5 Things To Increase Your Self-Discipline

Today I'm sharing 5 things that will help increase self-discipline. Now, this almost feels a little funny, phony or fake for me to be talking about this because I haven't been setting my alarm in almost two weeks…

But we're still going to talk about it, including knowing how and when to take breaks. One thing that successful entrepreneurs have in common is that they all have self-discipline! They have specific habits, traits and characteristics that they might not necessarily want to do, but they do it anyway. Their vision or their goal is bigger, more exciting or they want it bad enough that they'll do the things they don't want to, to get what they want or to get where they want to go. This all goes back to the power of self-discipline, what that looks like and how we can get better at it so we can truly create the business and life that we want!

#1: Tracking

Tracking is SO important whether you are working on becoming more disciplined in your business, your health or even in your finances. We hear all the time how adding the habit of tracking can get you results almost immediately. They say what gets measured gets done. Regular measurement and reporting keeps you focused because you can use that information to make decisions to improve your results.

These critical measurements are called key performance indicators (KPI’s). Now, every single person on my team at SBHE has their own KPI’s. What does this look like? For example, the social media manager looks at podcast downloads so this includes hitting a specific number of downloads every single episode. Her KPI’s could be looking at Instagram growth where we have to get a certain number of followers and engagement each week.

These help us see if we are hitting our goals if we keep doing what we're doing. Write down your goals and results! If your goal is to walk 4 times a week then make a chart for the week and put an X on everyday you accomplish that. At the end of the week you will see if you hit your goals!

Anything you want to do in business or in life…put it on a sheet of paper. Start with a few things and just see how it goes and then continue to add. Soon enough it will become a habit!

#2: Brain Dump

I know I always have so many thoughts, learning lessons throughout the day and just ideas in general and I know you do too! Start setting aside time to get everything that is in your head on paper so you know what you need to do.

Anytime something is forgotten you question…how did that happen? Well, are you following a system or not? Stop trying to remember everything! You are amazing, you have too many things going on, juggling way too much stuff to be remembering everything in your head. It now has to go on paper. Before you wrap up your day write down on a piece of paper what should happen for tomorrow so when you wake up in the morning, you're ready to go. You already know what you're going to be working on.

SO many times I have stopped people in a conversation just asking for one second to write something down! If I keep the conversation going with somebody and I keep thinking of this one thing I have to write down, it will drive me nuts!!

I always have my planner with me (90X Planer is my favorite! Find my other favorite things in my last blog post!) so anytime something pops up I just write it down in the notes section.  Before the end of the day, before I turn to the next sheet of paper, I make sure everything is done or it's just transferred to the next day. I also use Google Calendar and I'm obsessed!

#3: Using reminders and alarms

There are a TON of apps out there that can do this for you but you can simply use the one on your phone too! When you go to edit your alarm there's a place that says ‘label’ and you can change that alarm to whatever you want it to be! How can we use this?

• You can label it whatever you want! Let's say you want to start waking up at 6:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. Set your alarm and choose what the label says,  “successful people wake up every day at 6am.”
• When you read that when you wake up at 6:00 a.m., it might be harder for you to hit snooze or fall back asleep knowing your competitor is already working today and already getting started for the day.
• What's going to motivate you? What is something that you can see and think…OK I've got to get up or I want to get up. Find something that will excite you!

Another thing is being on time for everything! I am a big believer in this. I really do see it as a lack of respect when you show up late for people. I know how busy I am and when somebody shows up 5-10 minutes late, that is not something that I typically tolerate. I hold myself to a very strict schedule and I always, always start on time! This is why I set alarms for everything as it helps me stay very disciplined. I even set an alarm to maybe eat lunch or pick up the kids from daycare.

It reminds me to wrap up what I’m doing because I’ve got something else to do. It can be as simple as, if you’ve been working for a certain amount of time, set an alarm as a reminder to get up and move! As I said before, I am obsessed with Google Calendar and they have reminders you can set too!

#4: Finding an accountability partner

Find somebody that will drive you to show up and be the person you want to be. Consistency is the most important thing. Who can you ask to:

• Meet with you on a weekly basis
• Somebody that you will check in with
• Share your wins the week
• Share the learning lessons and your goals for the week

Once you do this it will become a regular thing where week after week you can follow up and continue to share. The more people you tell what you're going to do or what your goals are the more you will want to hold yourself accountable for that happening.

What does having an accountability partner look like?

I have done this where I've had an email buddy where we send an email out every week and we share those wins and the learning lessons. We share what our goals are and we have it written down on paper. Find that person that pushes you to be a powerhouse! Trust me it will make you want to go bigger.

This could be somebody you meet on the phone with, a Zoom video conference call or just through email. I had somebody where we shared a Google spreadsheet and we wrote our goals and wins down every week and we always said if one of us doesn't have it down by Friday at noon, shoot the other an email to help us stay accountable.

The more accountability you have, the more successful you will be with self-discipline. Figure out what you are struggling with the most and how to make this happen!

#5: Positive mindset

You can't have an all or nothing mindset! It drives me nuts when I hear people say things like, I'm going to a party tonight so I'm going to eat bad there because there will be party food, so I'm not really watching what I'm eating today. That doesn't make sense!

You're going to have this all or nothing mindset where you're going to either go all in we're going to eat bad the whole day or the whole weekend. If anything let's eat good the entire day so we cannot feel guilty about doing nothing!

When we're thinking about having only 30 minutes to get something done it doesn't make sense to jump into my office and start doing things I'm ultimately going to be needing more time with! Imagine how many times this happens! We waste so much time because of this all or nothing mindset.

Get in there and do something and figure out what that looks like for you!

If I had 10 minutes before my next appointment, I definitely wouldn't jump into creating a podcast or writing but I would probably head into my Voxer app because Voxer is where certain clients are or my team. These are a 1-2 minute messages so I could get those 10 minutes done easily. I'm utilizing that time as best as I possibly can.

Figure out where you can stop wasting these little bits of time and do little things because small steps turn into big results! It doesn't have to be big big steps to get big results.

How bad do you want it? It's not about showing off or letting everybody know what we're going to do. Self-discipline is about being so focused on the end result that we don't have to be thinking about what everybody else is going to think and that can be difficult and the hard part of self-discipline. It's not thinking about well they're doing this and I kind of want to do that too. It's about doing what you don't want to do now so that you can get whatever it is you want to have later.

I have a video I want you to watch that fits perfectly with this! It’s 2 kids eating Oreos and they tell the kids if you wait 10 minutes you're going to get 2 Oreos but if you eat it now, you only get 1…Most children can't wait for Oreo #2, right? But here's the thing, we are that child. We are that person who's like ‘oh but I really want this Oreo!’ But what you REALLY want are those two Oreos. My question for you is do you feel the same way?

As I mentioned I am giving you two links! The first is to a self-discipline workbook which you can find here: Shesbuildingherempire.com/selfdiscipline

The second is the Oreo video I shared which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_oy9614HQ