Advice needed - issue with self-discipline

[RawGoddess]

I have a couple of major areas of my life that I have wanted to change for the past 2+ years.

For some reason, I fail to make the correct choices on a daily basis which would allow me to achieve these goals. It almost feels like I have the devil on my shoulder urging me to make the wrong choice, and he always wins!

My question, really, is - have any of you struggled in such an extreme way with self discipline? How did you overcome it?

The choices I need to make are simple, straightforward and realistic, yet I fail to make them. Instead, I make the wrong choice - a choice which is damaging on a daily basis. I am the Queen of self-sabotage. I'd be interested to hear your insights as to why I am like this - is it something to do with unconsciously believing that I do not deserve to be happy and be the person I am supposed to be?

I'm desperate to break this debilitating daily cycle. Quite frankly, I'm bored of it! 2 years of battling with myself and I am still no better off than I was 2 years ago. HELP!!

[luckyJTF7s]

...a CHOICE...
which is...
*DAMAGING*!!!...
on...
...A DAILY BASIS !!!
Its...
...A DEBILITATING CYCLE !!!
and she's...

...DESPERATE FOR CHAAAAAAANGE!!!
-----------------------------------------------
I don't know why I did that - just feeling a bit giddy right now! It just totally reminded me of those old movie posters, like
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILSA: SHE-WOLF OF THE SS!!! ... the most FEARED...and REVILED!!! Nazi of them all:

SHE, and her squadron of... BLACK WIDOWS!!!,
have...
INSATIABLE APPETITES!!!
and commit...
UNSPEAKABLE CRIMES!!!
but...
Can an American POW...
prove...
BETTER ENDOWED FOR COMBAT???
...and bring her...

...TO HER KNEEEEESSSS!!!

(fans self )
------------------------------------------
Alrighty, then. Care to share? Whaddarewe talkin' here, heroin? small boys? abusive b/f? hellacious Nazi she-♥♥♥♥♥ boss from.... HADEEEEESSSSSS ?
donuts? Ugly Betty reruns, in lieu of working out?

ooh! tell me it's smokin! cuzz I just quit that! advices!

Anyway, what's the deal? What was your plan of attack? Have you tried several? Did they work for a time? How long? Then what happened? How do you, yourself, explain the backsliding? Are there hidden benefits to the status quo? Do you think you really *might* be into self-punishment that much? Could it just be the inertia of changing a well-engrained habit? Are you successful at change in other areas of your life? (social, work, home, travel, relocation, hobbies...) Are you self-destructive in other areas of your life? Would the wanted change bring freeky stuff with it?

- lose 100 pounds: object of alot more attention? you mean I'd have to work out FOREVER? now there's no excuse to hide away on the couch and I'd have to get a life?

- get a $60K promotion: but I'd hafta travel for work all the time? my b/f might feel threatened? might I lose my friends from the Qwik-E Mart and have less in common? but mommy always told me the bright girls end up alone and half-eaten by Alsatians after death?

-------------------------
DO... EXPOUND!!!
and...
TELL US THE DEETS!!!
cuzz our...
APPETITE FOR GOSSIP...
is...
UNRESTRAINEDLY VORATIOUS,
and the advice will be...
EVEN MORE INSANELY USEFUL!!!,
plus,...

WE WANNA KNOOOOOOOOOW!!!
------------------------------------------

[sinjon123]

Yay, lucky! pom poms

[FazK]

Start with just one small thing e.g. decide that you'll get out of bed at 8:00 as soon as your alarm goes off NO MATTER WHAT

Then make that into a 90 day trial

Once you complete those 90 days it will be an ingrained unchangeable habit

Then pick something else you want to change about yourself.

This is how i quit porn, smoking and reading tabloids last year

Good luck

[Small]

Originally Posted by RawGoddess

I have a couple of major areas of my life that I have wanted to change for the past 2+ years.

For some reason, I fail to make the correct choices on a daily basis which would allow me to achieve these goals. It almost feels like I have the devil on my shoulder urging me to make the wrong choice, and he always wins!

My question, really, is - have any of you struggled in such an extreme way with self discipline? How did you overcome it?

The choices I need to make are simple, straightforward and realistic, yet I fail to make them. Instead, I make the wrong choice - a choice which is damaging on a daily basis. I am the Queen of self-sabotage. I'd be interested to hear your insights as to why I am like this - is it something to do with unconsciously believing that I do not deserve to be happy and be the person I am supposed to be?

I'm desperate to break this debilitating daily cycle. Quite frankly, I'm bored of it! 2 years of battling with myself and I am still no better off than I was 2 years ago. HELP!!

I don't know you personally, but I can give you some advice, take it if you feel it's right:
1. Clarify what you want. This is probably the most important thing for self-discipline and motivation. Growing up is to learn to sacrifice lesser desires for deeper desires. First, know your deeper desires.
2. Create a morning ritual. It doesn't matter if you get up at 5 or at 10, create a daily ritual that makes you feel strong and powerful. Doing this was probably the best decision in my life. You ritual can be anything that makes you feel great and powerful: exercise, meditate, dance, do yoga, eat well, etc.. I personally run, do some pushups and meditate 10 minutes. That's enough for me, but do something you like.
3. Create a practice. After you decided what you wanted to do, create a pracice. Specify step by step how you are going to do what you want to do. Specify how much time you're going to spend doing it.
4. Create acountability. Write a check for you mom or a friend for a sum of money that is meaningful for you, and tell to them that the money is theirs if you don't call them daily reporting what you did. This seems hard, but this will make success inevitable.

That's all, good luck...

[Mounds]

What I find is that endless self-discipline is hard. I direct my self-discipline at passive barriers. As soon as you head off in the wrong direction, you start hitting them. Each barrier reminds you of what you don't want.
An example is if you have a problem spending on a credit card. Instead of keeping it in your wallet and attempting to fight the urge to spend each time, here are some passive barriers:

1. Put it away. Hide it, give it to someone else, whatever. Some people freeze it in a block of ice.
2. If you hide it, put a sticky note on it that reminds you of your goals.

ect.

Say you have a hard time staying away from sweets.

1. Stay away from stores that sell them.
2. Have a candy budget. $5 a week lets say.
3. Once again, sticky note on the $5 reminding you of your goals.

Use your self-discipline to create a life where no matter what happens, you are reminded of what you want and what you don't want. The beautiful thing is it doesn't take a lot of work to set up this infrastructure. Just takes a little bit of willpower, some time and... self-discpline to do it just once.

-Tim

[BitterFlower]

^^^Those are good suggestions Mounds! I hid (or rather my baby hid ) my debit card for two months and my spending was dramatically cut. This was because I had to know exactly what I wanted to spend and transfer it to my other account before I even went out. When I got to the mall and the $$ ran out, it was time to go. I even managed to spend even less just because I had to think about what I actually had to spend.

I also turn off my laptop and put it in a corner so i don't use it. My Internet addiction is crazy and I will be on the computer all day if I feel "bored".

If the problem is Time Management, I have a method that I use. I've been horrible at time management all my life (even oversleeping for elementary school ), but I tried anchoring my day to something to help. First, I decided the first thing I would do every day was exercise. I have an exercise program I'm going through and I'm in my 7th week of it now.

Well, since I have to exercise, if I get up late, then it screws the rest of my day because the first solid hour or so is taken up by exercise. So, I've been trying to get up early. It took almost the whole 7 weeks, but now I can wake up at 8 am (accomplished this week). Now I'm going to wake up, exercise, and add more things to my day. Oh, I also added cleaning to my list by putting it as the last run before I go to bed. I think the house is as clean as it has ever been under my Rule .

HTH and come back with examples so we can target the areas that you are lacking!

[ryanbiddulph]

This sounds like a programming issue. You might have limiting beliefs programmed in the subconscious mind which prevent you from achieving your goals. It's like you're self-sabotaging as you continue to make the wrong conscious choices.

I second the advice of baby-stepping your way through a day. Set one goal and achieve it. Then set 1 or 2 goals tomorrow and achieve them. This builds self-confidence.

As for limiting beliefs those tend to arise when meditating or using a technique like EFT tapping. Sit quietly for a while and watch the cascade of thoughts pull you in a thousand directions. It can be maddening at first but if you stick with it sitting still is purifying. Your negative habits expose themselves rather quickly. As for EFT there are many websites and practitioners who can help in that arena.

[ahimel]

In some ways it depends on what your bad decisions are. My failing is my temper, and I find myself getting angry again and again. I've gotten to the point where I even notice that I'm doing it... I have this second where my brain says, "Do you really want to lose your temper over this?" before some part of me says, "Yes!" and I blow my top.

What's helped me has been a 3-foot length of plumber's chain. I wear it around my neck, and tie a knot in it every time I lose my temper. So even back when I was tying dozens of knots, I could recognize progress when I went from 20 knots/day to 15/day.

2 freakin' years, and I am SO sick of working on this, but I have finally gotten to the point where I can often go an entire day without losing my temper. I switched over to a piece of jewelry or decoration that I can remove if I do lose my temper... usually I go to watch the sunrise, and at that point I pick a flower that I braid into my hair. If I can make it through the day with my flower intact, I know I've done well.

I wish I could offer you an easy way to do this, but all I have to give you is reassurance that you're not alone. I'm still struggling, but I promise it does get better if you work at it.

The trick is to figure out how to be encouraged by tiny little improvements. It's like lifting weights... you do curls with 2-lb weights until you can lift the 4-lb... curl those until you can lift the 5-lb... it's tedious, but you do get stronger eventually.

Best of luck. Let me know if I can help.

Amanda

[kayleeabc]

Ask for advice is easy, but actions always speak louder.if u want to be more self-disciplines, workout an plan first. this is step is easy to gain. what matter is how to work it out and stick to it.
if you can ,then u succeed.
good luck.

[Liz Caitlin]

Originally Posted by RawGoddess

I have a couple of major areas of my life that I have wanted to change for the past 2+ years.

For some reason, I fail to make the correct choices on a daily basis which would allow me to achieve these goals. It almost feels like I have the devil on my shoulder urging me to make the wrong choice, and he always wins!

My question, really, is - have any of you struggled in such an extreme way with self discipline? How did you overcome it?

The choices I need to make are simple, straightforward and realistic, yet I fail to make them. Instead, I make the wrong choice - a choice which is damaging on a daily basis. I am the Queen of self-sabotage. I'd be interested to hear your insights as to why I am like this - is it something to do with unconsciously believing that I do not deserve to be happy and be the person I am supposed to be?

I'm desperate to break this debilitating daily cycle. Quite frankly, I'm bored of it! 2 years of battling with myself and I am still no better off than I was 2 years ago. HELP!!

I need to know what specifically you want to change.

Have you ever thought that maybe you don't really want to change? There are hidden benefits to every "bad" habit that we often don't think about. I had a hard time quitting smoking because I liked that it suppressed my appetite & took the edge off when I was stressed. Overweight people might miss the foods they don't get to eat, fear the increased sexual attention they might get when they lose weight, and be worried about having to buy new, smaller clothes.

That might not be your problem, though. Let me know what you're trying to achieve. For me, I can only focus fully on a goal when the benefits are something I REALLY want. I hated applying to jobs until I found a job I actually wanted. I don't exercise for health benefits, I exercise cuz it keeps me skinny. I don't eat too much for the same reason, though health is more of a factor there. You see my point? Exercising & eating right are supposedly matters of "discipline," but it's not work to me because a) it's been a habit for awhile and b) I know damn well why I do those things and there are no drawbacks for me in doing them.

So tell us what these goals of yours are!

[ethereal]

Problems with self-discipline usually just stem from one thing, your desires. The desire to escape your current state or experience and to experience something better. The desire to resist doing what you want to do (resistance is also a desire, the desire to not experience something).

I'm not sure exactly what these things are that you want to work on, so I can't be more specific, but you can always trace it back to some kind of desire.

To get better at self-discipline, you just have to relinquish the desires you have for anything contrary to what you want to do. And this is not a comfortable process. You will have to sit through the discomfort and suffering and consciously experience the desire but refrain from fulfilling it. This will allow the energy to dissipate and release. An easy way to do this, is to just do the thing that you are resisting and having discipline problems with, just do it, and all the desires to not do it and to do something else will arise. And you just sit with it. Don't resist or avoid and push away the feeling, that will just suppress it and you will have to deal with it again later. It won't feel good, but life isn't always about feeling good Take breaks if you need to, but keep on doing the practice until you don't feel any resistance towards whatever activity or goal you had. You would feel perfectly fine doing this activity instead of eating a bowl of ice cream, listening to music, or having sex. That would be the pinnacle of self-discipline, lol

I've had to do this myself with masturbation, playing video games, and music. It's pretty tough but it's doable.

[jbsmith]

Several people have hinted at it, but what you must work on is making your 'bad habits' directly relate to so much pain that you will force yourself to give them up.

Right now they are linked to pleasure that is bigger than the pain you associate to them.

How you relate them to pain is different for different people.

For me, I was able to stop a bad eating habit by linking that habit to a very close friend dying of a hideous disease. I actually went over the association in my mind again and again each day for several days until I found my mind no longer wanted that bad food as much anymore.

Unfortunately, you have felt how strongly bad habits can be ingrained in our psyche, so it often takes something pretty dramatic to change - for me, that is increasing the pain associated with that bad habit until your mind is forced to comply.

Jeff

[Liz Caitlin]

Originally Posted by jbsmith

How you relate them to pain is different for different people.

For me, I was able to stop a bad eating habit by linking that habit to a very close friend dying of a hideous disease. I actually went over the association in my mind again and again each day for several days until I found my mind no longer wanted that bad food as much anymore.

Ooh, this is a good point! Again, I wish I knew specifically what you're trying to change, but when I wanted to start eating healthy foods, I knew the only thing that would actually motivate me was the thought of staying thin. So every time I saw an unhealthy food, I would think to myself, "That's what a FAT person would eat." Lol not the PC way to stay in shape, but it worked wonders! I don't even eat dessert anymore because it's too associated in my head with becoming unattractive. And then of course eventually you notice that you feel better overall on a healthier diet anyway and the whole thing just becomes easy.

[smartile]

Originally Posted by RawGoddess

I'm desperate to break this debilitating daily cycle. Quite frankly, I'm bored of it! 2 years of battling with myself and I am still no better off than I was 2 years ago. HELP!!

Hi RawGoddess (nice name btw),

There is definitely nothing wrong with you, so give yourself a break. We always beat down on ourselves when in fact a bit of 'fine-tuning' is all we need.

Maybe you've set goals that are out of alignment with what you really want. Intellectually, your goals might seem perfect - but emotionally they are driving you nuts

If that sounds familiar, then maybe you've set the wrong goals. Just a thought.

Check out: How To Set The Right Goals | Learn the Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Cheers,