How to Improve Your Self-Discipline: Your First Step

You want to improve your self-discipline, right? Or you wouldn’t be reading this. Maybe you’re here because you have a goal you’re trying to reach. Maybe it’s because you find yourself procrastinating a lot, and your inactivity is holding you back. Or, maybe it’s because you’re just sick of feeling the guilt that comes along with not following through on your commitments.

Whatever reason brought you here, maybe you’re right. Maybe self-discipline can improve your situation. But, in order to figure that out, you need to have a good understanding of what self-discipline is. And, even more importantly, you need to know what self-discipline means to you.

So that’s the first step you’re going to take to improve your self-discipline. You’re going to create your own definition — or, in other words, examine your expectations —  which might sound a bit intimidating, but I’m here to give you a running start.

According to Oxford Languages:

[Self-discipline is] the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome one’s weaknesses; the ability to pursue what one thinks is right despite temptations to abandon it.

And this definition actually reminds me of the definition of intentional living. According to Wikipedia, intentional living is:

. . . any lifestyle based on an individual or group’s conscious attempts to live according to their values and beliefs.

Reflecting on these two definitions will help you formulate your own definition of self-discipline, but I’ll offer one more definition that might hit home for you.

Keep scrolling for my definition of self-discipline.