We live in the times of “do your own thing if it makes you happy”. Discipline is frowned upon and people often say that as long as you’re doing your work, it doesn’t matter whether you are lax or disciplined.
This time.com article rightly says that self-disciplined people are healthier and happier compared to those who are not
Through a series of tests — including one that assessed 414 middle-aged participants on self-control and asked them about their life satisfaction both currently and in the past — and another that randomly queried volunteers on their smartphones about their mood and any desires they might be experiencing, the researchers found a strong connection between higher levels of self-control and life satisfaction. The authors write that “feeling good rather than bad may be a core benefit of having good self-control, and being well satisfied with life is an important consequence.
What has got discipline to do with happiness? Don’t you have an image of drab, sullen-looking and hard individuals whenever you think of discipline? Well, discipline doesn’t always mean living a hard life. It means doing the right thing at the right time and sticking to the choices that you have made in order to improve yourself.
Take for instance your health. Can you remain healthy by following a random health maintenance routine? Can you have a slim (slim doesn’t mean healthy, it is just a metaphor) body by exercising a couple of times every month whenever inspiration hits you? If your health demands a five-mile jog a couple of times every week, then you need to stick to that routine. Sticking to that routine is called discipline.
The same goes with the number of calories that you should take in a day. If you cannot control yourself, you will go on eating, gaining weight in the process.
Cultivating self-discipline will help you in every sphere of life. The biggest attribute of discipline is, doing what needs to be done without lazing around, without procrastinating. Why most people don’t achieve their full potential, and remain unhappy throughout their lives, is because they don’t persevere, and perseverance doesn’t come without self-discipline. When you have a disciplined mindset, you won’t let yourself get distracted. You won’t let others disturb you. You won’t be tempted into wasting your time. You will be able to focus fully on the job at hand, the job that is of vital importance to you, your career, and your family.
You are happier, content, with your life once you have cultivated self-discipline because then you can do whatever you want to do. You can become whatever you want to become. True success needs hard work, and hard work comes out of discipline. If there is no discipline, there is no hard work, and when there is no hard work, there is no success – so it is interrelated. That’s why, if you are self-disciplined, you have a sense of satisfaction by the end of the day.
On the philosophical side, it is not our success or failure that bugs us the most, it is the lack of hard work and dedication that constantly pricks at our conscience. That’s what makes us unhappy and dissatisfied.