Food & Travel & Learning English

6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline

2009-05-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

Post written by Leo Babauta.
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One of the biggest problems people face is the lack of discipline — they have goals or habits they want to achieve, but lack that discipline needed to stick with it.

Then we beat ourselves up about it. We feel crappy because we can’t stick with it.

And that leads to more failure, because we’re forming a mindset that we don’t have the necessary discipline.

Here’s what to do when you face a situation like this:

1. Forgive yourself. You aren’t perfect. No one is. Realize that beating yourself up will only make things worse. Take a few slow, deep breaths and let it go. Forgive yourself. And move on.

2. Realize that discipline is an illusion. While discipline is a common concept, it doesn’t actually exist. It’s not a thing you can actually do. Think about it: people say discipline is pushing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. But how do you do that? What skill is required? There isn’t a skill — it’s just forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. And that requires … some kind of motivation. Without motivation, you won’t be able to force yourself to do anything. So motivation is the key concept — and this is something that’s real, that you can actually learn how to do.

3. Focus on motivation. What’s your motivation for pursuing the goal or habit? How will you sustain the motivation when you struggle? Have very strong motivations for doing something, and write them down. Commit publicly. When things get tough, remind yourself of your motivation. Focus on it. It’ll pull you along — that’s more powerful than trying to focus on the push of discipline.

4. Make it easy. Discipline is tough because whatever the task or habit you’re trying to do is tough. Instead, make it easy. Remove barriers. Having a hard time exercising? Make it ridiculously easy, by only exercising for 5 minutes. What use is exercising for 5 minutes? You’re creating the habit, not getting yourself into shape overnight. The 5 minutes of exercise will have only a tiny impact on your health, but it makes exercise super easy. If you can do that 30 days in a row, you now have an exercise habit. Hate waking up early to go to the gym? Do it at home. Do it during lunch or after work.

5. Focus on enjoyment. It’s hard to push yourself — to have discipline — when you hate doing something. So find something enjoyable about the activity. If you don’t look forward to exercise, find some good music, or a workout partner who you can have a nice conversation with, or a peaceful setting in nature that is just beautiful. And focus on that enjoyable aspect. Hate doing your paperwork? Find a peaceful sanctuary where you can do the paperwork and enjoy yourself. Maybe have a nice cup of tea or coffee, play some nice music. And focus on the enjoyment.

6. Repeat. You’ll almost inevitably slip up sometime, no matter how good you are. Unfortunately, people often take this to mean they don’t have discipline, and they just beat themselves up and give up. Well, it’s just a bump in the road. Get up, dust yourself off, and get going again. Start from Step 1 and start all over.
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Regarding first point, I think not only you have to forgive yourself but also to learn from mistake, most people feel frustrate while they made some mistakes, but if they just let the things go, they never get experence from slip up.

And I totally agree the second point of view, decipline is kind of stuff that you don't really want to do, if people really want to hit some achivement, they will have strong motivation to make them have a regular habit to do something with enjoyment not decipline.

Korea food near by Taichung city hall

2009-02-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

What: Korean food (韓鄉)
Where: No.39, Shihfu Rd., Central District, Taichung City 400, Taiwan (台中市中區市府路39號1樓)
When: 11:30 a.m. ~ 21:30 p.m. Price range: $80 up
Minimum charge: $140
English menu: NO

To be continue...

Samsung i8510 intellegent mobile phone

2009-01-23T20:30:00.001-08:00

Recently I bought a new mobile phone build-in so many fun stuff and high storage capability inside -- 16 GB, I can use the cell phone to do

Listen music and radio
Take high quility picture ( 8 million pixel ) with so many fun function such as smile shot, record GPS information, GPS is really useful for me to record my travel note and it is free for charge.
GPS guide system build-in , I will detour less
Google map system ( Internet needed )
Watch movie I put inside
Edit picture and vedio I take
Engilse dictionary can let me do quick search whenever I want
Tiny game for killing time when I'm waiting for someone or something

Since I didn't get the big prize at year-end dinner party, I bought one myself, however, it's amazing that the technology is growing so fast, I really love this mobile phone.

Japanese style barbecue shop

2009-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

What：Japanese style barbecue shop (港町十三番地)
Where：No.229, Jhongjheng Rd., Central District, Taichung (台中市中正路229號)
When：11:30 a.m. ~ 2:00 a.m.
Price range：40 ~ ｘｘｘ
English menu: NO

It is a shop with traditional Japanese decoration inside, though I nevery been to Japan but you can obvious feel it is not much modern in there, the waiters wear Japanese style costume and welcome customer in Japanese, I like to sit near by bar that can see chefs make food as a cooking show, the service is great , they keep walking around in the shop to make sure every customers get what they want .

The roast foods are scrumptious such as chicken string, pork fillet string, chicken buttocks string, roast Japanese rice ball etc. and sea food soup is tasty as well.

If you need a place to talk with friends without any concerns and taste foods with lovely prices, here is a good choice for you.

First article in google blogger

2009-01-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

This is my first article in Google blogger, I create an account here is not only because I want to record my travel notes in Taiwan with English to improve my English ability and also maybe I can make some foreign friends here, if you would like to learn Chinese or exchange some travel information in Taiwan, please feel free to let me contact with you.

If you are interesting in my another blog writes in Chinese language, link to http://blog.pixnet.net/yacheng , there has more travel notes.