Discipline and Commitment – Aids to a healthier Life
Thursday, March 4th, 2010Discipline
Discipline – if you lack it, accomplishing anything will be unlikely, if not downright impossible. If you are highly disciplined anything is possible! Everybody needs some degree of discipline in day-to-day life, even for simple things like getting out of bed in the morning.
Commitment
Commitment runs along the same lines. Trying to achieve a goal without wholeheartedly committing to it will make the journey cold and joyless, and attaining that goal doubtful. Lack of commitment in any endeavor leaves you rootless and confused.
Putting them together
If you want to live a long, healthy and full life it takes both discipline and commitment. You certainly can’t live your life eating banana cream pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner and expect to be healthy and energetic in your later years. You may love banana cream pie; it may be your secret passion, but if you are motivated and committed to a healthy lifestyle, summoning up the discipline to push the pie away won’t be hard.
Clarify and set goals
Putting your ambitions into words makes it easier to find the discipline and commitment required to achieve them because writing them down helps clarify them and makes them seem more real. Sit back, close your eyes and visualize what it is that you want to achieve and describe it in words. Do you want to be around, strong and vital, when your children are grown and start to have children of their own? Do you want to stop you family’s history of genetic heart problems in its tracks? Do you simply want to look fit and lean and wear your clothes well? All are lifelong commitments and ones that require strong commitment and the discipline to see them through.
What are the steps you need to undertake in order to meet these goals? Do you need to begin by losing some weight or stopping smoking? This is where discipline is learned and utilized. You will definitely see just how committed you are to your goal and learn exactly how much commitment is needed to meet them.
Do or Do Not
Even if you are incredibly committed, your will to succeed is going to be thoroughly tested. That’s why they call it ‘willpower’! You may want with all your heart to be a s slim and elegant as Charlize Theron, but there are still banana cream pies calling your name! The fact is, discipline needs to be exercised before it can be the formidable friend you need; Psychologists say it takes three weeks for a behavior to become a habit. As a little green wise man in Star Wars once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” That means exactly what it says; you will either overcome your temptations or you won’t. Those who have quit smoking know exactly what that means. You may chew nicotine gum or wear a patch or use some other kind of aid, regardless, you either will or will not put the cigarette in your mouth. Very slowly, the overwhelming urge will decrease until one day you will find that the urge will still be there, but now it is manageable.
Losing weight is much more difficult because unlike smoking, where you refrain from any kind of tobacco, you still need to eat several times every day. Commitment and dedication needs to be on hand all the time. The trouble is, your brain and taste buds remember in vivid detail what a piece of chocolate cake or a bag of potato chips taste like, and they are reminding you in a demanding way. Here’s where your discipline and commitment are needed big time.
It’s up to you
The only entity that can control your impulses is you, and this can be either an incredibly empowering or a profoundly depressing fact. But, again, the only entity that can choose how you react to that fact is you. Discipline and commitment, though hard won, will help you choose which path you follow.
