How to be more DISCIPLINED | Master Self-Control, Get Focused

Self-discipline is an act of self-love. When you do the things that you know are good for you, like eating healthy and working out, you are proving to yourself that you care about your well-being and your long-term goals. Self-discipline is about showing up for yourself, even when it's hard, because you know that you are worth the effort. It's about consistently choosing long-term growth over momentary comfort. And when we build our self-discipline, we give our goals and our dreams the space to thrive. And that is the ultimate form of self-love. But how do you build that self-discipline? How do you consistently do the hard things over choosing to do the easy things because they feel better? That's what we're going to be talking about in today's video, how to build self-discipline so that you can consistently show up for yourself and your goals. If you like these kinds of videos, definitely make sure to hit the subscribe button and hit the little notification bell so you don't miss my next video. And without further ado, let's get into it. So if you're like me and you tend to be a perfectionist, you tend to have like an all or nothing mindset, this is for you. Self-discipline is not about perfection, it's about consistency. So I kind of always thought of being disciplined as 100% always showing up with the same exact effort every single time, but what I realized is that it's not necessarily about always being at 100% every single time you show up, it's about giving what you can at the moment. And sometimes giving what you can in the moment might look different than what it looks like tomorrow or the next day, and that's okay. It's just consistently showing up for yourself. And I just want to make it very clear that I am not endorsing a hustle mindset, I am not saying to continue to push through and continue to force yourself and just ignore the way your body feels, because especially as women, we need to honor our cyclical nature and we need to be mindful of our hormonal changes. So I know that in the days leading up to my period, it might be a little bit more challenging for me to get to the gym. And so self-discipline doesn't mean forcing myself to go to the gym and forcing myself to continue to do the really high intensive workout that I plan to do, but instead still choosing to go to the gym or still choosing to do some form of movement, but maybe adjusting it to the way my body is feeling in the moment. Maybe instead of doing a high intensity workout, doing Pilates or yoga or using lighter weight. Self-discipline can be flexible. You can acknowledge that some days may be more challenging than others, and that's okay. You're still showing up for yourself. Which by the way, if you don't yet track your cycle, I highly recommend it because it just really allows you to learn more about yourself and how your body and your hormonal needs change throughout your cycle. And if you're interested in me doing a whole entire video on that, leave a comment down below because I would love to. So I just wanted to start this video with that reminder that self-discipline does not mean being perfect 100% of the time. It's about consistency. And also, consistency is not about showing up every single day. Consistency is just about what are you doing a majority of the time? If you look at the last 30 days, how many times did you show up for yourself versus not? And what is the majority? You know, if let's say you skipped out on the gym for seven days of the last 30 days, you still had 23 days of you showing up for yourself. So that's the majority. But if you look over your last 30 days and you only went to the gym five days, that's 25 days of you not showing up for yourself and your goals. We are what we do most of the time. So what are you doing most of the time? It's not about living like this perfect life where we never indulge, we never have a cupcake, and we never scroll on TikTok. It's about what you're doing a majority of the time. So the definition of self-discipline is the control of one's impulses and desires, foregoing immediate satisfaction in favor of long-term goals. So something that I noticed about myself in my mid-20s is that I never really thought to myself how my decisions in the moment would affect my long-term. And I think we all kind of do this. We ask ourselves, what's the harm in stopping for fast food this one time? What's the harm in going out tonight, just this one night? And there's nothing wrong with those things. There's nothing wrong with having fast food. There's nothing wrong with going out and drinking. But if you do those things every night or multiple times a week, you will start to see the negative results add up. Maybe you'll start to gain weight, maybe your energy will be affected. You'll start to notice that it's more difficult to stay focused. And over time, these small, seemingly insignificant decisions add up. And before you know it, they become habits that shape your future. So that's why we want to switch momentary thinking to long-term thinking. And like I said, it's not about never indulging yourself. It's not about never allowing yourself to have a night out or never allowing yourself to have fast food. It's about consistently making conscious choices that align with your long-term goals, rather than always giving in to your momentary impulses. I saw this TikTok recently and it really resonated with me because she said, follow your plan, not your mood. So when I first came back to Florida, I decided to do 75 hard. I made it to day 30 and then I decided not to continue with it because it was just bringing more stress into my life, especially when I'm just going through a lot of change right now. But even though I didn't complete the challenge, I still learned so much in those 30 days. So if you're thinking about doing 75 hard or some type of accountability challenge, I definitely recommend it. Because I would say the biggest thing that I noticed in those 30 days of attempting to do 75 hard is I stopped asking myself, should I work out today? And instead I switched it to what should I work out today? I no longer gave myself the option of should I move my body today or should I not? Because if you're familiar with 75 hard, you have to do two workouts a day. One of them has to be outdoors too. So it was no longer a question of should I move my body today? Should I work out today? Because I know that every single day I needed to work out and move my body. So it was more so a question of what should I work out today? How is my body feeling today? What do I need today? And following my intuition. And this made me realize that if we constantly ask ourselves, do I feel like working out today? Do I feel like eating healthy today? The answer will probably be no, especially if you're not used to doing those things. So you can't really base it on your feelings. You can't base it on your mood. You just need to follow the plan. You just need to decide that you're going to do it and just do it. That doesn't mean that you can't adjust based on how your body feels because like I said, I listened to my body and I moved my body intuitively based on what I needed. But if you say you're going to the gym tomorrow, if you say that you're working out, you go regardless how you feel. Your workout might change depending on how you feel, but you still show up regardless. Doing 75 hard also made me realize that I do kind of have an all-or-nothing mindset. I used to think that if it wasn't a really good workout, then there's no point. If I'm not sweating, if I'm not able to go to the gym for multiple hours and have a really intense workout, then there's no point. But what I learned with this challenge is that 10 minutes in the gym is better than 10 minutes on the couch. It doesn't matter if all you have is 15 minutes today, go to the gym for those 15 minutes and give it a hundred percent. That will make you feel 10 times better than not showing up at all. Another part to follow your plan, not your mood, is to stop relying on motivation. You will not always feel motivated to go to the gym. You can't rely on motivation. But motivation does come from seeing progress. So the more you show up and the more you give it what you have in the moment, the more you'll actually start seeing progress. And that will motivate you. You just need to remind yourself that the way you're feeling and your moods are temporary. But your goals and your dreams are not temporary. It's rooted in something a lot deeper. It's your long-term vision for your life. Sticking to your plan and sticking to what you say you're going to do, regardless how you feel, is also a way to build trust in yourself. Every time you honor your goals and your plan over a momentary mood that's fleeting, your self-confidence improves and you start to realize that you can rely on yourself and you can trust yourself. And this is why, if you watched my video last week all about how to reinvent yourself, I really do think that regardless what goal you're going after in your life, your health and fitness should be number one. Not just because, you know, going to the gym and working out releases endorphins and makes you feel amazing and super focused, although that is an incredible reason, but because going to the gym and challenging yourself in your fitness, especially if it's not something you're used to, especially if you kind of fell off the gym or you're just not as consistent as you would like to be, sticking to a workout program, sticking to going to the gym, will allow you to build that self-confidence. Because working out is challenging. Pushing your body and overcoming those feelings of discomfort is challenging. And the more you do that, the more you show up for yourself, the more confidence you build in yourself. And then that confidence and that discipline spills into other areas of your life. It makes it a lot easier for you to show up in your business and take risk and put yourself out there. Because you know that you already went to the gym that day. You pushed yourself and you did a 30-minute Stairmaster workout and that was really challenging and you overcame your mind and your thoughts in those moments and you showed up for yourself. So giving a presentation at work or walking up to somebody and introducing yourself to them, those things feel a lot easier when you've already showed up for yourself in such a big way, like moving your body. Also, by training yourself to follow the mood instead of your plan, you're strengthening your emotional resilience. Because the more you show up and you overcome those feelings of discomfort, the more it's easier to overcome feelings of discomfort. Because then you're like, well last time I went to the gym, I did not want to go. Like I really had to push myself, but I did it. So I know I can do it again. And then over time, your mood becomes less influential on dictating your actions, which allows you to maintain a sense of stability even when life is chaotic. I would say this is the biggest lesson that I've learned in doing difficult things like going to the gym or starting a business, putting yourself out there, is I've learned how to not allow my emotions to control me. And this is still something that I'm learning, is emotional intelligence and emotional regulation not allowing my emotions to control my life. I'm definitely a work in progress, I'm not perfect at this at all, but doing these challenging things and building that self-discipline allows you to become more emotionally resilient. It allows you to continue showing up regardless how you feel. And then you start to realize that your feelings, although of course like we want to be conscious and aware of how we feel, we don't need to be controlled by our feelings. We don't need to allow our lives to be dictated by our emotions. We can maintain a sense of strength and stability regardless how we feel, so that when life gets stressful, when it gets chaotic, you can still show up for yourself, you can still show up for your goals. And that is strength. That is what the most successful people in the world do, is they don't allow their emotions to dictate their actions. Also that's another topic I can make a video on, is emotional intelligence, so let me know in the comments if you'd love to see that one too. Okay so by now you guys know that I love talking about mindset, about emotions, spirituality, but I also want to share practical action steps that you can take after you leave my video, so that you can actually make changes in your life. So I'm going to share with you five practical tips that will help you build self-discipline. So the first tip is to start small. Chances are you've kind of lost trust in yourself, and you need to rebuild that. So when you try to go from 0 to 100, you're setting yourself up for failure. And that's the mistake I made when I tried to jump straight into 75 hard, when I'm in this like very transitional period of my life, my emotions are high, and I also kind of went the last like six months not really going to the gym and not being super consistent on my healthy habits. So I kind of tried to go from 0 to 100 by jumping straight into 75 hard, and I'm still really glad that I attempted to do it, because like I said I learned a lot of lessons from it. But you want to start small, so that you can start to build that trust within yourself. Here are some things that have really helped me to kind of start small and like slowly ease my way back into it, and slowly start to build trust in myself. So I'll commit to just going to the gym, I won't commit to specific workouts, or I'll go to workout classes. Because workout classes, I'm telling you, it's the best way to get back into the gym, get back into movement when you haven't gone in a long time, because literally all you need to do is just show up and follow what the instructor is saying. So that is one of the best ways to get back into working out. Another thing too is if I've gone through a period of time where I've just like eaten a lot of unhealthy food and I really want to get back on track with eating healthier, is I will commit to limiting certain foods instead of restricting it completely. So I may limit added sugar, but I won't completely try to restrict it from my diet, because I know that that's me setting myself up for failure. Or I'll commit to one day of not scrolling on TikTok instead of trying to cut it out completely. So you just want to make small little commitments rather than just going from zero to 100, because when you do that small thing, you start to build that trust in yourself. And then over time, you start to be able to commit to more and more. So usually what will happen is I will commit to going to a workout class for a couple of weeks, and then from there I'll be like, okay now I'm going to go back to the gym and do whatever it is that I want in the moment. And then after a month of that, I'm like, okay great, I'm feeling really good, now I'm ready to commit to like a solid workout program. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. It's been about a month of me being consistent in the gym again, and now I'm like on a strict workout program, because I've built that trust in myself by going to workout classes and slowly easing back into the gym. That now I'm ready to like really commit to a workout program and like be consistent and actually start seeing results. Another tip is to create clear specific goals. So make sure you know exactly what actions you're going to take instead of keeping it vague. So if you want to eat healthier, what does that look like exactly for you? Does it look like meal planning on Sundays, or swapping desserts with added sugars with more healthier desserts? Make sure you know exactly what action steps you're going to take so that you don't get caught in analysis paralysis. But again, also don't expect perfection out of yourself, especially if it's something that you're slowly easing yourself back into. Number three is to set boundaries with yourself. So just like how we have boundaries with other people, sometimes we also need to set boundaries with ourselves. And this requires you really knowing yourself, knowing your weaknesses, knowing the things that tempt you, the things that distract you. So I'm just gonna be real with you guys, I'm a party girl and I always have been. I love going out with my friends, I do enjoy drinking and having a good time. I love dancing, but I'm also 28, so at this age it sometimes can take me like a week to recover from just one night out. So it's not worth it to me to let myself go out too often, especially when I'm in a period of my life of really wanting to focus on my goals. Like right now for example, I'm just really in this era of like improving my life and glowing up and just really just going all in on myself and my goals. So I set a very strict boundary with myself where I'm only allowing myself to go out once a month. And I'll still go to like you know dinners and like events with friends and stuff, but I mean like a night out where I'll probably be out pretty late, I'll probably be drinking like only once a month because it's not worth it to me to be thrown off. So set clear boundaries for yourself if you need to. And then tip number four is to use positive reinforcement to reward yourself in some way. That doesn't mean that every single time you go to the gym you stop by McDonald's on the way home to get yourself a cookie, but maybe you come home and you have some small sweet treat or something that just makes you feel happy, something that kind of reinforces to your brain that showing up for yourself does have a positive outcome. Because a lot of times the things that we're doing aren't going to generate results right away. And like I said earlier in the video we do get more motivated when we start to see progress, when we do start to see results from our efforts, but we can't just rely on that because it's going to take time to start to see progress. So something I like doing is on the days when it is really difficult for me to make it to the gym and I do push through those feelings and I do show up, I will treat myself to something after. I will get lunch somewhere or I will get a coffee or something to treat myself to just kind of reinforce to myself like okay it was very challenging for me to show up today but I got a little reward out of it. I got a little sweet treat so all is well. I'm going to continue showing up so I don't necessarily reward myself every single time because honestly especially when it comes to working out or really any type of goal pursuit like for me just like showing up and like being able to say like I did it, I feel like that is really like a reward in and of itself. But whenever I feel discouraged or whenever it feels challenging to show up that's when I reward myself. Like for example posting on YouTube and like creating these YouTube videos is a reward because it makes me feel so fulfilled. It makes me feel so good and like happy when I see comments of people saying like how much my videos have helped. Like that is truly a reward. And then last tip is to practice mindfulness. So self-discipline requires self-awareness. It requires you to be aware of your thoughts and your feelings so that you can make conscious choices rather than reacting impulsively and mindfulness can really help you with this. So meditating, giving yourself space to sit in silence or in those moments when you want to do something. Let's say for example you want to open up TikTok. Just giving yourself a little bit of space. This is something that I'm actually trying right now because I am really, I'm really trying to like break up with my phone. Honestly like I've noticed that I have a real addiction to my phone and it's also very challenging because I have a career in social media so I do have to like be in the know. I do have to be on social media and know like what's going on. So it's been very difficult to create that balance of not letting it consume me and not being so addicted to my phone. So what I've been doing is I've just been giving myself just a little bit of space. So if I want to grab my phone and go on Instagram or TikTok, I will literally just give myself like 10 seconds. Just 10 seconds to just breathe and become aware of the desire to scroll. And just giving yourself that tiny bit of space will allow yourself to consciously make the choice of whether or not you really want to do that thing. So sometimes I will still decide to grab my phone and still scroll but at least I gave myself that space to consciously decide that. So before you make a decision just take some time to check in with yourself and ask yourself if it aligns with your long-term goals. And that's pretty much it for today's video. I really hope that you found this video helpful. Definitely make sure to leave a comment down below. Hit the little subscribe button and the little notification bell so you can be notified the next time I post a video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video. Bye!