Discipline

We’ve never claimed that it’s easy to be happy. If it was, Happier Souls wouldn’t exist. Creating your own happiness requires a lot of discipline and in this blog, we want to show you how important discipline is and how you can begin to build your own discipline.

Discipline can’t be faked

The main skill you need to succeed in absolutely anything is discipline. Nothing else comes close. Being disciplined isn’t that hard when it comes to doing something you love. Let’s say you have work everyday weekday 9 am-5 pm, you instantly know who is disciplined by looking at how they come dressed to work, what time they come to work and how much work they put in. Those who are more disciplined will be able to sacrifice more and therefore go further in life. It’s that simple. The same concept can be applied to happiness. People who are passionate about being happy are much more likely to stay disciplined enough to build long-lasting happiness within their own life.

Sacrifice

If you’re disciplined that means you can sacrifice the things that you value to achieve a greater goal. A very common example is lots of people want to lose weight but very few people are disciplined enough to consistently eat healthier and exercise more. Some people might argue that they have tried eating healthier or exercising but they see no results and again the usually the reason is that they haven’t sacrificed enough. No matter where you are in your life right now the way you get to the next level is through sacrifice, that's how you create change. You want to be rich but you’re not ready to sacrifice when it comes to your favorite TV show. You want to be successful but you’re not ready to give up the 3 hours of ‘me time’ you give yourself on a Sunday. You want to be happy but you’re not ready to cut out negative friends. Happy people can sacrifice things like this much easier than others because they are aware that happiness is such an amazing feeling it’s not worth giving up.

Commitment

When we start to sacrifice it can be difficult, but the most important part of sacrificing is to keep it consistent. Staying committed to what you said you were going to do is the hardest part. We often find it easy to give something up when the mood is right but after that when we don’t necessarily feel like it, that's when we tend to slip. For example, you might look at yourself in the mirror and be unhappy with what you see so you decide that you’re going to cut out all junk food. Then a few days later you meet up with your friends and they’re ordering junk food, what do you do? You might feel left out at the time, but you know what you should do. This is what separates people who are disciplined and undisciplined when it’s no longer easy to stick to what they said you would do, do you still do it?

Discipline in relationships

Whether you’re trying to improve your personal relationships, colleague relations or customers your discipline is crucial. We’re all aware of how much a bad review can affect a product or even a company and the main reason is when people promise one thing and deliver something else it breaks trust. As we know, trust is the foundation of all relationships and the most important relationship that you have is with yourself. Every time you say you’re going to do one thing and then you do something else you’ll break trust with yourself and that is genuinely one of the worst things that anyone can do. Just to be clear, there is a difference between lying to yourself and failing. Failing is fine and we all do it. Lying to yourself is something that you choose to do. You need to hold yourself accountable for everything that you say you will do, when you start to do this not only will you see yourself in a more positive light, but others will too.