Megan Guilbert, ProSeed Forward Life Coaching, LLC
Last week, I wrote a blog post on the elements that would help you to become a more disciplined person. This week, I am writing a follow up blog post on how to actually implement those elements into your life.
The first element is to “Invest in yourself”, but how can you actually do that? First and foremost, “Investing in yourself”, is a mindset. You have to shift your mindset to believing in yourself and be willing to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Most of the time, believing in yourself and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone has 90% to do with your mind and your mindset. The other part to this element is taking a look at and shifting your lifestyle. Your lifestyle consists of your routines and how you spend your time. Ask yourself if your lifestyle matches the way you say you want to be disciplined? Change up your routine and how you spend your TIME to better match the type of discipline you want/need.
The second element is committing. Committing to being disciplined is important because it is the part of the process where you really go “all in”. When you commit to becoming more disciplined — you are no longer just interested in being disciplined, you will do whatever you need to do to practice discipline. You will practice your self-discipline as much as possible. But, how do you actually commit to something? Write it down. Write down the goal and put it in a place where you can see it. Then, write down 3–5 tasks that will help you to achieve that goal and put that in a place where you can see it as well. Then each day, be intentional about looking at the goal/tasks and completing the tasks. Update and adjust it as necessary.
The third element is consistency, how do you become consistent? You intentionally set your day up (lifestyle/routine — investing in yourself) to accomplish your goal’s tasks (commitment) daily (consistency). To be consistent you need to have habits that become “muscle memory”. Creating new habits that you do daily will be essential when trying to be disciplined. Habits are something you are going to do every day, no matter what. Your habits become a part of who you are and your identity. Forming a new habit takes time, changing up the environment, and mindset — which are all things that you can do. Once you create new habits for yourself and start completing them daily, consistency will be built in. That consistency will compound over time and you will begin to see results.
Finally, the fourth element is to broaden your perspective. Although, it may seem simple, it can be challenging. Broadening your perspective means being able to look at the scene from a 30,000 foot view, not from the 10 foot view on the ground. But, how do you train yourself to do that? If you don’t already, start by planning out your day the night before. See what you have to accomplish, prepare yourself for it, prioritize what is really important. Then try to move to preparing for the entire week. See what has to get done in the week then prepare, plan, and prioritize how you will do it. Once you do that, shift to planning out the month in the same way and so on. When you begin to see the year, month, and week from a 30,000 foot view, it will help you to see what is really important and it will help you to stay on track because you know what you need to accomplish in that time.
Becoming disciplined and implementing these elements into your life can be challenging, but you can do it. You just have to WANT to do it. You have to slowly, but surely, begin to practice these elements in your life. Not every single day, week, month, year will go how you plan or want it to. However, being disciplined will help you to get back on track or adjust your plan to keep moving forward.
ProSeed Forward Life Coaching, LLC 