Training Yourself: Self Discipline

Some say it’s easy to tame a dog or a cat, or for that fact, any pet, but how about taming yourself and training yourself out of bad habits? Training yourself is a momentous task because you have acquired years of no-brake habits and you are like a car on the roll, gaining momentum as you go each day. So, you will have to say to yourself, “It is time to stop! I can’t go on doing the things that harm me as a person and which keep me literally on the outside looking in at what I could be.

The first task in training yourself lies in knowing that things need changing. It doesn’t matter what the habit may be. Habits come in all size packages and they even come camaouflauged under different wrappings. Because they are sometimes hidden from everyone else, you may feel that they will never be discovered, thus never needing to be uncovered. You are highly mistaken here. All bad habits eventually seep through the wrappers and reveal themselves either in your conversation, actions, attitude, or lifestyle. As they slowly begin to peek out of their containers, there will be hints from others to show that what you thought was stashed away, has now come out. As in my case, it is overeating. My habit seeps out when you see the buldge around my midriff. My friends, being nice, do not mention it to me, but I can see the clerk’s eyes at the store urging me to go to the larger sized clothing. If a person, perhaps has another pernicious habit, it will begin to easily stalk you and make your life uncomfortable.

First there must be a willingness to change. Change is often hard for all of us. It means there has to be an adjustment to our lifestyles. Perhaps some wonderful seasons of what we deem pleasure must be given up to arrive at the goal we need. In cases where people are smoking, and need to release the habit because it is robbing them of their health, they must look on the other side of the fence and see the lavish green grass of better health and the potential of increased longevity. If there is a problem with procrastination, or lying or stealing, or cheating, or laziness, any and all of the above and more, the person involved must see that it is time for training themselves out of the old into the new person.