Over the past few years I’ve bought stacks of products which, if had actually used them consistently, would have reprogrammed my mind almost automatically. Heck, I’ve even created a couple of products like that myself (which I have used somewhat more consistently). But every one of those automatic mind reprogramming products – mine and everyone else’s – includes one serious weakness.

The user. Often the user won’t use what they’ve bought.

I was as big a self help junkie as anybody, anywhere. Buy the product, listen to it once (or less), and then put it on the shelf beside all those other products I already had.

To be sure, I have made miles of progress from where I began my journey, but it hasn’t been all forward, straightline motion. And the thing that has held me back the most was always an unwillingness to keep my promises to myself. I would decide to do something and then renege, waffle, sidestep, back out and just generally undercut every promise I made to myself.

• I’m going to exercise more!
  Oh but I don’t really feel like it today.
• I’m going to write one article or short story every day!
  Oh but I can’t think of anything today.
• I’m going to call my family more often!
  Oh but there’s nothing to tell this month
• I’m going to contact two new prospective customers every day!
  Oh but I didn’t meet anybody today.

What always prompted this consistently lax behavior was a serious lack of respect for or honesty with myself.

Some time back I wrote a report titled In a Far and Foreign Place which tells how that promise-breaking habit began changing. It came late to me, but eventually I did begin treating myself with more respect. And one of the prime signs of self respect is keeping one’s promises to oneself. The ability to follow through.

Now, over the years I’ve tried and use a number of different methods for building more consistency in my follow through. Some worked better than others. One of the things I’ve discovered is that without the follow-through habit, no “time management” system on earth will help anybody succeed. The one unspoken assumption in every time management book ever written seems to be that the reader, once they have a system in place, will just do it. But you know, usually they don’t. And it’s not the system’s fault.

Trouble is, most of those systems can only give us a way to manage all our time. One big, multi-piece bite. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve always choked on that. I needed something smaller.

I needed a way to begin building the follow-through habit, but in little, bite-sized chunks. One aspect of my life at a time. And what better place to begin than on self-image building?

So back on January 6th, I decided to break with the past and start doing things a little differently. I already had a recording I’d made for myself that inputs good, solid suggestions about confidence, self worth and persistence. It’s a 30-minute MP3 with brainwave entrainment sounds in the background, and I enjoyed it (when I remembered to use it). So I decided to listen to that recording twice every day. On some days I’d listen to it both times, while on other days, I would listen to a different version without the suggestions – just the entrainment sound alone – and do freeform creative visualizing.

Now, one thing I know from past experience is this: no matter how enthusiastic and determined I am when I start, if I don’t keep some kind of visual record, I’ll lose track and wander off course. So I made myself a small action tracking tool. A simple little table with a square for each day of the year – yep, a calendar – where I can put a little dot for each time I listen to the MP3. And I kept it simple, with only one new behavior and one way to track its consistency.

You know how they say it takes 21 days to form a new habit? According to my records, that simply is not true – at least, it’s not true for me. Take a look at the graphic below. On the left side is the blank calendar, and on the right is my track record. You can see that it took me a bit over six weeks – 45 days or so – before I could consistently remember to do this thing twice every day.

But since passing that 45 day mark, I’ve only missed 4 days out of the last 12 weeks. That’s a hit rate of better than 95 percent.

 

And that brings us to discipline.

Frankly, this discipline thing is not popular. We give it lip service, and we say we think it’s a good thing… but when it comes to actually acquiring some for ourselves, we aren’t very disciplined.

I’m not trying to point any fingers here. I’m just telling it like it is in most folks’ lives. Getting more discipline has never really been at the top of my wish list. Nor my action list. Maybe things are different at your house. Maybe you’re much more in charge and on top of things and always get stuff done before anybody ever has to remind you. If so, that’s great. But for the rest of us…

In any case, I found that this simple little calendar has been helping me remember what I’m doing, even when I get busy and my mind strays to other things. The main reason this works so well is because discipline, like almost everything else, is largely a matter of habit. We get in the habit of doing what we say we’ll do, and then people praise us like crazy because we’re so “disciplined.” Interesting, huh?

If you think you’d like to try the same thing, here’s a link for downloading your own copy. It’s a one-page PDF, so all you’ll need to do is print it out, trim it down to a convenient size, then tape it in a place where you’ll see it every day. Probably better to put it on a wall or the side of your computer. Laying it down on a table or desk only makes sure it quickly get covered up, pushed to the back, neglected and forgotten.

In my case, I taped the calendar to a clipboard. I even glued refrigerator magnets to the back of the clipboard so I can hang it on the side of my computer. Makes it easy to pick up, mark my day’s dots, then put it back in plain sight.

It’s May right now, so there’s more than half of this year left – plenty of time to start a new habit of your own. Plenty of time to begin mastering this discipline habit. But here’s a little secret… discipline seems to come as a side effect of doing other things consistently.

Like I say, it’s just a habit, and any habit can be made or unmade. All it takes is consistent repetition, plus a little something that lets us track how we’re doing.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Related Posts:

1. Part 1: Self-Discipline – Even for the Indecisive