Self Improvement Articles

Using Self-Discipline to Get Rid of Negative Habits

Self-discipline is just the act of ignoring and avoiding short-term temptations to do the work needed to achieve your long-term goals, and doing it on a regular enough basis that you will reach the goals you set. Once you start using self-discipline to reach your goals, you will realize you can use it for other things too, like getting rid of negative habits.

* Set Yourself Up for Success – Identify the negative habit that you want to get rid of in very close detail. Know why you want to get rid of it. Describe why it’s negative for you to keep up with this habit. Also, it’s important to find something you can do instead or how you can trick your mind into not wanting to do that negative thing.

* Know Your Triggers – If you want to stop something, try to figure out why you do it. Is it triggered by another activity? For example, people who want to quit smoking often smoke and drink coffee at the same time. When they want to quit smoking, they find it hard to enjoy their morning coffee and tend to think about the cigarette. Changing the morning drink too, or the location where you have it, can help avoid the trigger.

* Start Small – Don’t try to tackle every single negative habit at the same time. Focus on one at a time for a month at a time so that you can replace the negative habit with a good habit.

* Schedule Your Actions – Anything you want to do that requires an action should be written down in a calendar. Whether it’s walking, eating dinner, or spending time with your family, adding it to your schedule will help.

* Incorporate Accountability – When you don’t reach your goal due to the negative habit, you’re trying to avoid acknowledging it. Try to figure out how to fix the problem and do better next time. Also, be accountable for success too. Feel the success so that you want to have more of it.

* Practice Saying No More Often – Most negative habits are associated with saying yes when you don’t want to say yes. Learn how to say no when it is important to do so, not just to other people but also to yourself. This will help you reach your goals.

* Focus on the Positives – By trying to replace negative habits with positive habits, you may accidentally feel as if you’re focusing on the negative. Instead of doing that, once you replace the bad habit, only focus on the good thing you’re doing and how that feels.

* Be Mindful – Being in tune with your feelings can help you avoid a negative habit being triggered. Think not only of how you feel right now but also about how you’re going to feel in the future when you stick to changing those negative habits.

The more you work through the process, the more you’ll improve your self-discipline. No one is ever going to be perfect, but you can incorporate these tips that will help you avoid anything negative which can stop you from reaching your goals.

Ten Tips for Avoiding Temptation

No matter what goals you’re trying to achieve in your life, there will always be temptations to stray from those goals. If you’re prepared for avoiding temptation, you can create a plan that will get you through and help you stick to your goals. Let’s look at the ten tips for avoiding temptation that will help you reach success.

1. Know Your Goals – It cannot be stated enough how important it is to write out your goals in a very specific way. What exactly do you want to achieve? Describe it in as much detail as you can so that you know what type of work will go into it.

2. Give Them a Deadline – When you set a goal, don’t leave it without a time to finish it and experience success. Instead, set deadlines for each goal that you create, and even smaller goals in between the big ones so that you can note progress as it’s happening.

3. Know Your Why – For the most part, your goals will inform your why. For example, if you have a goal to set up a new website in 90 days, why? Do you need it because you’re having a new launch? If you want to lose 15 pounds this year, how much do you want to lose each week or month and why did you pick that number? Those details will help you.

4. Be More Self-Aware – This means that you know how you feel and why you feel how you feel. You can note that you’re extra tired, so you better get a healthy snack before you grab a piece of chocolate cake so that you can avoid temptation in the first place.

5. Keep a Gratitude Journal – It’s hard to fall off a path you’ve set for yourself when you take the time to be thankful for the journey. You don’t have to take a long time. Each evening, just write down three things you’re thankful for and why.

6. Be Accountable to Your Promises – Most of your promises are going to be to yourself, but some will be to family, friends, or maybe a boss. It doesn’t matter who you have obligations to but it’s important to be accountable if you fail – and also to be accountable when you succeed. Taking time to accept success will create more success.

7. Develop Habits – One thing to do about temptation is to develop habits over willpower. For example, if you want to drink more water, set up a system that makes it easy to get the amount of water you want in your body. Then do it the same way daily. After a month or so, it’ll be a habit and it’ll come more naturally.

8. Create a Vision Board – It always helps to visualize the potential results of reaching your goals. It will make it feel real when you can see it.

9. Create a “What If” Plan – When you know you’ll be in situations where temptation exists, talk to yourself about it. Craft a plan on what you’ll do to avoid temptation if it happens.

10. Start Over If Needed – Even if you realize right in the middle that the goal was wrong, or the plan to get there was flawed, it’s okay. You can start over. You can tweak anything and fix it so that you can keep going forward.

Developing your self-discipline is almost all about avoiding short-term temptation to get off the path toward reaching your long-term goals. When you learn to avoid temptation in the first place, you won’t have as much of a chance to fall off the path.