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February 15, 2025
Self-Discipline and How to Develop It
In 2016 I was watching my then 19-year-old preparing himself for enlisting in the military. Every day he went to the gym and lifted weights, ran on the treadmill or around the neighborhood, or he'd go into his bedroom and crank out 100+ pushups, or 100+ sit-ups. We built a pull-up bar in the back yard for him and he used it daily! I asked myself, how does he have the self-discipline to do that?
Which made me think...really, how do any of us, have the self-discipline to accomplish the many goals that we set for ourselves either as a leader or as a follower?
Navy helicopter crew gun training.
How Do We Gain Self-Discipline?
First, according to Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author of the best seller book,
"13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do," self-discipline, like almost all behaviors is a learned skill, not an innate characteristic…and it is the key to reaching your goals whether you are a leader a follower or a "liminal leader," someone who leads and follows simultaneously. So, let’s look at six specific things that you can do (and practice) to become better self-disciplined”
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Know and acknowledge your challenges or weaknesses. Frequently people will pretend that their weakness or "challenge areas" doesn’t exist, or minimize a bad habit. The first step in any change is knowing where you are starting from which means being candid with your weaknesses or challenge areas.
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Create a clear strategy. People don’t just wake up one day and have self-discipline. You need a plan and a plan starts with a goal. Just like going on vacation, you start with the vacation destination (the goal) in mind and work backwards from there. This will give you some action steps (strategy) or items to follow to reach your destination (goal). Because if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?
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Eliminate temptations and vices as much as possible. O.K., I’ve been trying to lose weight, but I know that snacking at night because of boredom is why I was gaining weight. First we got rid of the stuff that I liked to snack on, then I changed my routine and started going to the gym in the evening for at least two hours. This way when I got home I didn’t want to snack because I wasn’t bored anymore, the weight has been coming off…and if I don’t go to the gym at night I feel like I am missing something…it is now a habit!
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Practice enduring emotional uneasiness and discomfort. Some people say, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” We are built to avoid unpleasant, painful, and/or uncomfortable circumstances, but we can usually take more than we think we can. By practicing to allow yourself to experience uncomfortable emotions like boredom, sadness, frustration, etc., it helps us realize we can tolerate more than we thought we could before and also helps us get through the unpleasant tasks or situations. The endurance will build and we’ll be able to withstand more, thus becoming more self-disciplined.
5. Keep your eye on the prize! Visualize your long-term goals and how you are achieving them by completing the short term-goals and tasks. While completing my Doctorate in Education I had my graduation date as the “long-term goal” and every assignment that I completed I marked off for each class until all of the assignments were done and the class was complete. I did this for every class until all the coursework was complete over a 3 year period. Then I did the same thing for conducting my research and writing the dissertation for another year and a half, until I actually got to walk the stage on graduation day! Keep that goal reminder near you at all times and make sure everything you do is towards completing that goal somehow. Kind of like my son and his push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, running and working out…they are all for one purpose.
6. Improve from your mistakes and be caring to yourself. Recognize that you will make mistakes, or you might fail or have to miss something or backslide on habits a bit. Making mistakes is part of the process of becoming better, the key is learning from those mistakes and knowing that you will resolve to do better, try harder and push yourself the next time. Don’t beat yourself up about a missed work-out, just plan to do a tougher work-out next time.
"Self-discipline is a learned behavior."
Putting It All Together:
As leaders and followers and as influencers of other people we have to appreciate that everyone has the potential to be self-disciplined, but you can’t expect everyone to just start, remember it takes practice. Use these 6 tips and apply them in your discussions with the people you have influence with, especially if they ask how to be more self-disciplined. Maybe ask them what their personal goals are and get them thinking about reaching their own potential, then artfully share these tips with them. Remember, in your position as a leader, you must also model the behavior that you want followed, so try to be self-disciplined, so others have a model to follow. A behavior that is repeated becomes a habit. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” This is the key to self-discipline.
Quotes to Put into Practice:
“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”
- Jesse Owen, Olympic Athlete
“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.” - Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President