Though the habit of lack of discipline may not be as damaging as habits like negative attitude and lack of confidence, it can still cause problems in various spheres of your life.
You may be able to manage your life with occasional bumps and hurdles, even if you lack discipline, as long as you aspire to achieve objectives up to the middle level. In case you’re a loaded with a number of positive qualities, you may even go up to upper middle level.
Hence if all you wish to achieve is a decent job, a decent car, a decent apartment, a good looking life partner and other such things and people which match this level, you may do so without much discipline. However, if you’re interested in results falling in upper class or top class; you may not get most of them with lack of discipline. Even if you get some of them despite lacking discipline, such results may not sustain and you may lose them.
Search through the history of mankind and you will find that all great achievers in various spheres of life had great sense of discipline. In every sphere, the competition at the top level is always the toughest. In order to survive such competition and succeed, you can’t afford to have many weaknesses. Lack of discipline is one habit which may prove very troublesome, if you’re aiming for top results.
Look into the lives of all self-made and successful people. You may find that these people manage their affairs with great discipline. They organize activities like eating, working, meeting others, relaxing and other activities very well, so that they are able to manage their day to day affairs in impressive and timely manners.
Speaking about time, management of time is one of the most favourite things among successful people. Effective time management is one of the best forms of discipline and it is very important if you want to reach the top and stay there. This is because at top levels of competition, time is of great value. If there is one thing that successful people have less than an average man, it is time.
Most of us love those things the most, which we like and which at the same time are available in limited quantities. Have you ever wondered why billions of people wait for a football world cup or cricket world cup event? This is because they love football or cricket very much and such an event comes after four or five years. During such four or five years, the hunger or thirst reaches its peak. Hence they love such events.
If you get to be in the company of Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt or any one of your favourite stars for a day; you may enjoy it like crazy. However, if Brad and Angelina spend a day together in the same manner like you did with one of them, their levels of joy may not be the same, though they may have a very good day. The reason is that though they may like each other much more than you like anyone of them, they get to meet each other a lot. Accordingly, they may not be as crazy for each other as you may be for one of them, because their desire for each other is taken care of, on regular basis.
Hence the things or people we like the most and at the same time, we are not able to get much of them; are the ones we value the most. Thus the richest and the most successful people value time the most, since they don’t have much of it. If you ask a billionaire for help in form of money, he may not be bothered much. However, if you ask him for a week or even a day of his life, you are likely to make him speechless. Likewise, if you ask the Prime Minister or President of your country for a decent job or an election ticket, he may be able to manage it. However, if you ask him to give you a week of his time, you may find him speechless too.
This is because majority of successful people have such abilities and talents that they can achieve much more than they are currently achieving, if they have more time to do many more things. Since they don’t have the extra time, they have to make the most of the time they have on their hands. Time is of utmost value if you want to reach at the top and stay there.
Lack of management of time and/or space is lack of discipline. It means if you have this habit, you may manage your time and/or affairs poorly or not properly. Even if you don’t manage your affairs properly, you’re ultimately losing time. This is because life is limited and you’re wasting it; which means you’re wasting time. For instance, if it takes you 1 month to accomplish a task with due discipline and 3 months without much discipline, you’ve wasted 2 months if you chose to do it without discipline. Hence you need to fix this problem at the earliest.
In order to do so, the first thing you need is effective time management. You can begin by making daily schedules for yourself. Taking an example, suppose you are doing a job which allows you only two hours of free time in the evening and Saturday as well as Sunday as free day. Plan your non-official tasks in a way that you may do them effectively in your free time. Hence, instead of avoiding some compulsory shopping on Saturday or Sunday and then taking a leave or half day on the next Tuesday or Wednesday for the same shopping, learn to do such shopping during weekend. Doing so may save you time as well as trouble.
Memorize this fact that if you want to achieve best results in profession, you’ll need to put work on high priority. Hence you should not stay away from work due to issues in your personal life, where such issues have been created due to poor management of time. There are times when you need to take time off from work due to important personal reasons. Such breaks are fine, since personal life is equally important. However, don’t mess up in your personal life and then try to compensate by taking time from your profession. Manage your personal affairs in a way that they don’t have negative impact on your performance at work.
Looking at the broader definition of lack of discipline, you have it if you fail to comply with some rules or codes which may be compulsory in order to manage your day to day affairs in the best possible manner. If you fail to comply with these rules, you lack discipline. Lacking discipline may keep you away from the best results in most spheres of life. Hence you need to fix this habit.
Looking at the root of this problem, you may have consciously avoided certain codes or rules in the beginning. Such acts sent messages to your subconscious mind that it’s fine if you didn’t comply with rules. You might not have had big goals to achieve at that time. Hence you might not have suffered much, even if you didn’t comply. Hence you might have continued this practice consciously. With time and repetition, you wrote a script of ‘I don’t care about discipline’, on your subconscious mind.
Once such script is formed, the subconscious starts executing it. At this stage, you don’t need to consciously avoid necessary rules or codes; you start avoiding them naturally which means subconsciously. It means you’ve developed a habit of lacking discipline. Hence you may engage in a number of such activities in your day to day life; which may lack discipline.
Taking an example, coming home at night and parking your car on the road outside your house when you have proper parking space in your garage and you don’t have plans to go anywhere before the next morning is lack of discipline. Similarly, taking your shirt off and leaving it on sofa instead of putting it at its proper place is lack of discipline. Having your dinner sometimes at 9, sometimes at 10 and sometimes even at 11 in the evening, even when you return home from your office at 8 PM on daily basis is lack of discipline.
Leaving the gas tank of your car empty at night when you could easily get it filled on the way home, knowing that this is the only car you have in case of an emergency, is lack of discipline. Not emptying your garbage bin for days, even if it is full of junk and you only need to walk a few steps to empty it, is lack of discipline. Not polishing your shoes in the evening when you know that you need to leave early in the morning for an important job and you need to wear these shoes, not reaching for most of your appointments on time, not completing your tasks in time, not arriving at your job on time, spending more than your income, not following proper daily routines of eating, bathing, working, relaxing and many other such things constitute the habit of lack of discipline.
It means in the deepest sense, discipline is not a law that someone or some system imposes on you. It is a set of rules or codes which may change with change in situations; and you make and/or obey these rules in order to manage your affairs effectively as well as in timely manner. Hence having discipline is saving time and unnecessary troubles.
In order to treat this problem, start from the bottom and then build up as always. Start putting conscious efforts to make sure that you complete the aforementioned activities and/or other likewise activities in discipline manner. As you do that again and again, your conscious mind may replace the old script of ‘I don’t care about discipline or rules’ to ‘I love discipline’, written on your subconscious mind. Once that happens, you’ve got rid of lack of discipline.
Never attempt tasks which are much bigger than your potential at any point in time. Assess your situation and undertake tasks accordingly. For best results, such tasks should offer resistance which should be somewhat more than you can handle but not a lot more than you can handle. Hence you should engage in small activities in the beginning, like the aforementioned ones.
On the other hand, you should avoid big activities like undertaking a big work project and committing to yourself that you’ll finish it within time. Though such task may be accomplished with some resistance during the third or fourth level; it may be too much to handle during the first level. Hence choose your tasks wisely.
Himanshu Shangari