learn self-discipline

All my life, I thought I lacked self-discipline. It was either something you were born with, or had been taught during childhood, and I had neither.

During the past couple of weeks, with discovering GTD/ZTD and applying FlyLady’s routines, I have come to have a complete new understanding. It isn’t about discipline. It’s about motivation. And we can all find the right motivation for us. For me, right now, it is discovering that I can be different, and actually accomplish what I want.
And secondly, it’s about organisation. I never got anything done before, and constantly procrastinated. I realise now that I was simply overwhelmed. I had so much to do, and never knew where to start. I’d start getting minor panic attacks, and unconsciously switch to something harmless, to distract myself from having a full-blown panic attack over the insurmountable task that was ahead of me. It was never procrastination due to laziness and/or a lack of self-discipline. It was just a coping and survival mechanism.
Now that I have found structure, and learned how to divide my insurmountable task into tiny chewable bits, I’m all good. And I like it.

Screw self-discipline!! All it does is make the bunch of us who don’t get anything done feel like something is terribly wrong inside ourselves… 4 days ago

self-discipline is not what gets anyone going. It’s motivation.
So maybe I don’t have this huge hole in my brain where the discipline should be. Maybe I just need to remember why I’m doing things and stop letting my fears (of failure, of success, whatever they are) overshadow what matters and what motivates me… 2 weeks ago

..I do have self-discipline, after tightly but successfully handling 7 final exams, 1 IELTS exam, 1 British visa, 3 term papers, and 2 presentations in about two weeks.

All I need is to work on cultivating stronger daily habits to avoid laziness and procrastination, the problem is not self-discipline. 3 weeks ago

At all. I just look at it every time I review my goals, and just do nothing. I nearly think nothing.

Why? Because I don’t have a plan. I don’t know what to do. I can’t come on a training method for myself. If I honestly ask myself “How do I become more disciplined?”, the answer is inevitably “By being it.”. Period. Just do it. And yet, I don’t know how…

This is one of those true wisdom testers. I have all the knowledge I need to have about this. Yet, I don’t apply it. True wisdom is when you apply knowledge in your actions. Be wise, MamaBear!!! 3 weeks ago

-keep my word/promises
-show up when I say I would
-keep the faith
-maintain my values
-be loyal 1 month ago

A. Learn how to get along with others by seeing how my individuality and differentness makes it possible to work with others in a complementary way without feelings of competitiveness arising (especially from people above me and at my own level).

B. Don’t participate in emotionally manipulative behaviors (smothering, guilt-tripping, possessiveness).

Defuse inner turmoils that arise from an unprocessed past that does not make sense in the present. Stop the unconscious mind from playing tricks by acknowledging those feelings/experiences, understanding what these patterns represent in my life, and giving them a place in my life. This will enable the energies to be creatively harnessed.

C. Remove the horror that arises from being programmed to disapprove of these patterns. It distorts my perception of myself, the experiences, the people, and what they could mean to me.

D. Speak of the positive when you can. If you can’t, then don’t say anything. It will be a challenge but it can change your life for the better. 2 months ago

Here is the list that I’m thinking of completing in order to practise more self-discipline:

• Go to library! ✔

• Study Social Anthropology
  -Cover the half of the subjects.

• Practise yoga! ✔

^{I found a great website about yoga that offers you yoga classes customized for your needings and level as well as the time you have for yoga. Worth giving a shot if you are interested!}

• Laundry
  - Wash beddings.

• Move my stuff to the bigger room!
  -Clean the current room before the new owner arrives, as a courtesy.
  -Clean the other room.

• Watch the documentary film about birds “Winged Migration”

• Try to answer the questions about my story. ✔
  Have a date & interview with the main character and don’t let him go until he answers some certain questions! ✔

• Read as much as possible from the current novel I’m reading. 8 months ago

Hardcore clean the room. ✔
Clean the bathroom ✔
Organize/Cluster ✔
Prepare the box that I’m gonna ship back to my parent’s home. ✔
Laundry. ✔

^{Done. But I will have to figure a cheap way to ship my things back to Turkey, as I want to travel really light to Africa.}

Have a big photo session in city, on the foot. ✔

^{Proudly done! To be honest, I didn’t take any remarkable pictures, but I had two big walking sessions both on Saturday and Sunday. I have been to some streets that I’ve never been before.}

Improve my plot. ✔
Really improve my plot. ✔
Journal ✔
Improve my plot a bit more ✔

^{I was not able to focus easily, I think I lost time with unnecessary details time to time. But I’m really happy with the last contributions that I made to the story, it prevented a huge gap and the theme is more consistent now. And oh, I finally figured out the title of the story. Woot woot!}

Read at least the half of the novel Mister Pip ✔

^{I read only a third of the book, but it is alright.}

Write an e-mail to my creative writing group back in Ankara, to ask how they are doing. ✔

^{They are alright and missing me. How cute! I’ll be joining back to this writer’s group when I return back to Ankara. They are the only thing that I’m missing about Ankara!}

Send one other story of mine to another writing journal. ✔

^{I was at first way too shy to do that, and had a hard time choosing between my stories. But, I eventually happened to have the balls to go for it! Hence I sent a story called Dart Game that was written in a humorous way. Good!}8 months ago

The goals I have for this weekend are more or less the same again. But I have done some minor changes,

• Hardcore clean the room. ✔
  Clean the bathroom ✔
  Organize/Cluster ✔
  Prepare the box that I’m gonna ship back to my parent’s home. ✔
  Laundry. ✔

• Have a big photo session in city, on the foot. ✔
  ^{I’m replacing this goal with “Exercise” since I tend to fail on the exercising goal miserably.}

• Improve my plot. ✔
  Really improve my plot. ✔
  Journal ✔
  Improve my plot a bit more ✔

• Read at least the half of the novel Mister Pip ✔

• Write an e-mail to my creative writing group back in Ankara, to ask how they are doing. ✔

• Send one other story of mine to another writing journal. ✔

I’m not gonna study this weekend, I just had a final exam yesterday and I’ve more than two weeks for the next final. I wanna relax a bit and focus on my writing. 8 months ago

Surprise, surprise!

I reached all of my “weekend goals” but the “exercise” goal.

I wonder what to do with myself in that case.

Gotta punish myself by waking up one hour earlier than necessary tomorrow. 8 months ago

I gotta be kicking myself a bit this weekend, trying to adopt the “Worst First” mentality.

Here is the goal list that I have in my mind

• Study:

Social Anthropology, cover the 1/3 of the semester subjects. ✔
-Spanish, grammer revision for the exams.-✔

• Hardcore clean & organize the room:

Sweep the floor. ✔
Organize my closet. ✔
Do laundry. ✔
Clean my bathroom. ✔
Organize the books, clean the bookshelf. ✔
Change my beddings. ✔

• Visit Poe. (A pub which has got so many nice books about Africa.) ✔
• Read about Africa. ✔
• Finish reading the book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. ✔

• WRITE!!! ✔
  Journal ✔
  Brainstorm and figure out new things about the new character I introduced. ✔
  Improve my plot. ✔

• University research:Hunt for some universities for possible future master’s applications. ✔

• Exercise! 8 months ago

I found this article very inspiring, for those who are interested in building self discipline.

“Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger you become. The less you train it, the weaker you become.” 9 months ago

I don’t want to be this person anymore. The one who’s always doing everything at the last minute, the one who gives everybody else a good conscience, because no matter how behind they are, on anything in their life, I’ll be further behind.

No more.
Sitting here having to write 2 entire papers plus finish 2 more before midnight tonight is simply insane. I wanted to do a good job, I wanted to have fun with this, I was looking forward to this! I had sworn myself that I’d have it all done by May 1st. Yet I spent my time on everything else, and end up having to not care if I do a good job, as long as I finish.
That makes me hate myself. I don’t want to hate me! And I’m the cause of this, no one else to blame.

This is it. This must be it. No more. 9 months ago

I started to think that self discipline is something that can be learned, and one can teach himself/herself self discipline.

I’ve been struggling with this issue for 7 years now!

The little things that are looking small at first sight, making my life miserable time to time. Like going to bed a bit later everyday, knowing that I need to study but killing a bit time online etc.

I need self discipline more than ANYTHING to fulfill my plans.
There are still tons of things to do in my mental list of “Things that I need to do before I’m quarter century old”. And they are begging for me to help myself about this.

I read a quite inspiring article on that, and completely agree that self discipline can be learned. Since it can be learned like any other thing, I’ll learn! 9 months ago