Self-discipline is not a dirty word

Welcome queen! 

I just ask how are you today? I’m gonna start asking you guys how are you and when I say how are you I don’t just mean like when you see someone they’re like “hi how are you” and then you’re like “I’m good you and you?” You’re not actually even taking the time to check in with yourself and being honest with your answer. This isn’t to say I want you to say “I’m not very good” of course. If you don’t feel great, that’s completely fine, it’s okay. There’s a reason why you’re not feeling so good at the moment but just ask yourself “What emotions do I actually feel?” and allow yourself to feel them, allow them to be there. 

So before we get into this episode on positive self-discipline, the episode title is “Self-discipline is not a dirty word”. But before we get into this positive self-discipline which is literally the most powerful thing I have understood recently and I cannot wait to share it with you. I would love to invite you first to my free Facebook group it’s called Food and Body Freedom Queendom. How amazing is that name? And it’s a group for women who are seeking support and accountability on their journey to food and body freedom and in this group, you’ll get a chance to ask me questions. 

I’m going to go live every week and answer all the questions. You’ll have support from me and all the women in this group who are on the same journey as you. You’re never alone even though you might feel like it, and you’ll be provided throughout each day with valuable content that is going to support you on your healing journey to food and body freedom. So if you’d like to join click on the link below and I cannot wait to welcome you there.

So let’s get into it, then. Self-discipline- why do you need it?  what is it? and how do we acquire it in the pursuit of goals? 

You’re gonna need to create positive self-discipline in order to reach your goals and today, I’m going to teach you how.  

I’m also going to be sharing in this week’s episode:

• the difference between positive and negative self-discipline
• the four characteristics of people who are mentally tough 
• how to create your own source of self-discipline 

Are you ready? I want to start off with a question which if you have time, I would like you to pause me after I’ve asked you the question and journal about this because a lot will come up for you around this, especially if you’re here listening to this episode right now. 

• What does self-discipline mean to you? 
• How does self-discipline make you feel? 
• What does that word mean to you? 
• What does it what feelings do you associate with self-discipline? 

So if you can pause me and journal about that. If not, then just ponder it in your head or come back to this or journal about it later.

Well all of our triggers reactions to like words or anything in life, they’re all linked to our past experiences. We weren’t just born with learning the word discipline,  just the word we didn’t have any attachment to that. We didn’t make it mean anything, but of course, as we grow up through life, we are human beings and so we like to have a meaning for everything. But the thing is, a lot of the time we get given meanings or beliefs from people that love us that aren’t serving us so whatever came up for you when I asked you what does self-discipline mean to you, it’s linked to your past experiences which creates your beliefs which then creates your reality and self-discipline actually is the key ingredient to your success whatever success means to you. 

If you’re listening to this, I am 99% sure that you are on your own self-development journey. So I just want to congratulate you on that. Not everyone’s bettering themselves. If you are listening to this, I’m guessing that you are wanting to better yourself. You aren’t wanting just stay stuck where you are, so you’re going to need positive self-discipline to get where you want to go. Well before we dive into the depth to the depth of self-discipline let’s talk mental toughness self-discipline is a characteristic of mental toughness, and mental toughness is basically just resiliency. 

What resiliency is, it’s having the capacity to bounce back when [ __ ] hits the fan which it does because it’s just live it’s part of life, right? But it’s knowing that you can bounce back and that’s the key part there is the knowing that you have got it within you to brush yourself off and get back on. Those of you that know me, I am a horse rider I’ve ridden horses since I was five years old. I’m now 33 it was my career for a second. I left school at 16 years old. I made it into a career and you’re everyone’s heard of that saying right always get back on the horse that was actually physical reasoning for me so the amount of times I fell off joined my riding career countless times, countless but unless I was severely injured, which was only a couple of times I always got back on the horse.  I always was like “oh well it happened like brush yourself off”. 

Getting back on, that builds resiliency. It’s self-belief knowing that you can do whatever you put your heart and mind to and of course, it doesn’t just have to be something physical. In fact, often. It isn’t physical. For example, riding a horse. It’s things like building your own business or you know going after a health goal (we’ll talk about that in more depth from positive self-discipline in a moment) but it could be achieving any goal, like you’re going to fail. Self-resiliency is just pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. When you do fail, knowing that you can just keep going or pivot or try a different way. It’s having the same goal and when you fail it’s not changing the process to get to that goal. 

No one is born with more resilience than others. It’s not just a thing that you’re born with, it’s just often how you’ve been brought up have you been conditioned to just brush yourself off and try again. You have been conditioned that failure is bad and wrong and you just shouldn’t even try because failure is so embarrassing and shameful. 

No one was born scared of self-discipline, scared of doing the things they know they need to do in order to get where they want to be. 

If we don’t stretch that self-discipline muscle which to me is like being outside your comfort zone, there are all sorts of different muscles that are outside of your comfort zone. But obviously, we’re talking specifically about self-discipline today. If we don’t start using that muscle and exercise in that muscle, we’re gonna start having those negative beliefs that we’re lazy, we can’t do the things because then we go into like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like we don’t feel like we can do anything, so we don’t want to fail. So we don’t try and then of course, if we don’t try, we don’t actually ever achieve. Then we just think “oh, okay well there you go. I don’t ever achieve anything so there’s no point in trying and we get stuck in our own circle.” I hope this is making sense because I was stuck in this circle for so long and I used to beat myself up about it and didn’t get anywhere. I just got weaker and weaker and weaker, had no self-confidence. But this can absolutely change,  I promise you. Which is why I’m here teaching you this.

I said a key point just about not even trying so a lot of us this is where self-sabotage comes in. We don’t even try to do the thing because we would rather stay in the pain that we know currently of being stuck. That’s the feeling and we’re never stuck but we can feel stuck for sure. We’d rather stay in the pain of feeling stuck than risk the pain of potential failure. Does that resonate with you? 

But whereas resilient people actually have experienced more failure than you could ever imagine. They’re just failing forward. You know, it’s like the whole titanic thing with the iceberg. Like, success is the top of the iceberg and if you look under the iceberg, then that’s a lot bigger than the top of the iceberg, so much bigger. 

We don’t always see people fail but it absolutely happens. If we can condition ourselves and teach ourselves not to be scared of failure, then this will absolutely help with our self-discipline.

Now, I want to go into the difference between positive and negative self-discipline. The doing side of mental toughness is positive self-discipline. So this is required in order for us to reach our goals. If it’s positive self-discipline, it’s one of the most important aspects to reaching the highest version of ourselves or to reaching our fullest potential however you want to call it. It’s one of the most important aspects to get their discipline.

Positive self-discipline is the highest form of self-love. But it’s only the highest form of self-love if it’s a form of positive self-discipline.

So let me get into what that even means. Positive self-discipline is when you have more pros than cons with the outcome of your self-discipline action. For example, your self-discipline action might be meditation. Taking time out to actually just receive cosmic downloads from the universe. Or if that doesn’t resonate with you, maybe it’s just like taking a power nap because you know that you need it but it’s difficult to do. Eating your vegetables for example. That’s positive self-discipline. The outcome there’s going to be more pros for you doing those things than there are cons if of going through the uncomfortable feeling of shutting your laptop, turning off your phone, and just taking time out for an hour 20 minutes 10 minutes. 

Negative self-discipline, it’s more like a punishment or coming from a place of fear rather than coming from a place of love for yourself, and it has a lot more cons than pros with the outcome of your self-discipline. For example, working out at the gym or home or going for a run or whatever when you’re tired and you’re sore or you’re injured or you’ve got a little niggle and you kind of know you should rest but you’re like “No, I must work out I must diet because I need to look a certain way in order to be accepted I must fit into this certain outfit, I must look this way for a holiday else I’m not going to be able to enjoy my holiday” That’s acting from a place of fear. That’s negative self-discipline. Positive self-discipline is always acting from a place of love. Another example, I love my body. I want to take care of her. I actually feel great after moving my body every day even though sometimes I don’t feel like it. I’m still going to move my body every day anyway even if it’s like for a walk. That’s from that’s positive self-discipline, from a place of love. A fear decision is acting from a place of fear, for example, I’m working out and I’m dieting so that people will like me more like a smaller toned person I must do this workout no matter what. That’s acting from a place of fear. Can you see the difference? Just check in with yourself now and ask yourself like where is your main action being taken from, and I guarantee you, if a lot of your action is being taken from a place of fear, not-enoughness then it’s not going to last very long and you’re going to end up in a destructive cycle because only lasting change can happen if motivation and action are taken from a place of love positive self-discipline comes from love negative self-discipline comes from fear.

 So when we have a habit of forcing ourselves, this is how we create a negative association with self-discipline and this is exactly what happened to me. So I started working out when I was maybe 24 25 around that age. I started  I joined the gym for the first time I really loved it. It was difficult at first, but I really enjoyed doing something for myself, moving my body, all these things. But then I became obsessed with the results. I became obsessed with all of the outs external compliments like “oh your body’s changing you, look really good” Then I kind of I got obsessed with that, so I became obsessed with my diet. I was so disciplined. I was in my masculine energy which I didn’t even know what meant back then. But I was not allowing myself to feel, not allowing myself to be rested. I was always having to do nothing was ever good enough and no matter how I felt no matter what my intuition was telling me, I would still do the workouts, not eat anything until I couldn’t resist, and I binged. 

So this is negative self-discipline whereas moving your body is great for you and I actually advocate that for everybody, like moving your body every day, working out three to four times a week. It’s so good for your physical health your mental health. All of the things but it’s not good if you’re coming from a place of negative self-discipline forcing yourself to do things that don’t actually feel right for you deep down. This is a thing only you know like I tell my clients like when we’re committing to early morning workout for example when their alarm goes off only they know if they’re tired and they actually need a rest da from a place of self-love or they need to get their ass out of bed because they’re feeling a little bit like they’re lazy and they can’t be bothered and they would rather stay in bed. That’s actually where you need to kick yourself up the bomb in a loving way and get the workout done. But only you know whether you’re making excuses or whether you need to rest for example. So just again, connect with yourself. Just think about your life. Think about the things that you want to do, what you’re not doing, and have a look at that to see if it’s coming from a place of fear and not love.

When we move into a positive self-discipline space, this starts to move into excitement it starts to build your self-confidence and it starts to create mental toughness. I want to just like this came to me not that long ago literally like a few weeks ago, self-discipline doesn’t have to be hard right it can be challenging, but if you believe a change or achieving something is going to be hard or you’re going to have to sacrifice all the things in order to get where you want to be then, of course, this is what you experience. Yes, challenges come up. I’m not saying life is all easy breezy but you get to decide if life is easy or not. I choose to decide that life is easy and I see challenges as excitement and an opportunity to build self-trust with myself to build self-confidence with myself. So I would like to invite you to also decide that life gets to be easy. You can have a mantra on one of my sticky notes in my bathroom mirror. One of my mantras is “Life gets to be easy if I choose to always act from a place of love life gets to be easy if I choose to always act from a place of love.” 

Now, we’re gonna go into the four characteristics of mentally tough people 

Number one is that mentally tough people are optimistic. The glass is half full it’s not half empty this is not the same as false positivity. It’s not like just sticking a positivity plaster on everything and like “oh it will be fine”. Positive thinking that’s not the same right false positivity is actually about being inauthentic. Optimism is about being able to identify where you’re at right now is not where you want to be. And that’s okay you have a positive outlook on the future and you know that you’re able to create your own path to get where you want to be. 

False positivity will bring on emotional rigidity which is like not allowing yourself to express your feelings. I always remember reading a book, I’ve read so many books. I believe it was Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry hicks. You must read that book. If you’ve not read it already. They talk about a car and a fuel gauge. Like the petrol light comes on and it’s showing that the fuel’s empty. If you just stick a happy smile sticker over the empty fuel gauge, it’s going to fix the problem on the surface level of like showing you that the fuel lights on it are going to take the fuel light away because you’re covering it upright, but it’s not going to take away the problem. That’s like false positivity just sticking a smiley sticker on an empty fuel gauge and hoping everything’s going to be all right, whereas actually, you need to stop and refill up your fuel so are you doing that in your life. Are you a positive person which is great but are you acting out of false positivity or are you acting that of optimism so just again just check in to see where you’re at and nothing’s right or wrong?

It’s just a lot more helpful to be optimistic than false positive because you don’t allow yourself to feel or express what’s really going.

Number two, mentally tough people are adaptable this is about being able to pivot like a move like change direction when necessary, and seeing obstacles as opportunities. Someone not signing up for your program, for example. Or say if you’re a business coach and you and you launch a program and no one’s signed up and you’re like well that was [ __ ].  At the beginning, this has happened to me before, but instead of being “I’m just gonna just not do my business, I’m just gonna go and work for someone.  I was like “no, I have all this wisdom to share with people I know.  I’m helping people every day with my one-to-one coaching. I want a program to help more women. Let me just try a different approach. I’m not just gonna give up. It’s being adaptable. It’s like I said earlier, it’s having the goal and when one approach doesn’t work then don’t change the goal just change the approach.

Being adaptable in life so see what’s working, see what’s not working, and figure out how to move forward. Are you adaptable in your life?

Number three, we’ve talked about this a lot it’s positive self-discipline. Mentally tough people have a big well of positive self-discipline. Creating self-discipline out of love will create positive self-discipline.  Being true to yourself allows you to create this positive self-discipline and caring for yourself is an act of self-love and self-discipline. So make sure to check in with yourself first before you decide to set up a routine for yourself or action steps that you need to take in order to get where you want to be and weigh out your choices. You want to be responding to positive self-discipline from a place of love instead of reacting to negative self-discipline and moving forward from a place of fear. 

Another way of describing positive versus negative self-discipline is positive self-discipline although it can be challenging like I said like I’m not going to use the word hard because I choose that life gets to be easy, I advise you to choose the same as well positive self-discipline almost feels like you’re being pulled towards something whereas negative self-discipline feels kind of having to push yourself towards something. So like positive is like a magnetic drawing to something. Negative is like a feeling of having to be pushed by someone or something to get where you want to.

So number four of the characteristics of mentally tough people is and I’ve talked about this briefly is they process their emotions these people have the tools to process their emotions. They don’t become consumed by their emotions so if you feel anger or sadness or loneliness. If you’re practising this resiliency of processing your emotions, you don’t become sad, you don’t become angry. You can see and you can feel yourself feeling these emotions but you don’t get consumed or swept away by them. You also allow those emotions to be there. It’s actually scientifically proven that when something happens and you feel an emotion, we feel that emotion for 90 seconds. Anything longer than that, we’re caught up in our own head with our own stories, with our own past experiences and beliefs that I hope that’s holding on to the feeling isn’t that amazing. lt takes practice to allow yourself to feel process it like I ask my clients to like if they’re really if they feel they’re stuck in an emotion, I ask them to drop down. We do a short meditation drop into their body what does it feel like where do they feel it. If the feeling had a color, what color would it be? Is it moving? does it have a shape? Really allow that feeling, that emotion to be there. 

You might have heard this a million times before but I’m gonna say it anyway. Emotions are energy in motion and if you don’t allow those emotions to be expressed and to come through you, they’re gonna be stuck and you’re gonna keep feeling them over and over again until you allow yourself to process them. So that’s a big one mentally tough people allow themselves to process their emotions. 

So almost at the end last but not least how do you create your own positive self-discipline? Like a visual aspect to build up your self-confidence to help you go out and get the things, you want to get. 

So of course number one is to always be acting from a place of love. That’s first and foremost. Anything that you need to change with your discipline is positive self-discipline. But what you can do is you can get two empty jars, like two see-through glass jars, and let me give you an example. This will make more sense. Say for example, you wanted to start running. You’re training for a marathon and you’re like “I don’t run at all. I want to start training for a marathon or a 10k or a half marathon or whatever it is or working out or eating vegetables”. There are loads of ideas that are coming to me now like that I want to eat vegetables every time I sit down and eat a meal. I’m gonna stick with a workout thing because I’m juggling all these together. So you’ve got two empty jars. I’ve actually done this myself you can choose to buy some glass pebbles or you can get little sticky notes and write like a positive affirmation that helps to spur you on and then fold them up and then put I don’t I was going to get them to show you about it they’re not in this room and then put them in the glass jar so as an example you’d want to start running and you’ve got to run in order to achieve this goal from a place of love because you’ve done your why you’ve checked in with yourself. 

You’re acting from a place of love with the fact that you want to start running and you decided you want to run three times a week and we’re gonna set a goal of doing that for three months. So you’ve got these two glass jars, you’ve got pebbles or little motivational quotes that you’ve written to yourself like “keep going, you can do this” and all the things. Then you put in three times a week for three months. Whatever that is you’re gonna put that amount of pebbles or that amount of emotional stuff in one glass jar. Every time you go for a run you’re gonna take one pebble or one motivational quote and read it and put it in the other empty jar so you can see it as a physical thing to look at when you do the promises that you’ve kept to yourself when you do the self-discipline actions even if you don’t feel like it. You can see a visual representation of how far you’ve come and then seeing that will help to spur you on connect to like celebrating yourself and always celebrate yourself actually this is a big key if you are if we’re doing the running example and for three months you want to run three times a week halfway like at the one and a half month mark decide that you’re going to treat yourselves like a massage or i know covert is on right now as i’m recording there so you might not be able to go out for a nice meal or you know just give yourself that um treat that celebration for yourself like when you’re keeping these promises to yourself because positive self-discipline is linked to all the good things it’s linked to self-confidence self-trust which is linked to self-esteem self-love and all of these things so it’s only going to bring good things into your life okay so let me know if this episode was helpful please share with a friend tag this um screenshot this episode share it on social media tag me at victoria kleinsman let me know the biggest thing you got out of this i honestly love to connect with you and i love to see how i’m helping you so i wish you an amazing day evening morning wherever you are in the world and i will see you next week.