“I am very special, unique, and valuable person. I deserve to feel good about myself.”
Boosting self-esteem is very easy when you know what is all about self-esteem. Having self-esteem enhances the prospects of successful personal, professional and social life. It is an essential component of success in everything right from childhood, to adolescence and to adulthood. It is rightly said by Beth Graney, guidance at Bull Run Middle School in Gainesvile, Virginia that, “Adults achieve self-esteem from their achievements, the adolescents achieve from their group and kids achieve from their peer relationships.” Before we look at boosting self-esteem let us find out what is all about self-esteem.
What is Self-Esteem?
According to Goleman author of the book titled ‘Emotional Intelligence’, “Self-esteem or self-efficacy has to do with a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses”.
When you feel bad about yourself from time to time you have low self-esteem. In contrast, when you feel good about yourself constantly you have high self-esteem. Self-esteem means having pride in oneself and self-respect. It is a state of thinking where one feels good about oneself. Self-esteem is all about feeling good of oneself every time whether in success or failure.
Self-esteem should not be confused with self-confidence which is related to self-beliefs and sense of being able to do something successfully. Self-esteem should not also be confused with self-efficacy which is related to certain abilities, capabilities and competencies to move towards future performance. The concept is believed to have been coined by John Milton. Self-esteem is one of the important ingredients for success. It is our ability to value ourselves. It is the overall opinion we have about ourselves. When you think that you are competent then you have appropriate self-esteem i.e. high self-esteem and when you think that you are not competent then you have inappropriate self-esteem i.e. low self-esteem.
Self-esteem comes from a sense of our own worth. It is based on true awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, combined with acceptance that human beings are, by nature, a mixture of such qualities. We are living in a society that is continually being impacted by the symptoms and side effects of low self-esteem.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed hierarchy of needs where in after fulfilling one level of needs, human beings will be motivated to reach the next higher order of needs. For instance, human beings look basically for meeting physiological needs like food, cloth, shelter, sex etc. While working, employees look for rest periods, work breaks, lunch breaks etc., The second higher level of needs is the safety and security needs where human beings like to be free from fear of physical, psychological and financial needs. At workplace, the employees look for job security, pension benefits, insurance etc., to secure themselves. The third higher level of needs is the social needs where they crave for love and affection and affiliation with their communities and groups. While working in organizations, they like to work in groups by forming teams which is the right example for social needs. After fulfilling these needs they crave for esteem needs such as they expect respect and recognition from others. Hike in their pay and perks, promotions and having company car can promote their self-esteem needs. The top highest hierarchy of needs is the self-actualization needs where they want to have freedom to be creative and innovative and want to pursue their passionate areas of interest. When the employees are encouraged to take up higher roles and responsibilities they enjoy accepting the challenges as they derive immense pleasure out of it.
From the above hierarchy of needs, we find the self-esteem has place for itself which is indication of its importance in human motivation and needs.
Causes:
“Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.” - Helen Keller
Nobody is born with low self-esteem. Parents, educational institutions and society are responsible for creating low self-esteem among people. When our thoughts constantly rotate and revolve around the deficiencies, shortcomings, weaknesses and insecurities, we tend to develop low self-esteem. Besides, frequent failures and criticism by others may lead to self-doubt resulting into depression and anxiety. Inferiority among the people may give rise to low self-esteem. When people are not good looking they tend to think low of themselves resulting into low self-esteem. Parents are also responsible to some extent for low self-esteem among their children when they have unrealistic aspirations and expectations from their children.
Effects:
Low self-esteem prevents you from enjoying life, doing the thing you want to do, and working towards your personal and professional goals. It results into improper interpersonal relations with others. One can observe anxiety, depression, insomnia, substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors. It also gives rise to self-doubt and self-criticism. When you have low self-esteem you give in yourself to negative self-talk, like “I am not smart”.
Strategies to Boost Your Self-Esteem:
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton
• Love yourself first. Only when you start loving yourself then you can expect others to love you.
• Develop a healthy and positive mindset for boosting self-esteem.
• Set smart, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed (SMART) goals. Right goals take you towards right direction resulting into one success after another success culminating into higher self-esteem.
• Pursue your passionate areas of interest. Carefully listen to your head and heart and synchronize the same to build self-esteem.
• Take care of your physical, mental and emotional health. Hit gym regularly or go for jogging or swimming or walking to distress yourself. Read good books which provide you enough mental diet. And balance yourself emotionally.
• Concentrate on your strengths rather than weaknesses. Prepare a list of your weaknesses and work on to improve slowly and steadily.
• Create positive circle of friends who respect you and your areas of interest so that you can boost your self-esteem.
• Always explore the ways and means to tap your inner talents and also develop skills as the combination these two will help you to look at the world with positive attitude.
• Always start from where you are strong as it builds your self-confidence.
• Attend workshops or seminars that are free or inexpensive as it widens your intellectual horizons.
• List out and recall your past achievements. Also, list out positive affirmations and read the same daily when you get up from bed in the morning and go to bed in the night. Once it is done for a period of a month, then you find amazing results.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Keep busy with your commitments and goals. It helps in minimizing negative thoughts and maximizing positive thoughts. It will also help you stay focused.
• Never compare yourself with others as you are unique and different. Always focus on your unique innate traits and characteristics and also the things you like.
• Always compete with yourself and raise your bar gradually.
• Take someone you like the most as a role model so that you can draw motivation and inspiration.
• Always involve yourself in positive self-talk. Everyone has an inner dialogue. Always think internally that you are born to do great things and you are sure to achieve the same. Constant inner dialogue reinforces positive self-talk resulting into feeling good about yourself.
• Learn from failures and move forward. Never underestimate nor overestimate yourself.
• Don’t hold your anger inside. Once anger is held then it would explode like volcano. Find out what angers you and let go your angry emotions by expressing as it relieves your inner burden. Express yourself to close friends what causes you anger.
• Care less about others and especially for their unhealthy criticism. Les Brown rightly said, “Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
• Be kind and helpful to others. When you do so, people respect your positive gesture which in turn raises your self-esteem.
• Develop the attitude of forgetting any negative events or experiences in life and forgiving others.
• Children should focus on academic excellence and extra-curricular activities and achievements as these promote high self-esteem.
• Strive for excellence not perfection.
• Cultivate the hobby of gifting.
• Practice smiling as it improves your face value.
• Build your inner strengths which helps in enhancing your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength.
• Do what you love to do rather than loving what you do. There is a thin line separating these two. When you do what you love to do you enjoy every moment resulting into higher self-esteem.
• Be assertive – excessive high self-esteem leads to aggressiveness and low self-esteem results in submissiveness. Therefore, it is essential to maintain the average of both behaviors which is possible by assertiveness.
• Always be grateful to God for what has been given to you. Develop the attitude of gratitude.
Conclusion:
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” - Richard Bach
Low self-esteem is not a problem by birth. It is injected by various ways and means. In some cases, it is due to parental influence. The faulty social and educational environment also aggravates this problem. The fact is that self-esteem can be learned, taught, developed and spread. Let us teach kids to feel good about themselves in their childhood itself so that they grow and live with high self-esteem in later part of their lives. To sum up, respect yourself, reward yourself, honor yourself, love yourself and feel good about yourself for boosting your self-esteem.
The End
References:
‘The Power of Self-Esteem: Build It and They Will Flourish’ by Jim Paterson.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Self-Confidence Leads to Success
If you think that you can do it then it is confidence, if you think that you can alone do it then it is overconfidence. There is a thin line separating self-confidence from over-confidence.
Confidence is the key to overcome trials and tribulations in life. It is one of the most important aspects which help in moving forward in life. Confidence is the ability to have full faith in oneself to face the fight and to take it forward to its logical end. Confidence comes when you make the things happen not when you let the things happen. It helps in touching upper limits. It brings inner satisfaction, happiness and joy.
Confidence is an inner voice which tells us what we can do. Confidence does not mean overrating or overestimating than that of others. It is neither feeling superior or great but feeling comfortable with convictions. Confidence is the ability to assess and judge yourself properly. It is also the ability not to underestimate your rivals or competitors. Confidence is essential everywhere. For instance, a leader needs confidence to lead the team, a student needs confidence to score higher marks and a teacher needs confidence to speak in front of students.
What is Self-Confidence?
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
Self-confidence comes from competence, competence comes from experience and experience comes from hard work, expertise, practice, knowledge, skills and abilities.
It is a mental attitude where in individuals has to believe in themselves, respect themselves, rely on their abilities, capabilities, competencies, and intuition.
Confidence and optimism are two sides of the same coin. For achieving success in any sphere, it is necessary to equip with these two traits. Self-confident people take risks and accept roles and responsibilities voluntarily. They take on the battle to its logical end without any fear or self-doubt. They would face the fight and would fight to the finish.
When we look at all successful people, it transpires that they all have great self-confidence. We tend to think that their success led them to have self-confidence. We can say that prior to success it was their self-confidence that led to success and not the other way round.
There are number of people who started from nowhere and reached to number one status just because they have confidence. There are people who rose like phoenix despite failures just because of their self-confidence.
John’s Overconfidence:
"If you don’t make mistakes then you are a perfect human and if you make mistakes then you are a human" - Farouk
John was highly educated and was good at his job. Due to recession the entire department was closed. Finally the axe fell on John also to leave the organization. Before being axed, the employer provided outplacement to John to join in one of their affiliates where his services could be utilized. John was overconfident and said the employer that he had couple of offers and would shortlist the same and get back to them. On hearing this, the employer provided the opportunity to one of his colleagues.
After closure of establishment John had to struggle for a suitable employment for a month as the job market was weak due to recession. John had ability and capability to get better employment and finally settled down for an employment as per his passion. Only regret he had was to remain unemployed for a month and he lost a salary for that period. Had John accepted the previous employer’s offer he would have worked there and would have tried for better opportunities by working in an affiliate organization. John’s over-confidence led to losing salary for a period of one month and undergoing mental trauma without job. Let us accept the fact that over-confidence is the worst enemy.
Signs of Self-Confident People:
A self-confident person grabs the opportunities whereas an over-confident person rejects the available opportunities. Let us look at the signs and signals of self-confident people.
1. Never doubt their competencies, capabilities, abilities and skills.
2. Have total command and control over themselves.
3. Are risk takers and love to live on edge.
4. Humility is their hallmark.
5. Have neither superiority nor inferiority complex. They possess the right complex desired for success.
6. Are open to new areas of interests, challenges and changes in life.
7. Are ready to test new waters by assuming challenging roles and responsibilities.
8. Have clarity of mind and approach towards problem solving.
9. Are ready to take constructive criticism in their stride and strives for continuous feedback.
10. Have tenacity and resilience to overcome from failures.
11. Have an attitude to strive for excellence, not perfection.
Tips for Building Self-Confidence:
Will power is essential to build confidence as it enables people to do anything and everything which lead to success.
• Believing in yourself is the first and foremost things towards building self-confidence.
• Take up the tasks which are little more difficult and start executing them. Over a period of time, you will develop self-confidence.
• Learning is the key to self-confidence. If you learn swimming, then you develop self-confidence gradually to get into water next time. Similarly, learn any new skills and abilities so that you will develop competencies and capabilities which lead to developing self-confidence.
• Always radiate positive energy and enthusiasm.
• Always have positive self-affirmations everyday such as ‘I am great’, ‘I will succeed’, ‘I was born to achieve big in this world’ and so on
• List out your achievement in your life and keep adding fresh successes along with the existing like updating resume while applying for employment. It will enhance confidence levels as it generates positive vibes.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Always think that you are winner and you would achieve everything in life. When your mind is filled with positive ideas, thoughts and information then you develop confidence and it leads to success.
• Everyone is blessed with unique talents and traits. Find out where you are strong at, tap and explore the same for achieving success.
• Take timely food. Hit gym or do meditation regularly. Positive mind in a healthy body will enhance confidence levels.
• Always involve in positive self-talk. But don’t make it excess as it leads to blowing your own trumpet. Therefore, keep your positive self-talk within the healthy limits.
• Be cool and composed as it decreases anxiety and stress.
• Don’t get unduly concerned about others how they think about you. You are what you are and you are unique and incomparable with others. Therefore, care less about others. Don’t focus on unhealthy criticism.
• Don’t worry too much about your past failures. Failures are common in life. It indicates that you have attempted to achieve something in life. Learn lessons from failures and just move on towards success.
• Always be faithful to your conscience and possess strong character. There is an age-old proverb and it goes, “Confession is good for the soul”. If you did wrong it is better to own up and confess as it relieves your burden to your conscience. Conscience reflects the ethical values while character demonstrates both the emotional and ethical values. These two are the driving forces towards building better self-confidence.
Conclusion:
"You are what you think about all day long." - Dr. Robert Schuller
Self-confidence is not a born quality. It is a cultivated trait by external environment. It is inculcated by parents and educational institutions during upbringing. Besides, social environment always plays a vital role in building this trait. To sum up, let us admit the fact that everyone is born with the ability to instinctively achieve something in life and it is the self-confidence that finally helps in achieving success.
The End
Confidence is the key to overcome trials and tribulations in life. It is one of the most important aspects which help in moving forward in life. Confidence is the ability to have full faith in oneself to face the fight and to take it forward to its logical end. Confidence comes when you make the things happen not when you let the things happen. It helps in touching upper limits. It brings inner satisfaction, happiness and joy.
Confidence is an inner voice which tells us what we can do. Confidence does not mean overrating or overestimating than that of others. It is neither feeling superior or great but feeling comfortable with convictions. Confidence is the ability to assess and judge yourself properly. It is also the ability not to underestimate your rivals or competitors. Confidence is essential everywhere. For instance, a leader needs confidence to lead the team, a student needs confidence to score higher marks and a teacher needs confidence to speak in front of students.
What is Self-Confidence?
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
Self-confidence comes from competence, competence comes from experience and experience comes from hard work, expertise, practice, knowledge, skills and abilities.
It is a mental attitude where in individuals has to believe in themselves, respect themselves, rely on their abilities, capabilities, competencies, and intuition.
Confidence and optimism are two sides of the same coin. For achieving success in any sphere, it is necessary to equip with these two traits. Self-confident people take risks and accept roles and responsibilities voluntarily. They take on the battle to its logical end without any fear or self-doubt. They would face the fight and would fight to the finish.
When we look at all successful people, it transpires that they all have great self-confidence. We tend to think that their success led them to have self-confidence. We can say that prior to success it was their self-confidence that led to success and not the other way round.
There are number of people who started from nowhere and reached to number one status just because they have confidence. There are people who rose like phoenix despite failures just because of their self-confidence.
John’s Overconfidence:
"If you don’t make mistakes then you are a perfect human and if you make mistakes then you are a human" - Farouk
John was highly educated and was good at his job. Due to recession the entire department was closed. Finally the axe fell on John also to leave the organization. Before being axed, the employer provided outplacement to John to join in one of their affiliates where his services could be utilized. John was overconfident and said the employer that he had couple of offers and would shortlist the same and get back to them. On hearing this, the employer provided the opportunity to one of his colleagues.
After closure of establishment John had to struggle for a suitable employment for a month as the job market was weak due to recession. John had ability and capability to get better employment and finally settled down for an employment as per his passion. Only regret he had was to remain unemployed for a month and he lost a salary for that period. Had John accepted the previous employer’s offer he would have worked there and would have tried for better opportunities by working in an affiliate organization. John’s over-confidence led to losing salary for a period of one month and undergoing mental trauma without job. Let us accept the fact that over-confidence is the worst enemy.
Signs of Self-Confident People:
A self-confident person grabs the opportunities whereas an over-confident person rejects the available opportunities. Let us look at the signs and signals of self-confident people.
1. Never doubt their competencies, capabilities, abilities and skills.
2. Have total command and control over themselves.
3. Are risk takers and love to live on edge.
4. Humility is their hallmark.
5. Have neither superiority nor inferiority complex. They possess the right complex desired for success.
6. Are open to new areas of interests, challenges and changes in life.
7. Are ready to test new waters by assuming challenging roles and responsibilities.
8. Have clarity of mind and approach towards problem solving.
9. Are ready to take constructive criticism in their stride and strives for continuous feedback.
10. Have tenacity and resilience to overcome from failures.
11. Have an attitude to strive for excellence, not perfection.
Tips for Building Self-Confidence:
Will power is essential to build confidence as it enables people to do anything and everything which lead to success.
• Believing in yourself is the first and foremost things towards building self-confidence.
• Take up the tasks which are little more difficult and start executing them. Over a period of time, you will develop self-confidence.
• Learning is the key to self-confidence. If you learn swimming, then you develop self-confidence gradually to get into water next time. Similarly, learn any new skills and abilities so that you will develop competencies and capabilities which lead to developing self-confidence.
• Always radiate positive energy and enthusiasm.
• Always have positive self-affirmations everyday such as ‘I am great’, ‘I will succeed’, ‘I was born to achieve big in this world’ and so on
• List out your achievement in your life and keep adding fresh successes along with the existing like updating resume while applying for employment. It will enhance confidence levels as it generates positive vibes.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Always think that you are winner and you would achieve everything in life. When your mind is filled with positive ideas, thoughts and information then you develop confidence and it leads to success.
• Everyone is blessed with unique talents and traits. Find out where you are strong at, tap and explore the same for achieving success.
• Take timely food. Hit gym or do meditation regularly. Positive mind in a healthy body will enhance confidence levels.
• Always involve in positive self-talk. But don’t make it excess as it leads to blowing your own trumpet. Therefore, keep your positive self-talk within the healthy limits.
• Be cool and composed as it decreases anxiety and stress.
• Don’t get unduly concerned about others how they think about you. You are what you are and you are unique and incomparable with others. Therefore, care less about others. Don’t focus on unhealthy criticism.
• Don’t worry too much about your past failures. Failures are common in life. It indicates that you have attempted to achieve something in life. Learn lessons from failures and just move on towards success.
• Always be faithful to your conscience and possess strong character. There is an age-old proverb and it goes, “Confession is good for the soul”. If you did wrong it is better to own up and confess as it relieves your burden to your conscience. Conscience reflects the ethical values while character demonstrates both the emotional and ethical values. These two are the driving forces towards building better self-confidence.
Conclusion:
"You are what you think about all day long." - Dr. Robert Schuller
Self-confidence is not a born quality. It is a cultivated trait by external environment. It is inculcated by parents and educational institutions during upbringing. Besides, social environment always plays a vital role in building this trait. To sum up, let us admit the fact that everyone is born with the ability to instinctively achieve something in life and it is the self-confidence that finally helps in achieving success.
The End
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Self-Discipline is Key to Success
“If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.” - Napoleon Hill
Everyone wants to achieve success. But very few people achieve the success. What makes them tick towards success? There are number of secrets and strategies towards success. The first and foremost among them is self-discipline which is the secret towards achieving success. In this context, let us find out the meaning of self-discipline.
What is Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline means training oneself to stick to code of conduct or behavior although the person is willing to do something else at heart but he does as he is expected to do it. Self-discipline is a trait, habit and a skill. It requires consistent efforts to remain self-disciplined. In fact, consistency is the key to self-discipline. Self-discipline needs struggles and sacrifices. Success springs from such strenuous efforts and energies.
Self-discipline is a voluntary and conscious effort to discipline oneself without any external influence. For instance, being punctual to work rather than being reminded by others to be on time, to be focused on work voluntarily rather than being prompted by superiors, getting up early in the morning regularly without anybody’s coercion and getting the tasks executed without procrastination can be considered as self-discipline.
Self-discipline is sticking to tight schedules, rules and regulations without anybody’s influence, coercion. In a nut shell, being duty-conscious, being punctual, being conscious of others, being organized and being initiative are the bedrock for self-discipline. It must go deep within the subconscious mind. It is like minding one’s own work without being reminded by others.
Self-discipline is combination of self-control, self-command, self-regulation and self-feedback. Hitting gym regularly, taking timely food and leading a systematic life become the bedrock of self-discipline.
If you want to decrease your weight, you need to hit the gym. You need to have will power to pursue hitting gym relentlessly for shedding the excess flab. If you are a diabetic and the doctor instructs you to avoid taking sugar then you need to display self-discipline to stick to his instructions.
Will power and Self-Discipline:
Will power and self-discipline are two sides of the same coin. While will power helps in overcoming laziness and procrastination self-discipline helps in developing stamina, endurance, resilience and tenacity, perseverance and motivation. When you are equipped with these two traits you will be confident of taking the things forward. Both are investments for future success.
Merits of Self-Discipline:
“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” - Gary Ryan Blair
Self-discipline empowers your personality. It equips you with several tools and techniques that help in achieving success. It makes you stand out of the crowd. It makes you rise from the rest. It will project you as a leader who stands different from others. There are many merits associated with self-discipline. Let us look at few of them.
It helps in organizing people better as it makes them to get up from sleep at regular times and do things in systematic and focused manner.
It enhances the personality of the individuals thereby projecting in a positive manner.
It is stepping stone towards success.
It helps in achieving your goals much faster and smarter.
Inculcating Self-Discipline:
“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.” - Harry S. Truman
Maintain good friends who fuel you with positive thoughts and ideas. Positive company of friends keeps you healthy thus making you self-disciplined.
Cultivate the habit of maintaining diary. Jot down the ideas that surface from your mind. Don’t rely on your memory. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. Jotting down the key ideas enhances perseverance as well.
Take up one task at a time and do it. Don’t mix up several tasks as you end up no where. It will stay you focused and make you task oriented.
Break big tasks into small ones and execute. When you find a big task you may feel like giving up assuming as the difficult one. But when you break it down then work slowly and steadily by addressing small pieces then you will be able to achieve your goal easily however big it might be. When you follow this strategy you will find amazing results. Henry Ford rightly said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”.
Face the problems rather than avoiding them. Face the fight and take the battle of life to its logical end. It is the secret of self-discipline.
You have the potential for self-discipline. Only thing you should know is when to use and not use it
It is always better to do than to do well in life. Never focus on perfection but on excellence.
Always put work before pleasure. Once the work is over then you can concentrate on pleasure. Or else, you would not enjoy the pleasure as your mind is concerned about work.
Always push yourself harder beyond your limits so that the best within you will come out.
Set small goals and try to achieve. Once you achieve small goals, then you develop a flow that will encourage you to become self-disciplined.
Set your own standards and never compare with others. Realize the fact that everyone is unique.
Active participation in sports and games will develop self-discipline.
Learn to associate with positive activities and experiences as these encourage people to be self-disciplined.
Conclusion:
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” -
Eleanor Roosevelt
The poor self-discipline makes you weak and unsuccessful and over discipline makes you sacrifice your personal happiness and joy. Therefore, learn to strike the right balance between the both for reaching greater heights in your life.
You can do anything and everything through self-discipline. People with self-discipline rarely give up. They place work before pleasure. After completion of the work they enjoy the pleasure without any guilt feeling.
Self-discipline is a skill not a talent. Talents are inborn and skills are cultivated. Therefore, it is easy to cultivate the skill of self-discipline. It requires will power, stamina and endurance to acquire this skill. The educational institutions can play a crucial role in shaping the students through self-discipline. Similarly, the role of parents is also appreciated to inculcate the skill among their children.
Self-discipline determines the destiny of the individuals. It holds the key to success.
Successful people cultivate this quality at their childhood itself. To sum up, life without self-discipline is like a ship sailing without navigation.
The End
Everyone wants to achieve success. But very few people achieve the success. What makes them tick towards success? There are number of secrets and strategies towards success. The first and foremost among them is self-discipline which is the secret towards achieving success. In this context, let us find out the meaning of self-discipline.
What is Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline means training oneself to stick to code of conduct or behavior although the person is willing to do something else at heart but he does as he is expected to do it. Self-discipline is a trait, habit and a skill. It requires consistent efforts to remain self-disciplined. In fact, consistency is the key to self-discipline. Self-discipline needs struggles and sacrifices. Success springs from such strenuous efforts and energies.
Self-discipline is a voluntary and conscious effort to discipline oneself without any external influence. For instance, being punctual to work rather than being reminded by others to be on time, to be focused on work voluntarily rather than being prompted by superiors, getting up early in the morning regularly without anybody’s coercion and getting the tasks executed without procrastination can be considered as self-discipline.
Self-discipline is sticking to tight schedules, rules and regulations without anybody’s influence, coercion. In a nut shell, being duty-conscious, being punctual, being conscious of others, being organized and being initiative are the bedrock for self-discipline. It must go deep within the subconscious mind. It is like minding one’s own work without being reminded by others.
Self-discipline is combination of self-control, self-command, self-regulation and self-feedback. Hitting gym regularly, taking timely food and leading a systematic life become the bedrock of self-discipline.
If you want to decrease your weight, you need to hit the gym. You need to have will power to pursue hitting gym relentlessly for shedding the excess flab. If you are a diabetic and the doctor instructs you to avoid taking sugar then you need to display self-discipline to stick to his instructions.
Will power and Self-Discipline:
Will power and self-discipline are two sides of the same coin. While will power helps in overcoming laziness and procrastination self-discipline helps in developing stamina, endurance, resilience and tenacity, perseverance and motivation. When you are equipped with these two traits you will be confident of taking the things forward. Both are investments for future success.
Merits of Self-Discipline:
“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” - Gary Ryan Blair
Self-discipline empowers your personality. It equips you with several tools and techniques that help in achieving success. It makes you stand out of the crowd. It makes you rise from the rest. It will project you as a leader who stands different from others. There are many merits associated with self-discipline. Let us look at few of them.
It helps in organizing people better as it makes them to get up from sleep at regular times and do things in systematic and focused manner.
It enhances the personality of the individuals thereby projecting in a positive manner.
It is stepping stone towards success.
It helps in achieving your goals much faster and smarter.
Inculcating Self-Discipline:
“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.” - Harry S. Truman
Maintain good friends who fuel you with positive thoughts and ideas. Positive company of friends keeps you healthy thus making you self-disciplined.
Cultivate the habit of maintaining diary. Jot down the ideas that surface from your mind. Don’t rely on your memory. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. Jotting down the key ideas enhances perseverance as well.
Take up one task at a time and do it. Don’t mix up several tasks as you end up no where. It will stay you focused and make you task oriented.
Break big tasks into small ones and execute. When you find a big task you may feel like giving up assuming as the difficult one. But when you break it down then work slowly and steadily by addressing small pieces then you will be able to achieve your goal easily however big it might be. When you follow this strategy you will find amazing results. Henry Ford rightly said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”.
Face the problems rather than avoiding them. Face the fight and take the battle of life to its logical end. It is the secret of self-discipline.
You have the potential for self-discipline. Only thing you should know is when to use and not use it
It is always better to do than to do well in life. Never focus on perfection but on excellence.
Always put work before pleasure. Once the work is over then you can concentrate on pleasure. Or else, you would not enjoy the pleasure as your mind is concerned about work.
Always push yourself harder beyond your limits so that the best within you will come out.
Set small goals and try to achieve. Once you achieve small goals, then you develop a flow that will encourage you to become self-disciplined.
Set your own standards and never compare with others. Realize the fact that everyone is unique.
Active participation in sports and games will develop self-discipline.
Learn to associate with positive activities and experiences as these encourage people to be self-disciplined.
Conclusion:
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” -
Eleanor Roosevelt
The poor self-discipline makes you weak and unsuccessful and over discipline makes you sacrifice your personal happiness and joy. Therefore, learn to strike the right balance between the both for reaching greater heights in your life.
You can do anything and everything through self-discipline. People with self-discipline rarely give up. They place work before pleasure. After completion of the work they enjoy the pleasure without any guilt feeling.
Self-discipline is a skill not a talent. Talents are inborn and skills are cultivated. Therefore, it is easy to cultivate the skill of self-discipline. It requires will power, stamina and endurance to acquire this skill. The educational institutions can play a crucial role in shaping the students through self-discipline. Similarly, the role of parents is also appreciated to inculcate the skill among their children.
Self-discipline determines the destiny of the individuals. It holds the key to success.
Successful people cultivate this quality at their childhood itself. To sum up, life without self-discipline is like a ship sailing without navigation.
The End
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
