Evaluate your personal levels of self-discipline by giving an honest summary of the positive and negative aspects of your self-discipline. It is important that a good level of self discipline is maintained in all of our endeavours, especially when there are considerable benefits to ignoring what we know we should do or how we should act. This involves behaving in the most appropriate way. Self discipline is formed by a number of qualities such as personal presentation, punctuality, time management, reliability, attendance, composure, attitude, performance and personality.
One of the main characteristics of self-discipline is the ability to forgo instant and immediate gratification and pleasure, in favour of some greater gain or more satisfying results, even if this requires effort and time. Self discipline gives one the power to stick to their decisions and follow them through, without changing their mind, and is therefore one of the most important requirements for achieving goals. The possession of self discipline enables one to choose, and then persevere with actions, thoughts and behaviour, which lead to improvement and success.
It also gives the power and inner strength to overcome addictions, procrastination and laziness and to follow through on a goal. I realise that it is incredibly important to develop my self discipline in numerous areas. I would regard myself as having a reasonably high level of self discipline although I must concede that when circumstances beyond my control begin to alter my own routine, I find it incredibly difficult to find the discipline needed to get myself back on track. I am of course aware of my undisciplined behaviour.
This awareness has increased significantly over the last nine months. I have become much more conscious of my behaviour and reactions to certain pressures and have actively sought ways to address them. Possessing such awareness of my misgivings allows me to combat them effectively. I do not consider myself to be weak or lazy and like to think that I act and behave according to the decisions and commitments that I have made, regardless of the desire to procrastinate, give up or the inconvenience that such decisions may have caused.
These ideals are naturally not easy to stick to with rigid adherence. For example I am well aware of the fact that it would be greatly beneficial to my health if I were to stop smoking again but for the last few months I have not been able to find the inner power and persistence to ditch such a harmful habit. It is an infuriating weakness. Nevertheless it is one that I know I will overcome as I truly believe I possess the strength and discipline to conquer it. I genuinely believe that I have the ability to arrive at a decision and follow it with perseverance until its successful accomplishment.
However when I look back and analyse my own self discipline over the period of the course I cannot help but be somewhat disappointed with certain aspects. Despite priding myself on punctuality and possessing a genuine aversion to lateness, my attendance, for one, has been extremely poor. Of course, the majority of my absences were unavoidable. Although when being completely honest with myself I cannot help but think that I could have dealt with external issues in a more efficient manner thus allowing myself to be available to attend.
There were other times when my self disciplined crumbled entirely and I consciously chose to ignore my responsibilities and to concentrate on other, seemingly more important matters. One could be forgiven for directly linking my poor attendance to poor time-management and although I know that I could have prioritised any free time I had more conservatively towards studying, on the whole, I do not necessarily believe that I have managed my time poorly over the course of the year.
That being said, when pressure amounts and deadlines loom there is always the added overwhelming worry that even if given an reasonable amount of time in which to plan a workload, I can relate to one who would consider it as too much of a feat. However, I embrace such challenges and believe that, once I feel sufficiently prepared, and without any distractions, I have more than enough self discipline to undertake most any task. Such vulnerabilities may have arisen when my will power waned.
Whereas normally I would consider myself to have the ability to withstand such hardships, I instead allowed them to disrupt my discipline. These are all issues that I will be forced to address over the coming months. Self discipline can always be improved upon and developed. One can always teach themselves to be well disciplined. Others have it drummed into them. ‘If you are earnest and are willing to become stronger, you will certainly succeed.