Motivation
Motivation plays a huge part in the exercising of self discipline and willpower. We
have to have some kind of motivation to do everything we do in life. You
wouldn't be reading this article just now if you didn't think you
weren't going to get something from reading it. We all need motivation
in our lives however, depending on the size of the reward, we may not always
feel motivated.
The way to gaining more motivation is to make the rewards bigger. For
example, rather than having a toy fight with my two sons, which they love,
I usually want to keep working on my blogs. In the past I have said "˜Sorry
boys, I've got work to do and I really need to get this done' and
then I would happily continue to work away safe in the knowledge that I had
a good excuse to keep on working.
Now I make the rewards of the toy fight more rewarding, I get to spend time with my boys, even if it is half an hour, it stops them from watching TV for half an hour, it is giving us all exercise, (we're always knackered at the end of it), we laugh like we have never laughed and I feel great at the end of it. And after the half hour there
is more blood pumping through my brain, more oxygen, better thinking, better
clarity of mind, it's all good.
So, make the rewards bigger and you can have all the motivation you need.
Motivation is a huge subject but I will not discuss it at length here. I
just wanted to point out that motivation plays a big role when we come to exercise
out self discipline and our willpower.
Pulling it all together
Okay, you've learned all about self discipline, willpower and motivationwhat can you do to put it all together and use it in your day to day lives?
First of all you need to recognise where it will be useful to exercise your
self discipline and willpower. I am sure you can think of areas in your
life already where you will be able to use them.
Write them down, a quick list. You might have already done this
Once you've got a list, small or big, it doesn't matter. Picktwo from your list and start to practice self discipline and willpower.
For example if your two were to give up sweets and take a cold shower in the
morning (ones I have done already), every morning get up, set yourself up for
the day and tell yourself you are self disciplined and have lots of willpower,
jump in the shower, once you've washed gradually turn the shower down
to cold until it is all the way down to it's coldest setting.
What will happen is your inner voice will reason with you as to why it's
a bad idea to turn that dial down to cold, it will try and cajole you saying "˜it's
too warm, start tomorrow, why would you want to do this anyway, just because
you read it in a blog post doesn't mean to say you have to do it' it
will bombard you with reasons. Listen to that voice and just tell it "˜I
am the boss here'.
Do the same with giving up the sweets or whatever you have chosen to do. Keeptelling that inner voice that you are boss and you decide what you do.
A word of warning here. I would advise you not to go all out and try
your self discipline on everything. I would start with a couple of thingsat first. Your willpower and self discipline is like a muscle which needs
to be built up gradually.
Good luck with this, its well worth practicing this it is one of the besttools to master in your life and one of the most beneficial.
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