Learning Discipline (in a Way That Is Feasible) – 9 Tips

We all have goals: less stress, more sleep, getting fitter, finally finishing that one project… Only sometimes you want one thing, but you do another. You want to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for that long-term work project, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. You really want to go to bed earlier to feel more rested. But the cliffhanger of your favorite Netflix series is way too intense for that. Or you really want to improve your fitness. But the couch feels a lot more appealing than your running shoes. How can you teach yourself discipline to achieve those great goals? These are 9 tips.

Learn Discipline? Unlearn Your Dopamine Response

What makes it so hard to form good habits? Our totally human dopamine rush! Nowadays, we are used to the fact that you can get continuous satisfaction from very small things. Answering a text message, reading an email or checking a notification, for example. In all these cases, your dopamine level (the reward hormone) rises a little. Ha, someone wants to contact you! Ha, there is news, exciting! That makes you feel good. Just for a little while. Even if this one action does not yield you much in the long run.

Moreover, we always have distractions at our fingertips. Distractions are even in your pocket, in the form of your phone. And then there is Netflix, computer games, TV series, YouTube videos or simply the dishes that are waiting for you on the counter. These kinds of small tasks or fun things take much less effort to pick up than something big that requires perseverance and discipline. An email is answered within 3 minutes; that new work project may take you 20 hours. Blasting through a Netflix series takes a few hours, but creating a fit body takes much more time and effort.

Learning discipline is about not letting the small tasks, no matter how tempting they may sound, take precedence over everything else. That you look at the bigger picture and are willing to continually take small steps to eventually reach that larger goal. And no, you won’t get the immediate reward you may be looking for. But in the long run, it will yield much more.

What is discipline?

Discipline means that you take steps in a structured way and with motivation to get closer to a goal. To do this, you keep your appointments, meet deadlines and even continue when you don’t feel like it.

When I think of ‘discipline’ I always immediately think of sports. The chance that you would like to do nothing more than hang out in the gym tonight is quite small. You can probably think of something more fun. Discipline means that despite the fact that you can think of 1001 more fun things, you still go to sports because it contributes to your bigger goal (getting stronger, staying fit, etc.).

Discipline means to me that you do not let yourself be led by reluctance, excuses or distraction. Despite all that, you continue to go for your greater goal and you are (even if reluctantly) in that gym.

How can you learn discipline?

Everyone can learn discipline. Not only world champions and great career tigers have iron discipline. You too can train your discipline! These are 9 tips to boost your discipline if you would like to have a little more of it.

1. Remember that discipline can be learned (really!)

Sometimes we can completely get in our own way with limiting beliefs like “Yeah, but I’m just not an athlete!” or “I’m just not a morning person !”. But by saying things like that to yourself, you really get in your own way. You convince yourself that something is not meant for you or that you don’t have the discipline for it. But why? Discipline can be learned.

Plus, you probably have more discipline in you than you realize. Think of some of the things you’ve accomplished because of discipline, even though they once felt impossible. When you were 18, you probably didn’t imagine yourself working a 9-to-5 job. In elementary school, you probably didn’t imagine yourself passing a high school exam. But you can probably think of a few things that have worked for you because you learned to work at something with discipline.

Discipline is like a muscle. You always have it in you, but you have to train it a little to be able to build on it. The more often you do that, the more naturally you can apply that discipline. Learning discipline starts with believing that you also have discipline in you. You just have to stretch your discipline muscle a little bit. Yes, that takes practice and sometimes pain and effort. But with that your discipline will become a little bit stronger and it will cost you less effort to use it.

2. Make something an immediate habit or routine

Once something becomes part of your routine, you’re set. It becomes much easier to work on your goal in a structured way more often. If you make something part of your system, it becomes a habit. According to scientists, it takes you 7 repetitions to make a habit your own. So if you keep doing this one task at that specific time, it becomes something standard. Negotiable perhaps. Because it’s so much in your system, you’ll be less likely to try to get out of it.

For example, agree with yourself that you will exercise every Monday and Thursday evening, that you will cycle to work twice a week or that you will water the plants every Saturday morning. Or that you will spend 2 hours on that one long-winded project every Monday. If you make it part of your system, it will become a habit.

For me, this has worked very well for years with running. I have agreed with myself that I will run 4-5 kilometers every Monday (unless I have an injury). Whether it is sunny or drizzly, I always make sure I am wearing my running shoes. And if I skip it once because of a downpour or an appointment, I make up for it on Tuesday. Because this ‘Monday running day’ habit is so ingrained in me, I don’t easily skip my runs for a week.

3. Break your end goal into small steps

Big goals often take a long time to achieve. You don’t wake up in top condition from one day to the next. That important paper for work isn’t finished in 1 week. And stressing less isn’t a goal you can achieve with a week’s holiday. That requires a lot more effort and motivation. Now, such a big goal can feel a bit paralyzing. Where do you start when you have so many steps to take? Simple: start somewhere. Take one step. That way, you’re already on your way.

Achieving a goal and working towards it in a disciplined manner, in my opinion, starts with breaking down your goal. Determine the small, manageable steps that are needed to ultimately achieve this goal. First, make concrete what it means to you when you have achieved this goal. For example, you want to become fitter. Does this mean for you that you can run 5 kilometers, that you can walk for 1 hour or that you can do 10 push-ups every day? Or does becoming fitter even mean that you want to be able to run a half marathon? The precise end goal determines your intermediate steps. Once you have your goal clear, it is much easier to determine which steps you need to take.

Also consider when you want to achieve this goal. Do you give yourself 3 months or half a year or longer? Then decide when you want to take which steps. Make a step-by-step plan for it. Preferably one with concrete dates that you also note in your agenda.

4. Work with the Pomodoro method

For work projects and also for Penrunners blogs, the Pomodoro technique is a big favorite here. This technique comes from the world of productivity and you can apply it very well to all kinds of focus projects.

Since I started working with this method, I get a lot more done in the same amount of time. And because you still have a mini-break every half hour, it doesn’t feel like you’re setting yourself an impossible mission. When you crave a break, it’s usually no more than 10-15 minutes away, which makes it feel more manageable to keep going for a while.

Especially if you suffer from procrastination during big jobs, this is a good technique. If you find it difficult to really concentrate on your work, listening to instrumental music or putting in earplugs without sound can sometimes help. This way you get more into your own bubble and you are less distracted by everything and everyone around you.

5. Challenge yourself to resist small distractions more often

The amount of potential distractions we have these days is insane. Our brains are used to the fact that there is always something fun to be found somewhere. In the past, if you thought “Gosh, what was that actress’s name again?” you had to call a good friend or look it up in an encyclopedia to find the answer. Nowadays, the answer to that question is just a Google action away. And then social media and all kinds of websites are also built to keep you on board for as long as possible. In short: it is pretty hard to keep distractions at bay.

Yet discipline requires exactly that: resisting all those distractions more often. You do that partly by limiting distractions from your phone (for example by turning off notifications). But most distractions often come from your thoughts. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks things like:

• “Gosh, has Chantal actually responded to my email yet? Let me check!”
• “What time do I have to catch the train tonight again?”
• “Sh*t, isn’t my aunt’s birthday tomorrow? I’m going to check this out real quick.”
• “Ugh, those 2 plates haven’t been washed yet. I’ll do that now.”
• “What offers are actually on sale this week? Let’s take a quick look!”
• “I really miss a nice lamp on this cabinet. Let’s see if I can find something nice online!”
• “What was that influencer’s dog’s name again?” (only to open Instagram and get totally distracted and spend 10 minutes scrolling through funny videos and cute photos…)

For me, training discipline is largely about not getting carried away by those kinds of thoughts. At least, not acutely. Of course, it is useful to know if my aunt has a birthday tomorrow and to check my mailbox. But that does not have to be done à la minute the moment I think about it.

Challenge yourself to write down those thoughts on a piece of paper and then continue with what you were doing. That way, you prevent your work, cleaning session, sports action or whatever you were doing from being abruptly interrupted by thoughts that are really not of immediate vital importance. Do you really manage to not use Instagram or leave those dirty dishes? Then be proud of that. This is where discipline begins!

6. Stop waiting until “it feels right”

Discipline also means that you push yourself to do something, even if you don’t feel like it at all. Simply because you know that it will bring you a lot of good in the long run! Take sports for example. About 19 out of 20 times I am not eager to hoist myself into sweatpants and push my stiff office body into squats. I can think of many more fun things to do than working myself to muscle pain or going for a run in the bitter wind. Still, I have promised myself to always go, because I know that there will never come a time when I accidentally think “Yes, give me an hour of exhaustion in the gym!”. Once I get there, it is always fine and afterwards I am always glad that I went.

This applies to many more things. The moment that you do feel like doing something probably won’t just come along. There’s a good chance that you’ll still be dreading it next week just as much as you are now. So why wait until the “Now I feel like doing it” moment comes? It’s much better to start working on it now! Motivation or desire often doesn’t come by itself. So you better start feeling like doing it. Once you get going, it’s almost always not that bad.

7. Push yourself a little bit more if you feel like you’re about to drop out

We are and will always be human. Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing anything or you even have such an off-day that you can barely do anything. Then it is tempting to just give yourself a break from your big goals and continue tomorrow. Maybe in such a case it is not feasible to continue for hours or to throw in a 1-hour workout. But see if you can push yourself at least a little bit further.

For example, can you agree with yourself that you will exercise, but only for half an hour at most? (Who knows, it might turn out to be so much fun at the gym that you can manage a whole hour – then that’s a bonus!) Or can you agree on Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. that you will continue for another 2 hours anyway and possibly finish the rest tomorrow?

By giving yourself a slightly smaller goal, you prevent yourself from completely giving up. You still get something done. At the same time, it feels more manageable than if you have to push yourself through all your limits. That is not necessary.

8. Remember that in the end, things almost always turn out better than expected

Discipline is mostly about taking lots of small steps. And yes, that requires you to do things you find difficult or to leave things you enjoy doing. But the small steps you have to take to get there are not that big and difficult in themselves. How much time does it actually take to write one paragraph of that big work project? Or to do that one home workout tonight? And how difficult is it to swap that half bar of chocolate for an apple tonight? Or to go to bed half an hour earlier today and get out of bed 30 minutes earlier the next day? When you look at it that way, it’s not that bad, right?

Don’t make it all bigger than it is. Don’t focus on your bigger goal all the time, but on the small steps . Yes, you’ve worked out that one chapter of your work report today. Hooray, you’ve done your workout for the day! Focus on how small and achievable those small steps are. And afterwards, even though it doesn’t seem like something big, be proud that you’ve taken these steps.

9. Don’t forget to prioritize

Discipline also requires something else: setting priorities! If you really want to achieve that one goal, you also have to give things up for it. Since you can’t do everything, you sometimes have to say ‘no’. Having a goal can help you to put other things aside more easily. Because what really counts and what can you also postpone, delete or transfer to someone else?

Also look critically at requests you receive from others. For example, if you really think sports are important, then that sometimes means that you have to turn down a night out or a movie night. Or perhaps you can’t do the volunteer work that you had in mind for a long time. And if you want to make that one project at work a priority, then other tasks may have to give way. Maybe you sometimes disappoint. That’s all sour. But that’s also part of pursuing your goal and continuing to work on it structurally.

So say ‘no’ regularly. Do it thoughtfully and clearly. That may not be fun, but it will ultimately help you further towards your goal. And it will help you further towards that iron discipline that is also reserved for you.