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A lot of people talk about the idea of loving ourselves a little more. Maybe that means indulging in small things like taking a longer nap, cooking a favorite meal, or pampering yourself with products you like. And the truth is, all of those rituals matter and can do something for your happiness.
But there’s one form of self-love that people overlook, and it’s actually the most important one: self-discipline. You may be thinking, huh? After all, the general idea of discipline isn’t very glamorous. We often link “discipline” with things that can feel like torture, such as waking up at 4 a.m. everyday, or following a strict rules and being hard on yourself.
The true idea of self-discipline is nothing like that. In fact, it’s full of love and care because it's about doing the right thing for yourself and working for your own long-term best interest.
Think about it this way: Every time you eat something that’s good for your body—even if it isn’t super scrumptious—it helps elevate your energy levels and makes your mood better. It works in your favor, and isn’t that what love is supposed to do, after all?
What You Reach For When Nobody's Looking
You always have a cheap version of self-love available to you. It could be scrolling on social media until you feel good, or having one more drink, or just watching one more episode of a show you find entertaining.
But none of those are actually working in your best interest.
The show might have sucked you in and it’s pleasurable to keep watching, but it’s not necessarily what you really need.
If it’s 11pm, for example, the good kind of self-love could mean going to sleep rather than playing another episode. Even if it might pinch you a little to turn off your show mid-way through the action, it's for your own good. The reason being, spending time watching another hour-long episode translates into one less hour of sleep, making you feel more irritable the next day.
It’s not bad to watch one more episode. It's just cheap, instant gratification. It may not even be that fulfilling.
I had a friend who, if left to his own devices, would happily spend an entire weekend laying on his couch watching reruns of the Super Bowl on ESPN Classic and eating chocolate cake.
It sounds fun until you lose track of how many evenings pass like that.
So here’s an uncomfortable question worth sitting with:
If you truly loved yourself, what would your regular day and priorities look like?
When you love yourself with the kind you feel for the people you’d protect without thinking, you’d move heaven and earth to do better for yourself.
You already know how this works.
If you’ve ever raised a child, or watched someone raise one, you understand this instinctively.
There are very few kids in the world who willingly want to get up at 6:45 am. Most kids would give you a list of complaints about their school. And yet, their parents get them up anyway and make them do the right thing because they love their children and want the best for them.
Now turn this idea around and point it at yourself. You’re now the person doing the loving and being loved. It’s your responsibility to get yourself up.
How to Get Started
When it comes to self-discipline, wrong choices are mostly attributed to not remembering what’s in your best interest. Most of the time, you don’t break your promises to yourself because you’re weak. You break them because you forgot.
For example: You’re about to order a fried chicken sandwich, but if you reminded yourself that eating it could mess with your health and cholesterol, you probably wouldn’t make that choice. You'd go for a salad with grilled chicken instead.
To help marry self-love and self-discipline, try these tips.
1) Write things down—with the “why” attached
Make a list of what matters to you and what you actually prioritize, with the real reason behind each one. Adding the reason is very important because it makes you stand your ground when things feel slippery.
2) Solve the forgetting problem, on purpose
Life is designed to make you forget. Fight back with physical reminders (even though they may feel embarrassing) like a note on the mirror, a reminder on your phone’s lock screen, or an alarm labeled with the reason instead of the task. Your goal is to keep the why within arm’s reach.
3) Rig your environment in your favor
Keep temptations out of your reach. That could mean muting the social media account that makes you feel behind, or ditching bad influences that pull you backward. You want to remove what sabotages you so doing the right thing can become automatic.
4) Make a few no-negotiable rules
You can make a custom set of rules to follow. A simple one might be to never swear, even if you’re around foul-mouthed friends or really angry. No bad words, no matter what. Making and following rules like this sounds rigid, but it can give you a lot of relief because you decide on it once and that’s it. You don’t have to spend extra energy determining what matters to you.
5) When you slip, forgive yourself and move on
You will slip. (That’s not pessimism, it’s normal.)
Accept it, otherwise if you lose an hour to a cheap distraction, then you spend the next three hours beating yourself up about it, that costs you far more than the lost hour ever did—and that’s not discipline.
Instead, forgive yourself and restart. Because that is real discipline.
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Mona & The Sol TV Team ❤️
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