You Can Change your Attitude about Self-Discipline

Richard I Jontry, Ph.D., MAC, CAC Diplomate
This article first appeared in Stableviews

Close your eyes and remember a time when you were between 6 and 12 years old and were consumed with the desire to learn how to do something. Maybe it was learning to ride, or hit a baseball, or sink baskets without the ball touching the rim, or skate gracefully on a single bladed ice skate or roller skates, complete your first Ollie on a skate board, ride a 2 wheeler without falling, or play the piano, guitar, or some other instrument. Remember how you would practice this new skill hour upon hour. Remember how you would use all your free time to practice, go over and over repetitive movements, visualize your actions in your head, dream about how you would look once you had attained mastery. In short, remember how you ate, slept, and breathed this activity. Remember how disciplined you were?

Does it come back? Does the memory of those hours, days and weeks of practice bring back the feeling of accomplishment and “bliss” you felt when you realized you actually could do what you at one point only dreamed of doing? God it was good, wasn't it!

You probably delayed gratification in some other areas of your life. You may have missed some favorite TV programs, passed up some outings with friends, and maybe even missed some meals and skimped on sleep in order to achieve your goal. The day you realized you achieved it - the day you realized you could do what you were working at learning - probably made all that sacrifice worth it. And some of you probably didn't even consider the sacrifice a sacrifice.

You are now 10, 20, 30, or maybe even 40 years beyond that time in your life and learning something new, or getting better at something you are already engaged in seems so much harder now, doesn't it. You either can't find the time to invest in it, or, if you have the time, it seems really hard to discipline yourself to use your time in that way-consistently. What once came as a natural passion and unplanned, now seems to require tremendous discipline and hardship. When you were youngerit never felt like discipline to spend hour after hour pursuing your goals. What happened?

Obviously you grew up and have more responsibilities. Obviously, you now have many more things on your mind and many more demands on your time. Woody Allen once said... “If you're over 40 and you wake up without anything hurting then you know you're dead.” The older you get, the harder discipline may be to maintain. You are busier, have more obligations and commitments, and have more ways to define who you are. When you're younger you may have defined yourselve by your ability to perform the “Ollie” or “Flying Changes.” You define yourselve in many more ways now and the passion and compulsion you may have felt earlier which drove your discipline also helped you to define who you were. That element is not as important in the formula any more and it thus becomes harder to maintain the discipline.

Never-the-less, we all know the value and the need for discipline in our lives and in our riding. Anything we are committed to, obligate ourselves to learn, excel in, or succeed in usually requires discipline of practice. To achieve most things of value we usually have to invest some degree of self-discipline. If you have ever been disciplined, or worked at being disciplined, you know discipline means sometimes pushing yourself to do what you don't feel like doing, don't want to do, or are tired of doing. Discipline means facing boredom, repetition, possibly physical, mental and emotional barriers, and re-allocating time and energy to maintaining the discipline even when you may not want to.

On the other side, those of you who have disciplined yourself to achieve a goal know the inner sense of satisfaction and exhilaration that comes when the discipline pays off and you achieve what you've been striving for.

Without self-discipline not much of value can be achieved. So what makes it so hard now?

The Thirteen most common beliefs and reasons we avoid self-discipline:

1. I was pampered and spoiled as a child and never learned it.
2. I was unjustly punished as a child and avoid all discipline, even self-discipline.
3. No one I knew was self-disciplined so I never learned how.
4. I had to be self-disciplined too early in life – my father was a drill sergeant.
5. I basically see myself as a lazy person.
6. I see no value in self-discipline.
7. I'm a free spirit.
8. I have to many things to juggle in my life.
9. I'm too disorganized (same thing).
10. Life is too unpredictable; my schedule is always changing.
11. I had to learn Latin in school – been there, done that.
12. It's too hard.
13. I've never been able to stick to anything.

Which of these statements ring true for you? What decisions may you
have made about discipline early in life? Be aware of what patterns may
have arisen from these decisions that are still in effect today.

You can make new decisions today. You can change your attitude about self-discipline.

What do you think would benefit from discipline in your life?

1. Stop reading and write it down.
   
2. Are you willing to wait ____ days, weeks, months in order to do this really well,
   achieve this goal, or attain what you seek? This is called being willing to delay
   gratification. Give yourself permission to do this, otherwise you will probably get
   impatient and sabotage your commitment to change.
   
3. Visualize doing what you need to do to reach your goal. ^[1]
   
4. Write down the steps and activities.
   
5. Visualize yourself doing these things even on days when you may not want to.
   Visualize waking up on a cold damp day feeling lousy and not wanting to get
   out of bed and do what you committed to yourself you would do. Then visualize
   doing it anyhow and feeling great afterward. Think about a time in your life when
   you didn't want to do something you said you would do and then did it anyhow. Did
   you feel good afterward?
   
6. Keep on visualizing having attained your goal. Seeing, feeling and hearing yourself
   being where you want to be helps keep the commitment to discipline. A part of you,
   even if it's a small part, knows the discipline is necessary.
   
7. Decide on the best time for you to realistically do these activities. If you are a clock
   person then set specific times each day. If you aren't a clock person, that's OK. You
   can specify after breakfast, or after lunch, or after mucking the stable, or after you
   clean your tack. The main point is to be consistent and to establish a routine and
   discipline yourself to follow it.
   
8. Become aware of what people in your life support these activities and which people
   would be prone to sabotage your efforts. Tell those who support you of your new
   commitment to self-discipline and spend more time around these people.
   
9. Remember that it doesn't matter whether or not you've been disciplined in the past,
   how you have acted, or what you have thought of yourself. You can decide to go in a
   new direction right now.
   
10. Affirm your dreams. Believe in your dreams. Your dreams can create your reality
    if you let them. All it takes is belief, self-discipline, patience and time to achieve them.
    

Congratulate and celebrate your commitment to yourself. You're worth it and you deserve it.

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