Discipline, the army enforce it and we all desire to have it. But can it actually make you happier?
I think yes. Discipline while often coming and going in my life, has benefited my life and made me a happier person to this day.
Every day you are forced to make decisions. These decisions sometimes are easy and have minimal consequences. Other times the decisions can have significant consequences and will make a larger impact on life.
Now whether or not you have discipline or not, these decisions will make an impact on how you feel. Choose to have the double cheese burger at lunch instead of the sushi when you're on a health kick? This decision, while making you feel happier in the moment, will then change into shame as you realise you have put your health kick back a day.
Say you had the discipline to stick to your healthy eating, then you would have walked straight to the sushi shop and got the healthiest option (none of those crispy chicken sushi rolls). This option would have one been quicker as you wouldn't have wasted time on your decision as to what to eat and instead of just feeling good in the moment you would now have the longer lasting pleasure of having kept to a promise to yourself.
It's that longer lasting pleasure that you get from keeping a promise to yourself by having the discipline to say no to things that don't align with your dream lifestyle that actually lasts.
Discipline also helps to reduce the decision fatigue you experience from having to constantly make choices. Made the decision to not drink sugary drinks? Well that has now removed a large selection of drinks and if you limit yourself to just water, well then your decision for a drink is made without even thinking. Just get the water.
But how do you build better discipline? Well other than just forcing yourself with all your might to actually do as you have said. There are some actual techniques to improve yourself discipline.
Remove options. If you plan on writing and so you sit down at your laptop, you are opening up a whole lot of other options, not just a word processor. So if you often get distracted, then you should look to remove the temptations. Block websites like Youtube and Facebook that are easy time wasters. If you are trying to eat healthy then remove any unhealthy food in your house and never go grocery shopping when you are hungry. By limiting other options you are given no choice but to stick to what you said.
Embrace the pain. Trying to do new things like waking up earlier can be quite uncomfortable. Your brain will say that this is wrong and that you get up later. But you have to embrace this and realise that nothing good comes without a little work. Sitting down and writing 500 words a day is initially hard but pushing through this discomfort you suddenly start to the feel pleasure of the task.
To make dealing with the pain a bit easier you can start small. With regular breaks or small task you can easily build the habit before it gets too painful. Set yourself the goal of running 5k having never run before? Start by setting the goal of walking to the first power pole outside your house every day. This such a small task that you can easily do it every day for a week. Then slowly increase it each week until you find yourself happily and easily going for a run each day.
Discipline, while often a bit painful can actually give you amazing benifits. And as the saying goes "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago or today." So start the tree growing by starting your strong and disciplined habits today.