Who Else Needs More Self Discipline?

Do you have self discipline? Many don’t, no shame, mainly because they haven’t worked out yet what to get self disciplined about.

• They wish to be able to play the guitar like Jack White or Jimi Hendrix, but they won’t put the time in to learning the chords and notes.

• They wish to pen the next Harry Potter or Booker Prize winner, but spend the time watching ‘I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here’, rather than write for two hours.

• They wish to change career or create their own economy, but would rather update their Facebook status with ‘life is shit’ or ‘I really love my job (not)’ and do nothing towards the shift.

• They want to end living in fear. They won’t apply what they already know, instead they ‘like’ a thousand ‘positive quotes with pretty pictures’ but ask them if they took the information and applied it? They won’t have. They probably don’t even remember what the quote was within in 2 minutes.

This year, I really wanted to avoid the ‘How-To-Live-Your-Best-Life’ post, or the ‘New-Year-New-You-Impossibilities’ post and the ‘Live-The Next-365-Days-With-Kapow and Wow’ post.

But here I am, a week into the new year, and I think this is going to be one of those types of post.

And I would love your ideas and suggestions at the end.

Give Your Year/Week/Month a Theme

See, I’ve decided that this year my life will have two events running throughout, I’m not sure if personal lives can have year long events.  I know it happens in tourism, Edinburgh had  the Year of the Homecoming (when people returned to Scotland with kilts and bagpipes for a weekend.) The Chinese calendar has Year of The Pig, Dog, Cat, Monkey, and mine is…

Ta-raa…

‘The Year of (Use Big Boom Voice) Discipline’

Mmm, it isn’t mega exciting, I know. However done well, it will allow more time for things that really matter.

So. K’tsh. K’tsh. Whip ready? Let’s go…

What exactly am I getting at?

Us Coachy-Peepleey-Helpery-Personal-Developmenty-I-Fied types talk a lot about taking action, setting goals, self talk and the rest ‘ye all!  But hardly ever go heavy on discipline.

In coaching, you could be asked ‘On a scale of 1-10, 10 being committed to meeting your goals for next week, 1 not at all, what number are you?’You’re paying for coaching, so chances are you will keep the peace and declare ’10! Oh 10! Yes! 10! Yes!‘

Which may please the inexperienced coach because they aren’t really that sure about how to question your ambivalence and why you say you are a 5!

Coach-y probably would never say (cough cough) ‘are you going to, or not,  or are you just wasting your time?’

Routines, Regime, Regular

Let’s make one thing clear, we’re talking about having a routine or regime here, one that makes sense, one that is good for you and one that serves you, not severe heavy penalties, commando and ninja style of discipline.

*sigh* It’s not a great word, huh? Past learning and experiences again, darn brain programming and conditioning.

See, I don’t know about you, but for me, discipline conjures up childhood memories of being quickly whipped across the back of the legs as I dived out the road of my mums flapping hand (Why the legs? Why?)

Or it reminds me of those ‘do this, or else’ threats  or ‘Dawn, I’m warning you, if you don’t stop, you can kiss goodbye to (insert pleasurable experience!)

Even at school, I was ‘disciplined’ 4 times by a foot long piece of leather, graciously applied by my Indoctrinator, whoopsie, sorry,  teacher, to my young backside.

So look, I get the fact discipline may not be as rosy and touchy-feely as ‘focus’ or ‘action’ or ‘drive’ or heaven forbid ‘ambition’.

But geez, it’s only a word.

Have you got much discipline? Do you get done what needs to be done? Are you easily distracted?

I think I was 31/32ish before I realised that I perhaps needed a little bit discipline back in my life, you know, my own kind, not the sadistic measurement taken by the adults I had dragging me up.

Back when I was what 15, 16? I exposed myself to this ‘shelf help’ and personal development malarkey. Name the book to tell me how to live a fabbylicious life, I bet I’ve got it.

The next step was training and courses, qualifications,  conferences, NLP, Coaching, Counselling. I ‘learned’ the theories and techniques, and yes, I used them with clients.  I paid attention, studied hard, listened, read, applied but I still wasn’t disciplined.

How did I know? Erm…simple, life sucked!

It continued to suck  just into my 30’s, it wasn’t until I set up my own little biz, that I really started to get serious, and…erm, well, a little bit more disciplined.

You see when you realise that nobody is going to pay you anymore, that you can’t hide behind a team, when you have to make decisions at lightning speed, when all your mistakes, faux pas, misdemeanours and the such are totally your own doing you get serious. You change.

When you can’t ‘pretend’ to be working, or go a week and get to Friday, then say to your workmates ‘I’ve not done much this week’. You learn, apply and get disciplined.

When banks want to talk to you when you have money in your account and when they refuse to even pick up the phone because you don’t have enough, when you have to convince mortgage lenders and mobile phone contractors you’re a safe bet, when you know you and your pets will eat that month if you are serious about what you do.

You accept discipline is part of this process.

Which begs the question, does the mean that when the motivation is high, discipline is more likely to play a part?

How Do You Discipline Yourself? (My Philosophy!)

1. Find What Motivates

Discipline was wasted on me as a youth. Rebel. Oh Yes! (Not as much as my sister though, eek!)

Growing up, the motivation came from not wanting to be controlled by parents or any other adult. Standing firm, wanting to be ‘free’ of them was a great motivator (probably is for any young adult!)

There are days when I would much rather put on a wash, clean the house, cook tea rather than sit down and write a blog post or an update. These ‘tasks’ though are just fillers. They are procrastinators.

Asking yourself ‘what is motivating me to do this’ will probably work better than ‘how can I discipline myself to do this‘.

Or try these, think of the task(s) that need your FULL attention and need done:

• What will happen after you have completed it?
• What are the consequences for not finishing?

2. Avoid The 3 W’s: Wishy. Washy. Wasteful.

This is an easy one. Time. How often do you waste it? Time is precious. It slips past.

You don’t have to fill every single minute, of course you don’t, geez, you aren’t superhuman. But there is a clue in the wishing part.

Wishing doesn’t get it done (whatever your it is.)

Where have you wasted so much time? Were you motivated? 

Let’s assume you have everything you need right now to ‘get stuff done’, you may find it useful to set yourself some deadlines, real deadlines. And to do that you may be someone who needs some goals, real goals. Ones that take into account every step.

Want to change career? Then stop ‘wishing’ it were so, and get disciplined. Lay out the all the small steps. And you know, don’t be surprised that once you break it down, it doesn’t look that exciting. But all these steps make up the whole picture.

3. Be Ruthless and Delete, Ignore or Switch Off

Cut out the noise, mind fillers, unnecessary nonsense, and if you keep ‘to-do’ lists, how about deleting what you have been moving for a fortnight, if it was that important would you not have done it already?

To really get disciplined it requires you to pay full attention, refuse to be diverted and give your precious time to others (apart from children and pets!)

Today, stop doing three things that will give you an hour to put the attention back to you.

Need ideas?

Okay, desperate to change career?

I know you won’t give up Coronation Street, Bones or Downton Abbey, but record them. Gain of 10 minutes just by zipping through the adverts. Free up an hour every evening for a month. Make a trade, use the time on Linkedin or Twitter connecting with people who you can network with and connect.

Get your favourite tipple, snacks and music blaring. Make it pleasurable, dammit, make it fun!

Work and little biz:

Check your emails 3 times a day, maximum. Then close the program.

Discipline yourself to an hour tops every day on social media. Try it for a month. Give social media your full attention for an hour each day. Not 10 minutes every hour when what your really doing is procrastinating.

Why Bother With Discipline?

To me, discipline is about giving life some structure, making sure that there is space and time for all the things that need to be in there in my life (and business.)

For me this year, that includes stuff-like: work, business, and that things that really matters stuff-like: family, relationships, being a better auntie, being a more attentive daughter, longer doggy walks, being a friend, shopping, cooking, cleaning (well, maybe), going to the library, out for coffee, meeting people, learning and applying.

The trade will be worth it.

It also means going on a diet (not a foody one), I’m refusing to consume time fillers and continually asking myself ‘what is my purpose in doing this?‘, or ‘is what I’m doing right now, this second adding or taking away value?’

Your Turn…

Would you say you were disciplined? What do you do to get the stuff done that matters? What techniques work for you? Or do you have a theme for the year?