No matter what, a part of you does not want self discipline.

A part of you is always saying, "take it easy." Or, "let's worry about it later." Or, "let's just sit down and watch some TV instead."

If you are ever going to develop the habit of self discipline, you need to understand the above fact. Think of it as a little person that is always sitting on your shoulder , telling you to avoid taking action.

The art of self discipline lies in your ability to communicate with this little person. To be able to overcome the influence that this person has when you really need to get something done.

Fortunately, there are thousands of different ways to overcome the influence this little person has on you.

I am about to present to you some of the ways that I have found to be most effective.

But before we do that, we first must understand more about this little person. We need to know exactly how this person thinks and exactly what this person says to get us to avoid doing what we most need to do.

Meet Your Little Person

The little person sitting on your shoulder is not an enemy. Although it may seem like it sometimes. This little person is simply doing it's best to protect you from harm.

It's telling you not to work on that project because you might fail and get upset. What the little person doesn't understand is that you are going to fail if you don't start working on the project! The little person only thinks about the very short term consequences.

So what kind of things does the little person say?

Well, the little person on your shoulder is willing to say whatever it takes to get you to stop doing whatever it is you are considering to do. So the little person may start out by saying, "is there really a point to doing this?"

If this happens, you must reaffirm to yourself that what you are doing is important. And that you are going to do your best to get the job done.

You've heard it before, but a positive attitude is the key. One of the biggest fears that destroys our self discipline is this. We think that if our project fails, then we are failures. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth!

The next time you are facing a challenge, understand that you are a successful person for trying. And the outcome of the project itself cannot change that. You're only a true failure if you didn't try.

The little person is going to try and put you down all of the time. It's going to say, "you're not smart enough for this!" Or, "you can't handle this right now."

You absolutely must believe in yourself if you want to develop self discipline. Have the attitude of strong belief that nothing is going to stop you from reaching your goals. Politely let your little person know that they are wrong and you are going to prove it to them!

As mentioned before, the little person is going to try whatever it takes to get you to stop doing what it is you are considering to do. So if you overcome the little person's first attemps at getting you to quit, the little person isn't going to give up!

And that's when the little person is going to try procrastination.

It's going to tell you, "let's work on this later." It might even say something like, "let's do something else right now."

The little person is either going to want you to quit, or it's going to try and persuade you to tackle on something a little easier. This is when you need to take a step back and ask yourself if the little person has a valid point. If it doesn't, then you need to use some of the tricks in the next section that deals with overcoming this little person's influence.
 

Overcome The Little Person

There are thousands of ways to try and overcome the influence of the little person. And many of these tricks can be found on various pages on this website.

Understand though that knowing about the little person is at least half of the battle to developing self discipline. What you need to do to overcome the little person can vary from person to person and from time to time.

You should experiment and try new ways to get yourself up and going. What kind of experiments do you try?

I'd like to give you one example of what has worked really well for me. It's a very simple trick you can use if your little person is telling you to put things off until later. Here's what you do...

Simply state out loud (or in your head) what it is you want to be doing, as if you are actually already doing it.

For example, if I was sitting on the couch but I really wanted to be working this website, I would say over and over, "I am working on my website. I am working on my website. I am working on my website."

This sounds stupid. And you may be right. But if you give it a try, you are going to be absolutely baffled by how well this works. I know I was!

The reason it works (if you care) is because your subconscious mind doesn't know what is real and what isn't. It simply does what it is told. So if I keep telling myself that I am working on my website, it won't take long before my subconscious mind becomes frustrated because I'm not working on my website! And it will demand that I start doing it!

Give this a try the next time you can't get started doing something that you need to do. It's probably the single greatest trick you can use to spring yourself into action.

Other things you can experiment with are things like writing down your goals or visualizing yourself doing the work. I strongly encourage you to read a few of the articles from the thought and thinking area of the site. This is where I keep you up-to-date on the latest tricks I have learned to help your self discipline.

What You REALLY Need To Know

I want to stress again that knowing about the little person is half the battle. You will learn over time how you can communicate with this person so that you can do what it is you want. Understand this...

You're not going to win every battle with the little person!

And it's vitally important that you don't get yourself down about this! Self discipline is not a personality trait. You don't "have" self discipline.

Self discipline is a skill. A skill that you use. And with any skill, it takes practice in order to get good at. The more you practice, the better you will get. And just because you may be good at using self discipline now, doesn't mean that you're ingrained with it for life.

Practicing self discipline is something you are going to have to work at for a lifetime.

Understand that the secret to develop self discipline lies in your ability to understand what the little person is telling you. You need to listen to this little person, and then learn to communicate with them so that you both agree that what you are doing is the best thing to do.

Rewards work well with this. Constantly find new rewards that you can give yourself when you do something important. Only you know what reward will work best.

Writing your goals down works well also. Have yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. This let's the little person know that it's worth doing some of these hard tasks.

If you really want to learn more about self discipline, there's really only one book you need. It's called Self Discipline In 10 Days.

It's very short and compact (which I usually don't like in a book), but this book is absolutely perfect and I refer back to it often. To be perfectly honest, it has been one of the most influential books I have ever read. And believe me, I've read a ton of books!

I wish you the best of luck on improving your self discipline. Remember, don't get yourself down. Simply strive for improvement. None of us are perfect and our self discipline isn't going to be perfect either.

Our little person is going to tell us to have a big piece of chocolate cake and were going to say...

Not a bad idea!

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