5 Tips to Get Disciplined and Remove 99% of Distractions
Level up your life and self-discipline in 5 steps
The habitual nature of people
Since the age of time, the human nature works on a habitual basis. Our subconscious mind looks to get comfortable and perform the majority of our thoughts and actions in a robotic, repetitive way.
Once we add a new habit, we consciously choose to do it for a period of time (some say 21 days, some say 60) until it moves from our conscious mind to our subconscious one and is performed by default, without effort.
This is an extraordinary mechanism of our minds, a statement of our human capabilities and the immense capacity of the brain.
It has the ability to change our lives unmeasurably.
However, the subconscious mind doesn’t have moral values, or direction, so it doesn’t differentiate between good and bad habits.
Once you perform an action enough times, it will become a self-performing mechanism. And while this may be amazing with exercising or reading, it works the same way with smoking, negative self-talk, mindless scrolling or other addictions.
Once it’s rooted into our subconscious, it becomes exponentially harder to change, stop or alter. Especially, if we associate it with a positive feeling, even though we deep down know it’s a negative habit.
For example smokers with associate it with a decrease in anxiety, or a feeling of peace.
Although, it is harder to change al already formed habit, and introducing new healthy ones, there is one tool that we have in our arsenal: discipline.
Discipline or more specifically, self-discipline, is the tool that we forge, to be able to hold our impulses, control our emotions and actions, contrary to our desire for immediate pleasure. It’s a way of refusing ourselves pleasure now, in order to receive a lot more pleasure in the future.
I have been working on this with myself for a long time now, experimenting and attempting multiple methods.
As with everything, some worked and some didn’t.
Now let me break down what really worked for me in 5 tips and tricks.
5 tips to level up your self-discipline and remove 99% of distractions
Create a structured schedule
One key element of self-discipline is to create order in the chaos.
You’ve probably heard people say that even though they are disorganized, their house is a mess, their desk is cluttered, they find order in there.
That’s partially true, they find order in there and it all makes sense for them. But there are countless distractions within that disorder that they might not even recognize consciously.
Believe me, this comes from a very chaotic person, with a very cluttered environment, that I somehow took pride in thinking it must be a sign of intelligence or being busy.
Let me break it down to you! It’s not!
You don’t realize it initially, but it is putting a strain on your brain processing power. Your brain constantly notices and remembers the chaos, and wants to naturally put it in order.
People need order, habits and routines, to properly function.
So clean up your house, desk, car, make your bed, and most importantly clean up your actions and schedules! You’re going to see a massive improvement in your brain fatigue!
Start by doing the next actions:
- Make your bed
- Declutter and organize your desk
- Declutter and clean your whole environment, where you live and work
- Put your phone away for blocks of time when you work
Once you do this, you will remove most of the distractions and you can focus on what’s important.
Now create a schedule! Don’t let your life be impulse-controlled!
Having a clear and structured schedule will not only provide an order in your life, but it will eliminate a huge mental load from your brain and allows your brain to know what’s next and prepare for it.
Once you know what’s next and when it happens, it will be a lot easier for you to stick to that plan!
Do constant and regular reflections
One amazing trick that I learned from the book Atomic Habits is to regularly check what you are doing.
At the end of the day, go through every single thing you did that day. Everything! Brushing your teeth, making your bed, scrolling Instagram, the amount of cigarettes you smoked, how many times you felt anxious, what you ate and at what time, etc.
This will show you the current structure of your schedule and your life.
If you want to dive deeper, do it for multiple days in a row. This way you can average certain actions and their durations.
If you want to go even deeper, categorize the actions as positive habits, negative habits, quantify how much you work, what’s time that you considered wasted, and what’s aligned with your goals.
All these exercises will allow you to identify what is that you do, what’s done consciously, what’s done subconsciously, what should stay and what should go from your life.
This way, you can make a plan, and it will be easier to be self-disciplined if you know the purpose.
Celebrate and treat yourself regularly
This is not only life advice, but also parenting advice in order to cultivate this in our children.
If you are doing something good for yourself or aligned with your goals, such as:
- Exercising regularly for a few days or months
- Writing every day
- Reading a few chapters a day
- Starting your business
- Working on your side hustle everyday
- Reaching 1000 followers, or 10
Celebrate each milestone, each small win! Treat yourself for any positive improvement you made!
Why is that? Because it will reinforce that good habits, and strengthen your self-discipline.
When you discipline yourself to exercise regularly and eat healthy, you are denying yourself immediate pleasure (cupcake, burger, laying on the couch). But if you see results, lose weight or fat or gain muscle, you are gaining a lot more pleasure and will be motivate to keep being disciplined.
So treat yourself regularly! Similar to how you treat your dog when they sit, and then they will always sit when said so, because they know something positive is coming.
Same for you! We are animals at the end of the day!
Buy yourself those shoes you want! Eat at that restaurant you want! Cook the food you crave! Treat yourself for the work you did! It will strengthen your self-discipline!
Visualize your goals constantly
It’s easy to lose track of why you started doing something after you’ve done it for a while. It’s even easier when that thing is not necessarily pleasurable right then and there.
This is why it’s very important to regularly go over your priorities, analyze what you do and what’s the purpose behind it.
Sometimes, it’s ok to stop doing something if the purpose behind it doesn’t resonate with you anymore! You will save a lot of wasted time!
But most importantly, when you remind yourself the purpose, and you re-align with it, you restore your motivation tank. You fill-up on willpower to use on your self-discipline.
Practice visualization and visualize your goals constantly and regularly, focusing on how it will make you feel and the pleasure you will get when you have or achieve that goal!
Practice mindfulness and stay present
Mindfulness is a self-development and personal growth tool that I recommend a lot and is beneficial in any context of your life.
It’s all about staying focused om the present! Don’t let yourself wonder, or be distracted by the future or the past!
It’s a way of decluttering your own mind!
Like I said in the beginning of the article, you need to declutter your environment, in order to perform at your best.
Similarly, if you want to improve your self-discipline, which is done in your mind, you need to declutter the mind, the workspace!
The best way to do that is to practice mindfulness meditation!
There are countless resources online about it, for free!
In conclusion, self discipline is a skill we need to constantly work on!
Implement the tips above to strengthen this skill, polish it, and use it accordingly to fuel your success!
