Article by Carla Valencia

If you lack self discipline you will not be able to start building self-esteem, and without self-esteem. you cannot achieve what you want in life professionally or personally. Self discipline is defined by the dictionary as "Training and control of oneself and one's conduct, usually for personal improvement." If you want to succeed, even if you love what you do, you will have certain things that must be done that you don't particularly like or always feel like doing; but, not feeling like doing something is not a good reason to avoid it if it must be done to get you what you do what.

So: without discipline, there can be no success; and without success, there can be no feelings of esteem.

Self discipline and your self-esteem improvement

Why, exactly, is self discipline important?

• Self Discipline influences how you see yourself. Without discipline, you see yourself as lazy, slothful, incompetent, stupid, and other negative things.


• Self Discipline influences your ability to stay focused. Some people are naturally more gifted with focus than others, but no matter who you are you have to practice focusing your mind, because it is the nature of the human mind to wander. Discipline is practice for staying focused.


• Self Discipline boosts your self-confidence. With discipline, you accomplish things--even things that look like they'll be "impossible" for you when you're first starting out. Self-confidence comes with accomplishment.


• You take responsibility for your well-being. If you are disciplined you stay on your path even during troubled times. You aren't serving at the whims of others or Nature. You are ultimately in charge of your life.

How to develop self discipline

1. Begin by accepting your present situation. If you know that you are feeling insecure, for instance, accept this fact. Don’t come up with excuses or rationalizations; the fact is that you are insecure.
2. Be clear about your goals. If you want to work on your insecurities, set the goal: "My goal is to become confident in any situation." Then look for a program, a book, a life coach that can help you to reach your goal. If you need help check: Boost your self-motivation and achieve your goals, ambitions and dreams .
3. Write down the reasons why it's important for you to reach your goals. Ask yourself why it is important for you to reach your goal. How will your life become different if you do? By asking yourself these questions you will constantly be able to assure yourself that your goals are worthwhile, and you can make changes if need be.
4. Keep a journal in which you document your successes. Every night before you go to bed, write down every success you had during that day, no matter how small one of them may seem to you. By doing this you see that you are accomplishing things, and this feeds back and makes you even more disciplined and determined to reach your long-term goals.
5. Be gentle with yourself. If you fail to follow through on something, such as doing exercises you found to improve your insecurity, or listening to a tape that can help you to become more confident, simply acknowledge your failure but do not put yourself down. Ask yourself why it happened so that you can't be so easily put off the next time. Then, get up the next day and keep going.
6. Reward yourself, even for small accomplishments. Every time you follow through doing the exercises or listening to the tape or doing whatever method you have chosen, reward yourself. Let yourself watch that DVD movie that you ordered but haven't had time for. Take yourself out to dinner. Whatever makes you feel rewarded.
7. Keep trying, for persistence is the key to success. Try “Learning self discipline is easier than you think”. This will take you on a journey into your future once your natural self discipline has been cranked up to full throttle.

Once again, self discipline is the key to building self-esteem and self-confidence. If you are lacking in self-esteem and/or self-confidence, no amount of reading books, listening to tapes, watching videos, or meditation is going to get you where you want to be unless you have self discipline. There is no easy way for you to realize your "cure", and only discipline through easy times and rough times can allow you to find the answers you want.

"The tragedy is that so many people look for confidence and respect everywhere except within themselves, and so they fail in their search." Dr Nathaniel Branden

Source

1. The Free Dictionary by Farlex. self-discipline. Retrieved July, 2010, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/self-discipline.