoking. Another type involves doing something you don’t enjoy in order to achieve a goal, like running every morning so you can lose weight.

But you can develop more self-discipline if you want to. As I explained to Doug, building your self-discipline is rather like building your body. Even if you’re very weak, you can start today to build the strength of your muscles, one by one, and with time you’ll increase your level of fitness. In the same way, you can start now to strengthen your self-control “muscles.” By working on them a little bit every day, you’ll gradually develop more discipline.

you can increase your self-discipline

As a young professional, Doug loved deadline pressure and was proud of his ability to respond to client emergencies. But the cowboy style that worked when he was a sole practitioner wasn’t effective when he was trying to lead a dozen people. He began to see how one of the most important qualities for career success, and for joy in life, is self-discipline. He stopped scoffing at research that suggests people with self-control are happier, better able to handle stress, and more likely to reach their goals.

More important, Doug discovered that self-discipline is a learned behavior. It is something you can work on, issue by issue, day by day, freeing you from considerable anxiety and wasted time.

Self-discipline looks different for different people. For Doug, it began with a new practice of writing things down. At first, he started writing for 10 minutes each morning, planning out his day. When that habit seemed firm, he began carrying around a notebook for capturing everything from phone messages to commitments he made to clients.

Try this plan for building your self-discipline

The people who stand out in a competitive environment show up on time, meet deadlines and commitments, take on the tough issues, and do everything they promise. To be that kind of person requires self-management. If you’re ready to build your discipline muscle, begin with this 10-point plan:

1) Start with a goal. Is there something that you would like to do, if only you had the discipline to do it? Let’s say, for example, that you think your job would flow more smoothly if you could get to work on time. Decide upon a manageable goal and express it in specific terms, like “I will arrive at work by eight o’clock every day for two weeks.”

2) Visualize what self-discipline would look like. Identify the steps that could help you achieve your goal if you did, in fact, have the necessary discipline. To reach the office on time, would you turn off the TV and go to bed earlier? Lay out your clothes the night before? Fill up your gas tank during the weekend?

3) Choose discipline. Once you have a detailed vision of how you would act if you did have the discipline, start choosing to act like that. The opportunities to practice will take the form of a series of small decisions, like whether or not to turn off the TV at bedtime even if something good is on. Each time you meet the challenge of choosing self-discipline, you’ll be exercising your self-control muscles.

4) Write it down. Keeping some form of log or diary is tremendously reinforcing and can help you to gradually build your self-control. Once you’ve identified the decisions that will help you get to work on time, keep track of how often you make the right choice.

5) Reject excuses. When you’re trying to practice discipline, there’s a danger you’ll be defeated by the voices in your head. Notice when you’re tempted by internal arguments such as, “I’m too tired to get organized tonight.” Simply by becoming aware of how you rationalize will help you to grapple with temptation and keep you moving toward your goal.

6) Encourage yourself. Make a list of the excuses that typically prevent you from acting like a disciplined person. Then, for each one on your list design a positive phrase to help you get past that excuse. For example, if your inner voice says “I don’t have the energy,” tell yourself, “I’ll have more energy tomorrow if I get to work on time.”

7) Remove temptation. It’s so much easier to be disciplined when your temptations are out of sight. If late night TV is what’s keeping you from getting a good night’s sleep, can you move the screen out of your bedroom? Or hide the remote in another room?

8) Acknowledge the difficulty. Supervising your own behavior can be exhausting. In other words, we can exercise self-discipline only so much and for only so long, and then we’re too tired to do more. So when you’re trying to change, recognize the challenge and build your muscle in small increments.

9) Reduce the pain by creating habits. When you’re working on a new behavior, the first few days are the toughest. But repetition quickly makes it easier. You start going to bed on time without having to agonize about it. As your new nighttime ritual becomes a habit, choosing it won’t be so tiring. Soon you will free up your reserve of self-control for another challenge. So after you start getting to work on time, you might turn your attention to something else, like working on your “to-do” list.

10) Reward yourself. Positive reinforcement works. Support your change process by finding little ways to reward yourself when you do well.

As you move through the plan, play with the process. See what works for you. Treat setbacks as learning opportunities. Building self-discipline can become a game, with moments of fun and victory parties along the way.