What do you do when you are walking on the pavement and wish to cross a small and narrow street, where there are no vehicles, but the light is red at the pedestrian’s crossing?

What do you if all the people are crossing the street, not heeding the traffic lights? Do you cross the street too, while the light is red, because everyone else is doing so?

Suppose you see all the people are crossing the street, but you stop and say, “I don’t care what they are doing, I am going to wait until the light changes.” You will most probably feel awkward and think that people are laughing at you or ridiculing you, because you are waiting for the light to change. You don’t want to stand out and you don’t want everyone looking at you.

Do you know that you can use this situation to your advantage? You can use this situation to develop inner strength, courage, and decisiveness.

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Self discipline is one of the most important requirements for achieving success, but there is too often lack of self discipline.

Here are a few of the reasons responsible for lack of self discipline:

People are not born with self discipline; they need to develop it, but they don’t know how to do so.

The erroneous notion that self discipline is something difficult to attain and requires too much denials.

Negative mental programming and negative environment are also responsible for this lack.

Laziness is one of the main factors that lead to lack of self discipline. People prefer comfortable laziness, instead of actions that require effort. Laziness is comfortable, since it is pleasant and effortless, while self discipline requires effort.

Fear of failure is also a reason for lack of self discipline. It hold back initiative and being perseverant, and leads to lack of inner strength.

Temptations weaken self discipline. We are all subject to temptations in many forms every day. We are exposed to advertisements in newspapers, magazines and on TV, telling us to buy this or that. We see a huge array of products for sale in the supermarkets and in the shopping malls, and we are offered many ways to pass the time, such as TV programs, movies, restaurants, concerts, sports competitions and many other sorts of entertainment.

How can you ignore the beautifully arranged and tasty food at the supermarket, or resist watching a TV show, which offers a pleasant escape from daily life? Accepting and following all these pleasures indiscriminately, and without using common sense tend to weaken self discipline.

Lack of self-esteem is another factor that leads to lack of self discipline.

Lack of goals or purpose in life is also responsible for lack of self discipline and vice versa.

Procrastination is another reason of lack of self discipline.
Lack of willpower, motivation and ambition are also causes for lack of self discipline.

A weak state of health might also lead to weakness of this important ability.

These are just few of the reasons for lack of self discipline. This situation can be remedied, but few people know how. You can find more articles on this subject at this website, as well as a book with practical and proven techniques and exercises on how to overcome lack of self discipline.

How to Increase Willpower – Tips for Building Willpower

Willpower is often associated with losing weight, quitting smoking or sitting down to read and study. Actually, it is useful and necessary in all walks of life, in sports, achieving goals, self improvement and in meditation. It is a skill well worth developing.

It is said that the imagination is stronger than willpower, and that what you imagine again and again, eventually affects your subconscious mind and turns into a habit. This is true, but when you possess willpower you can tell your mind what to think and what to imagine, and you can insist on acting in a certain way. Without willpower you just let passing thoughts and whims dictate to you what to do. By building willpower you gain the ability control your imagination. 

Willpower helps you focus your mind on the goal and hold it there, without being sidetracked. How can you succeed, if you keep changing goals or changing your mind?

So how do you go about building and increasing willpower?
You can do so by training and developing this skill by special exercises.

Here are a few tips and strategies for building and increasing willpower:

Do a little more
Read one more page before you close your book.
Wash one extra plate when you wash dishes.
Walk another two minutes when doing your daily walk.

Respect your decisions
When you decide to do something, do it. Don’t procrastinate or change your mind.
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Livescience has published an article about a research made by scientists about the brain and willpower.

Brain’s Willpower Spot Found

By Robert Goodier
Source:
www.livescience.com/health/090506-willpower-brain.html

When healthy eaters choose broccoli over a Butterfinger, they use a small region in their brains that indulgers don’t use.

That bundle of cells is a clue to the biology of willpower, a new study finds. Like a wagging finger in our heads, the region admonishes us to consider long-term benefits over instant rewards when we make decisions.

“This is the first time people have looked at the mechanism of self-control in people who are making real-life decisions,” said Todd Hare, a Caltech neuroscientist who led the study.

To zero in on the nodule that imposes willpower, Hare and his colleagues scanned the brains of 37 people who called themselves dieters. During the scans, the subjects pored over 50 photos of foods. They rated the foods according to taste and healthiness.

Some foods, such as Wheat Thins and granola, earned strong “neutral” marks in both categories. For the final test, scientists showed each volunteer a food that they had labeled “neutral” and asked them to choose between it and each of 49 other foods.

Read the Complete Article

I have added a page to the website, with quotes on self discipline from various sources and writers. You can read them at:
quotes on self discipline.

Here are a few of the quotes:

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Self-discipline is crucial to a simpler, more contented life.
Tenzin Gyatso

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves…self-discipline with all of them came first.
Harry S Truman

Discipline really means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want
Arden Mahlberg

By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.
Grenville Kleiser

Read more quotes on self discipline