The Self-Discipline Handbook

Simple Ways to Cultivate Self-Discipline, Build Confidence, and Obtain Your Goals

Natalie Wise

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781510724884
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

Learn why boundaries are not bad, why humility is hard, how to milk your momentum, how passion powers progress, why persistence is a virtue and patience is not optional. Learn how to be your own cheerleader, know your own creative cycle, and say so long to the Sunday night blues. Most importantly, learn how curiosity is the new vulnerability, and why, without it, self-discipline will never last. Do you struggle with finishing projects? Need to lose weight? Can't get to bed at a reasonable hour? We all know we need more self-discipline, yet most of us are a bit foggy on what it actually is. Is it being on time to everything? Or early? Waking up at 5am? Doing everything everyone asks us to, on time, all the time? Or is it something more meaningful, more nourishing? This handbook will teach you how to take joy in cultivating self-discipline. Learn what it is, how to get it, why we need it, how to keep it, and why we want it. It also covers the major stumbling blocks in our way, both internally and externally. If you could use a boost of self-discipline along with a healthy dose of self-confidence, pick up this handbook today. You can't afford not to.

TRUTH AND VIRTUES: THE TRUTH IS, VIRTUE IS GOOD FOR YOU

Virtue is a bitter pill to swallow sometimes. We don’t like it nowadays, because being virtuous has essentially no meaning anymore. Truth is the same way … truth is no longer true, it seems. We’ve made truth relative. Your truth is your truth … but if everyone’s beliefs are true, then is anything true? Anything, and everything, goes these days.

The trouble with this theory is that logic says conflicting “truths” cannot both be absolutely true. Not your truth. Not my truth. If we are convinced everything is true, we’ve actually lost truth. Only some things can be true. Only some things can be virtuous. There is no light without dark, no wet without dry. Without both, neither exists. I think we can agree we live in a world where evil exists. That must mean somewhere, somehow, something is actually truly true and good and righteous.

So amidst all of this moral chaos, why bother being persistent, patient, virtuous? Why search for real truth, be truthful, or admire truthfulness? Why bother being ethical and good, doing the right thing even when nobody is watching? And what does this have to do with self-discipline?

Truth is, virtues do still exist, whether we acknowledge them or not. Universal truths still exist. Our acknowledgement or disregard of them does not change their truthfulness. There are some things that stand the test of time, that reside deep in our beings as ethical or unethical, good or bad. Doing harm to others? Bad. Persistence? Good. Patience? Tough, but good. Empathy? Worth it.

So why should we go against the grain? Why take a stand on virtue and truth? Why dare to try to explain the nuances of logic when even logic seems to have lost its place? Because self-discipline is only useful when it is true. It is only useful when it is passionate about taking virtue seriously.

Rock Bottom

The quest for self-discipline is a quest for truth in oneself. It is also a quest for truth in the world. This is the nature of self-discipline. We are looking to find the rock-bottom, truest-true inside ourselves … and to see what it is made out of. Finding rock bottom requires going to, well, rock bottom. It’s never fun to hit rock bottom in your life, but I promise you it is a place worth going at least once in your life. The things it teaches you cannot be learned in any other way. Self-discipline will not be as true if you haven’t seen what you’re made of. We must see hitting rock bottom as a quest for truth. We must respect this. It is all part of the process, and it is good work.

What do you find when you hit rock bottom? Volcanic rock from turbulent times? Granite, hard and unyielding, cold, but beautiful? Coal, which fuels progress but is dirty to unearth? Diamond in the rough, in need of polishing? Fool’s gold, perhaps. Maybe slate, a soft rock that cuts easily but is also used to protect houses and create useful things.

Just as soon as we find what our rock bottom is (in a good way), we suddenly see the need for virtue. Put another way, we suddenly see its opposite. Rock bottom has a way of showing you the ugliest part of yourself, the slimiest layer that should never see the light of day. But desperation shines the light on it. We find ourselves doing anything, anything, to get rid of the pain, discomfort, and fear that comes from being way down in the hole of our own rock bottom.

We must not stay there long. We mustn’t. Get a ladder, get a rope, climb tooth and nail and scream your lungs out if you find yourself here for long because it is a slow death at rock bottom. We disintegrate from our former selves—good people, we thought—into animals. We steal, we fight, we look out only for #1, and our base survival instincts, our animal instincts, kick in. It. gets. ugly. No, no.

Trauma and tragedy (the basis for most rock-bottom scenarios) bring out the worst in us but require the best in us. It’s this mean little game the world plays. Survival of the fittest and all that; only they don’t tell you it’s the survival of the grittiest, the emotionally strong, the ones who stare impossibility in the face and say, you don’t scare me. Only the strongest survive with their virtues close and their truths true. The rest of us just create a mud pit, and then we wallow in it something fierce.

You know what else we’ll find down there, though, if we look? We’ll find strength previously unknown. We’ll find resilience beyond belief. We’ll find courage, compassion, empathy, creativity. We’ll see how pain can have silver linings, how cloudy skies turn blue and how spring always comes, no matter what. These are the gemstones. Rubies and emeralds and opals and sapphires that we had within ourselves but we didn’t know existed.

Those are the things we need for self-discipline, and we need them hard-fought and tough-won. Otherwise they are theoretical nonsense, things that well … might be nice. We might have time to tend them someday. The time is now, the day is now, and yes, it is quite nice, so make them happen.

Necessity is the mother of invention. And while desperation itself never made dreams fly, things that come out of desperation are ripe for dreaming and flying. Do you see the difference? When you go on a date, heaving desperation into the air between the two of you, chances are the other party will run away as fast as they can. But if you notice that desperation causes anxiety before dates and thereby hinders what could potentially be great matches, and develop a platform to help dating singles ease their anxiety: boom, something that came out of your desperation just went and flew the coop.

Virtue is a self-discipline friend. It is always there, always lending us a quiet hand, always giving us a leg up. But let’s look at a few times virtue really comes into play with self-discipline.

Practicing Patience

Self-discipline seems to be about always doing something. Always moving, always running toward the goal. But what about patience? Ouch. Didn’t think I’d mention that, did you? But patience is a virtue, one of those long-known truths that society seems to forget every few generations. And that I seem to forget every few minutes. Patience is necessary for self-discipline, though. We can only do so much on our ends toward making things happen. There are other factors involved, other people on the team, other variables at play. We must bide our time well.

I envy my friends who are “go with the flow” sort of personalities. I imagine their lives must be so much easier than my “control it all” personality lets mine be. Practicing patience is a lifelong effort for the rest of us. I call this “running the middle.” Marathon runners are long-distance lovers, but they know all too well the slump of the middle distance. There’s something about the middle that we are preconditioned to not like. We don’t have the fun of beginning, nor the thrill of finishing. This is merely the toil, the in-between, the means to the end. We’re running the middle. Run it well, my friends. Here is a glass of water and a banana for the long haul; or, at least, a few tips on being patient. Same thing.

Breathe: When I am impatient, the first thing I forget is my breath. I hold it all in my stomach and chest, turning it into an internal fire of rage. Immediately practice the 5-5-5 technique mentioned earlier (pg 114) to calm your inner self. Breathe in for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, and breathe out for 5 seconds. Even one round of this will help calm your blood pressure.

Shake It Off: Take a walk. Stress melts when we get our bodies moving softly, so walk and leave worry behind. Literally give your shoulders a good shake. Center your body over your feet. Feel the weight of your being, the way your body carries itself. Adjust as necessary. Bring everything into alignment. Focusing on your physical body takes the onus off the things you can’t control.

Change the Channel: Change the channel in your brain. We love to watch the static of waiting, even if it gives us a headache. You have power over your thoughts, so change the channel. If your waiting period is long, the best thing you can do to pass the time is distract yourself. Change your surroundings, call a friend, engage your brain in anything other than the thing requiring patience.

Talk to Someone You Love: When waiting seems interminable, talk to someone you love. Science proves that hearing a loved one’s voice can calm stress.3 Even if science told me it didn’t work one iota, I wouldn’t believe them, because I know it works. Familiar voices mean something to us, and they speak to us on a deeper calming level. Plus, loved ones are likely to get us to laugh, which is a bonus.

Laugh: Watch a comedy show. Watch old home videos. Play with your children, really investing in the play. Laugh down into your gut, where it really means something.

Keep Going: A lot of times when our patience is running thin it’s because we aren’t seeing our desired results immediately. We must keep going. Keep the pace. Immediate results are mostly a myth. Things worth having are worth working for, so put in the work to see the results.

Or Quit: Maybe you really need to quit. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel. There are probably a lot of self-discipline books that will tell you to never, ever throw in the towel. That winners don’t quit. False. Plenty of winners quit many things before they find the thing they are ultimately winners at. Your gut will tell you when to quit. Then start over. It is called iteration, and we iterate all our lives.

If All Else Fails, Clean: Cleaning is the fall-back plan of any-one trying to fill time and avoid the agony of simply sitting and waiting. It accomplishes something, which is good for a brain on hold. It shines something up, serves a purpose, and needs to get done anyway. Win-win-win.

Avoiding Boredom

Staying active and engaged in life is a virtue, too. It is so easy to slip into slothfulness, slovenliness, and self-loathing (the 3 S’s) when we’re bored with life. When I was a child, my grandpa would literally make me sit in a chair and twiddle my thumbs if I dared to say I was bored. How could I, a child with boundless imagination and energy, not find something to do? I was given something to do. Something worse than all the other things I could have been doing … you know, playing with the entire pile of toys right in front of me, coloring in the stack of coloring books, reading one of the numerous books on the bookshelf, playing with several neighbor children, etc. And it worked. Now, every time I am bored, I think to myself, “Find something to do or go twiddle your thumbs.”

Boredom is actually laziness. It’s just another word for it, sneakily wrapped up in grandiose ideas of self-pity. Laziness is so common in our culture that they’ve even named a chair after it … a chair that reclines for you and is padded, has a drink holder, a remote holder, and maybe even a miniature cooler. Society thinks so little of you and your dreams that they encourage you to embrace the three S’s. They encourage you to give up. Now, giving up for one night at the end of a very rough day is one thing. I don’t call that laziness, I call that resting. But laziness and boredom, that’s when you have energy in your bones to do things, but your mind says, “Meh.” Your mind says, “Hmm, that recliner over there looks pretty comfy to me, and, well, I haven’t earned putting my feet up but it’s there and my feet sure wouldn’t mind being put up.”

Get up. Get off your cushy bottom and do something. That’s all there is to it. Do something. It doesn’t matter what; anything’ll do. Cut the grass, read over the flashcards one more time, try saying your presentation without your notes this time, bake a pie, ride your bike around the neighborhood. It really doesn’t matter what you do or how goal-oriented it is. The idea is simply to get going. Don’t waste this precious life you have being lazy. Life doesn’t come to us; we have to go get it. We have to engage in it.

When we’re lazy we’re usually just scared. Scared that if we do something it will turn out wrong, or we’ll look stupid, or maybe we haven’t broken down a task into small enough parts to make it manageable. There’s usually a reason for laziness, and it’s usually fixable. Fix it. I know that isn’t very useful advice, but it’s the only advice that works. To do something, you have to do it. To make it happen, you have to make it happen. Things don’t happen by accident. Nothing great ever happened without work. The universe doesn’t drop bars of gold into our hands and tell us to call it a day and go inside to spend some quality time with our recliner.

Honor and Integrity

Hmmm, honor and integrity. Nitty-gritty little words there when it comes to self-discipline. Self-discipline can be seen as an at-all-costs sorta thing, principles be darned. Self-discipline must conquer all. I reject this idea. Self-discipline operates quite nicely on higher moral ground, and I might even say, it operates better. Honor and integrity are in it for the long haul. Honor and integrity treat the world like a small town; everyone knows everything, and it all comes back to you at some point or another. Reputations travel far and fast.

See, honor and integrity aren’t just concerned with getting things done. They are concerned with getting things done well, and with good intentions. You cannot take your honor captive to complete the objective. Your soul will die. It may feel good at first; you may feel like a hero with no one to answer to. But a hero without a moral compass is actually a villain. We all have someone to answer to, actually: ourselves. We are accountable to ourselves because we have to fall asleep at night and hope our consciences allow us to. We have to look our children in the eyes, look our supervisors in the eyes, look ourselves in the eyes, every day. I’m not a liar; never have been, never will be. I’m terrible at it; always giving away the truth, however sordid or embarrassing.

I cannot see how self-discipline and ruthless tactics work together. Self-discipline’s job is to keep the ruthlessness in check. It says, “Woah, there, buddy, are you really thinking about doing business with those unscrupulous people to accomplish your goal?” There is always another way. It may not seem like it, but there is. And 9.999-infinity times out of ten, it ends up being a better way. Self-discipline stops greed in its tracks because greed is, by definition, an excess, which is not at all self-disciplined.

Dishonesty and disrespect are everything self-discipline seeks to abandon, seeks to root out. There is no room for them, and self-discipline has no tolerance for them.

Boundaries Are Not Bad: Block Out Your Time

Boundaries are necessary for self-discipline. We simply must protect our time and vital energy. I’m not sure why we think boundaries are bad. It must be this deep-seated fear that blocking off time means blocking out other things that could be better. This is false. The grass is greener where you water it, and you can’t water the entire field. Water your plot. Water it well, keep your fence painted white, and see what bounty you can produce. More than enough, I have no doubt.

The fe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• What Is Self-Discipline?
• The Beginnings of Self-Discipline
• You Are Your Own Self: Be Your Own Keeper
• Curiosity Is the New Vulnerability
• Milk Your Momentum: Maintain and Muscle Through
• Humility is Hard: Help is Required
• Hone Your Hustle: Don’t Dabble
• Techniques or Torture? Beating Ourselves into Submission
• Passion Powers Progress and Creativity Is a Cycle: So, Pedal Hard
• The Motivation Myth: Mountains, Molehills, and Motivation
• So Long Sunday Blues: Put on Your Dancing Shoes
• The Crash-and-Burnout: Avoid at All Costs
• Truth and Virtues: The Truth Is, Virtue Is Good for You
• Be Your Own Cheerleader: You Are Amazing
• The Affliction of Addiction: The Thin Line
• Kill Your Darlings: In Life as in Fiction
• Laurels Are Itchy: So Don’t Sit on Them
• The Falsity of Scarcity: Just Know Where to Look
• Calm the Chaos and Clear the Clutter: Create Clarity
• Conclusion