Revealed: Self Discipline is Self Love

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Self discipline doesn’t come easy? Ready to give up everything? In this post, I will demonstrate ways on how to build self discilpline so that it’s effortless and painless, based on the mindset “self discipline is self love“.

So, the question of the day: How to be disciplined and consistent?

To be honest with you, I do frequently go through a little self-persuading and bargaining process with myself to sit down and get to work…

But boy have I improved in the past few years!

And let me tell you, there are countless benefits of self discipline.

And the most effective path toward effortless self discipline is adopting the mindset “self discipline is self love”.

So I decided to put together this list of tips that work best for me.

The ultimate goal is to make self discipline feel EASY.

We want it to come naturally.

And just like almost everything we talk about on this website, it’s all about developing the right mindset and practicing self love. And showing up!

A little bit of inner work — and you’ll be on top of it.

Apart from the mindset exercises that we will discuss in this post, there are also some necessary active steps (like developing habits) that we should take.

But we’ll talk about them in the second part of this How to Develop Self Discipline Without Trying Too Hard series. Sign up for new posts and updates to not miss it!

Meanwhile, check out the second post in this series:

How to Develop Self Discipline (Without Trying Too Hard)

Let’s take it slow for the sake of a better result. Baby steps, my friend!

So let’s dive right in and start getting closer to our organized, well-disciplined self.

This post is all about the mindset “self discipline is self love”.

Table of Contents

🙇🏻‍♀️ How to develop self discipline — Inner work

🙇🏻‍♀️ How to develop self discipline — Inner work

In the first part of our journey on how to develop self discipline and willpower, ask yourself:

What can make you want to be self-disciplined?

There are some things to understand and embrace.

For example…

✊🏼 Self-discipline is self-respect

Imagine a situation.

You decided to work hard on your physical appearance for one week. Work out every day, eat healthy, and all that jazz.

You gotta start somewhere, right? One week sounds like a good start.

Monday is successful. On Tuesday you’re on top of it. And then there comes Wednesday…

On Wednesday you are feeling tired, you are having a headache, and are generally not in the mood.

You end up letting yourself enjoy tv-shows and pizza that day. Everything else can wait.

Without even realizing it, you repeat the same thing on Thursday. And for the rest of the week.

Let me guess what happens next (from my experience, of course).

You start feeling shitty.

You are probably annoyed and frustrated. You are bloated from all the pizza. You are beating yourself up for wasting time. And all the tv-shows don’t even feel that good anymore…

This process is called losing self-respect. And this process SUCKS.

There is nothing worse than feeling like you cannot keep your own promise. Like you are weak enough to just abandon your dreams in favor of some temporary joy. Like you have no control over your life or your desires.

When you can keep your own promise to yourself, that’s when you get your self-respect back.

You start respecting yourself more and more when you do what you said you were going to do, even when it’s hard.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s necessary to have days of tv-shows and pizza once in a while. And I encourage you to implement them in your life, but I’m pretty sure that they will only bring you joy if they don’t happen often.

Self discipline exercises: Every day for two weeks promise yourself to do something (start small) and actually do it. Track your progress in your journal.

💕 Self-discipline is self-love

It’s crucial to know that when self-respect is gone there is no self-love.

And if there is no self-love, then we can’t even be talking about discipline or goals.

You start judging yourself for being useless, you are shaming yourself, and you are dragging yourself deeper into that hole…

You just won a one-way ticket to low self-esteem, anxiety, and sometimes even depression.

You have to be handling your well-being instead.

And you’ll probably tell me: But I love myself! I love myself so much that I will allow myself to have all the tv-shows and pizza I want.

Only if it worked that way!

I like thinking of that famous video of Will Smith recreating his self-talk about… actually, pizza.

He mentions that he won’t let himself eat the pizza because he knows how shitty he’s going to feel, and how amazing he’s going to feel if he chooses what’s good for his body.

Self-love is not about giving yourself as much pleasure as possible at the moment, it’s about choosing what’s beneficial in the long run.

Now, under no circumstances should you be cutting off all the enjoyable things from your life.

Self-discipline is not a punishment. It’s not that.

It’s about compromising and sacrificing some things that don’t bring any long-lasting value.

At the end of the day, it’s all about finding balance and having a clear vision of what your desired life is, and acting accordingly.

Self discipline exercises: Choose one aspect of your life that you want to improve — health, finance, career, relationships, mental health, etc. Now choose one thing you should be doing every day and one thing you should cut off (start small). Every day for two weeks every time you feel an urge to do the thing you want to cut off, do the chosen necessary one instead. Track your progress in your journal.

🗣 Your self-talk matters

One more thing affecting our capability to learn how to develop self discipline in life is negative self-talk.

The way you treat yourself and talk to yourself determines your overall mood and attitude.

Imagine someone constantly putting you down. You’d feel horrible! So why do this to yourself?

When it comes to self-discipline, it’s essential to do the self-talk thing right.

One bad example is the shame approach.

It’s not a psychological term or anything like that. I came up with it recently when one of my friends told me about his everyday self-talk scenario.

Let’s call him Rob.

Rob told me that his favorite food on this planet is crumb cake. He told me that he could eat a whole crumb cake and ask for seconds if he allowed himself to.

You can tell how strong his feelings are for this crumb cake!

Rob also told me that every time he needs to stop himself from eating the crumb cake or doing anything else that he considers wrong, he tells himself:

“I don’t deserve it because I’m a lazy piece of shit.“

Mind you, I’m not exaggerating. I’m quoting Rob.

He’s a tough guy but I can see how this kind of dialog with himself makes him feel miserable. He’s shaming himself harshly.

Seemingly, the goal is achieved — he’s not eating the cake, right?

But the desire to eat the cake never goes away. Shame grows, as does the guilt and the tension. And according to Mark Manson, when the tension is too great too manage, there are only two options for Rob…

The first option is to overindulge. The tension has become so great that we feel the only way to resolve it is by going all out in a spectacular way.

As in, eating a whole cake or two. And then experiencing a double amount of shame and guilt.

What is another option?

Well, the only other option to escape that internal tension is to numb it. To distract oneself from the tension by finding some larger, more palatable tension.

Alcohol, video games, drugs… You name it.

And with the cake example, the outcome is harmless for people around Rob… While with something else it might not be.

Well, and the funniest part is this: we don’t deserve the cake, nor do we not deserve it.

First of all, there is no such a thing as deserving something in nature. It was created by humans to set and regulate human rights, but that’s about it.

You cannot deserve a cake.

You cannot not deserve a cake.

On the other hand, it might be easier to use the word deserve since we are used to it. Just use it in your own favor.

For example, you could say:

“I deserve everything I wish for. I deserve the crumb cake. And I deserve my body healthy and in a great shape AS WELL. And this is my choice.“

Don’t you think it’s a much healthier strategy?

Think of what you would say to your loved one to encourage them to make the right choice.

Would it be…

“Hey you, don’t you dare think about that cake. You’ve still got a shit ton of work to do, so put yourself together and stop acting like a crybaby.”

“Hi my dear, just think of it one more time. I love you so much and I don’t want you to make a wrong decision that you are going to regret. Imagine how proud you’ll be later on if you resist the temptation now and choose your goals. You got this.”

(By the way, if the first variant reflects how you talk to your loved ones, I highly recommend working on your trauma and healing through therapy.)

To learn more about how shame fucks us up and a lot of other interesting facts about our psychology when it comes to self-discipline, I recommend reading this amazing article by Mark Manson.

Self discipline exercises: Every time you catch yourself giving into negative self talk, stop it right then and there. Replace it with self-compassionate, kind self talk. Use the examples above. Track your progress in your journal.

😫 If you procrastinate with something, you need to pay attention to it

Why?

Because it’s the thing you are procrastinating with is the first thing you should be doing.

Procrastination is connected deeply with our fears.

In fact, procrastination is caused by fears.

Fear of failing at something that is deeply important to you, to be specific.

Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art calls it Resistance.

Resistance acts against creativity, and “procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize”.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

And this is so important!! Because then we can use Resistance as a guiding star to determine what calling we must be following before all others.

Look into the parts of your life where procrastination is THRIVING.

What are the tasks that you ALWAYS push for later over and over again?

These are the tasks that are especially important to you (even if you might not yet be aware of it). It’s a sign for you to pay a lot of attention to them and put there all your effort.

Some other things to remember:

Done is better than perfect. If you are constantly waiting on a perfect moment to do something, you will never start. The truth is that a perfect moment simply doesn’t exist. There is no such thing. You will always feel like “Just a little bit more preparation here, and just a little bit more knowledge there, and then I’ll be ready”. Just get it done, and take it from there.
Your portfolio can only consist of finished projects. Imagine you have to show all your projects to a potential client, and none of them are finished. It feels like you’ve done so much but you don’t even have anything to show! I would say, it’s more reasonable to finish as much as possible even if it’s far from satisfactory. You can at least show that you tried it.
Everyone does a bad job first. Everyone starts somewhere. Take any writer, artist, musician, youtuber, or speaker — each of them starts out as a newbie. You shouldn’t be scared to create something crappy because it’s a necessary part of the process. Elizabeth Gilbert shares a lot about it in her book Big Magic.

Self discipline exercises: Create something intentionally crappy (using your craft). Track your progress in your journal.

☝🏼 You are in this on your own

This is crucial to understand if we want to learn how to develop self discipline.

At the end of the day, there is only one person who shares every second of this journey with you. It’s you.

When your life seems amazing, you are there to celebrate. When everything is falling apart, you are there to share the sorrow. You are the only person who is guaranteed to be there every time.

You are also the only person who can make your life beautiful. Or disappointing.

No one else can. Sad as it may sound, it’s true.

Is it sad though?

Isn’t it great that no one can fuck it up for you…

Unless you do?

And choose to leave you unhappy and unfulfilled for the rest of your life just because they were lazy, unmotivated, or not disciplined?

So, do you want to be that person who fucks it up for you?

I don’t think so. So repeat after me:

I am the only person on this planet who can make my dreamS become reality and make me happy.

The scariest but the most wonderful thing that people are afraid to accept is that they have COMPLETE control over their lives.

It is certainly scary to recognize that if our lives were sealed in bottles, the labels on them would inevitably state Ingredients: Your actions 100%. And NOTHING else.

And it’s only your decision — to choose what it’s like to be YOU.

Self discipline exercises: Repeat the affirmation above three times every day. Add a few more affirmations for a better result. You can use my list of affirmations for self love and healing. Track your progress in your journal.