How to Develop Self-Discipline

Self-discipline sets you up for success in nearly all aspects of your life. When you have it, chances are you’re doing great at sticking to a healthy lifestyle, achieving your career goals, and nurturing your personal relationships.

We often think of people who are disciplined to be task-oriented and not likely to be the life of the party. But does self-discipline really prevent us from fully enjoying our lives?

The answer is no: self-discipline isn’t really about depriving yourself of the good things in life. And it’s definitely not about being a workaholic. It’s more about managing conflicting goals and knowing how to prioritize.

Research suggests that people who have more self-control are happier. Researchers were surprised to find out that aside from having a correlation between self-control and life satisfaction, people with higher self-control have more positive than negative emotions.

Even without research, we already know from our own experiences that when we lack self-control, things always seem to get worse. On the other hand, practicing self-discipline always reaps impactful results. The problem is that having self-discipline often sounds daunting to many of us, if not restrictive. But it shouldn’t be.