Self Care Strategies Series for Health Happiness and Prosperity Part 2
Part 2: Discipline Issues
In Part 2 of the Practising Self Care for Health, Happiness and Prosperity series, we will focus on the second part of why people don’t practise self-care and the importance of self-care. This article follows Part 1 of the series about taking things for granted and focuses on self-discipline.
Another reason people don’t practise self-care is that they don’t have self-discipline around it. We practise self-discipline in many areas of our lives, and it’s a big concept (check out my self-discipline tip sheet here). But in this case, we’re talking about self-discipline in relation to self-care.
Self-Discipline Check In for Health Happiness and Prosperity
We need to regularly check in with ourselves about how good our self-discipline is. One way of doing that is by asking ourselves some relevant questions, such as:
- How good are you at practising your self-discipline for your self-care?
- If you were to rank yourself for your self-discipline, what ranking would you give yourself?
- Would you be proud of your ranking, or would you be disappointed?
You see…
Both our physical and mental muscles need training. And we can look at self-discipline as a muscle. Is it weak or is it strong? Does your self-discipline muscle need strengthening? If it is weak and needs strengthening, what do you need to do to strengthen it? And… Is your self-discipline working for you or working against you?
There’s an easy way to answer these questions – simply base your answers on results and consequences.
If your wellbeing is not where you want it to be, is it the consequence of not practising good self-discipline with your self-care? Whereas, if you are getting your desired results in the different areas of your wellbeing, it’s likely that your self-discipline is working for you.
Here’s something else you can try… Answer this question:
“If you could talk to your self-discipline, would it back you up?”
(Imagine talking to a good friend)
Would your self-discipline say things like:
- We’re on solid ground
- We’re losing touch
- Our friendship isn’t looking good, or
- We don’t speak anymore
Similarly…
If your self-discipline had a personality, what would it be?
- Would it be an uncaring type of personality?
- Would it be a motivational type of personality?
If it is a motivational type of personality, it would have an inspirational type of attitude. But if it’s uncaring, it would simply take the attitude of disinterest.
Keep in mind that this is about our self-discipline and our wellbeing. Therefore, it ties into our self-care. And we do need to consider if we are on track or off track with our self-care.
It’s food for thought.
3 Simple Solutions to Achieve Self-Discipline for Your Health Happiness and Prosperity
In a moment I’m going to share a couple of solutions with you on how to achieve self-discipline for your self-care. But first, consider this…
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could just manifest things instantly, with a simple click of our fingers? The thing is… if we could do that, there’d be no challenge, no lessons, and hence, no growth in our lives. Without challenges, we have no goal. It might also mean we have no commitment, and if there’s no commitment, it doesn’t allow us to develop our passion.
You see…
No lessons = no growth
No challenge = no goals
No commitment = no passion
So, back to how we can develop self-discipline for our self-care?
Self-Discipline Solution #1
The first solution I’ll suggest is in terms of strengthening your self-discipline. And to do this I encourage you to turn it into habitual behaviour. A great way is to create a list of self-care activities and schedule them into your calendar. Then you cross them off your calendar each time you complete them. This is a great way to see if you’re on track or off track.
Self-Discipline Solution #2
The second self-discipline solution is to strengthen your self-discipline with the following concept:
DWYSYWD
The cool thing is you can read the alphabet letters backwards or forwards and it still says the same thing!
The alphabet letters stand for:
“Do What You Say You Will Do” – James M. Kouzes
In his article 5 Ways to Do Exactly What You Say You’ll Do, Paul Jarvis shares the following tips that can help to implement this concept:
- Only agree to things you are 100% sure you can (and want to) do
- Say no to anything you can’t or aren’t really interested in
- Schedule your commitments into your calendar and set reminders to keep you on track
- Take on full accountability – even if you weren’t at fault, do what it takes to make it right
- Be honest even if it’s hard to admit to others and yourself
And to be candid…
Becoming serious about your self-care starts with self-discipline (making a deliberate decision that it’s now or never – and it’s never too late). And the truth is it continues as your personal duty until it finally becomes your delight.
I like these words:
“If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.” – William Feather
So…
Make it your duty to discipline yourself to become serious about your self-care.
Self-Discipline Solution #3
A third solution is to find yourself an accountability partner who will hold you accountable for taking care of yourself. What you do here is find someone you trust, like and respect who has your best interests in mind. Then you share your goals with them and ask them to check in with you to keep you on track.
This works two ways:
- you push yourself to do what you have set because you don’t want to let them down, and
- your accountability partner keeps you on track by encouraging you toward your goals
Of course, to set up these goals with your accountability partner, you first need to be clear about what you want to accomplish. And you must also know what success with your goal looks like.
Consider Our Interactive Health Happiness and Prosperity Program to Guide Your Self Care
If you’re wondering about the easiest way to put the solutions above into action, then our On Track Wellbeing Mastery program is the answer. Here’s why…
The 3 solutions above are taken care of in our program in a seamless and simple process including:
- setting your wellbeing goals
- developing your personal wellness plan
- identifying your motivation for success (this is crucial otherwise you’re bound to fail)
and
- the tools to commit (it’s all about behaviour and action to get the results you want)
Keep in mind the reason why self-discipline is so important is to get better outcomes and results (and that’s what we all want).
We run our wellbeing program both online and face-to-face as a full-day workshop. And we’ve received great feedback from our participants who are achieving wonderful results. You can check their stories out here >>> https://mywellbeingmatters.com/#testimonials
We run the online version of the workshop over four weeks (longer time frames available on request). And one of the best components of the course is that I love to hold you accountable! Over those four weeks, you’ll get exclusive access to me as part of the program. During the program, I answer your questions and guide you with the tools, tips, and strategies within the program. To see what it’s about, click here: www.mywellbeingmatters.com.
I trust you’ve got good value from this article along with tips and strategies for how to practise self-discipline with your self-care. But more importantly, I hope you also got a good understanding and some ideas on how to check in for whether your self-discipline is working for or against you when it comes to taking care of you.
May you have an on track day!
Brad Everton
Registered Psychologist and International Author
P.S. If you missed Part 1 of our self care series, you can find it here:
