Developing Grit;

Do you practice self-discipline? Grit is the skill that will transform your goals into the life you want to lead. There are many ways for us to grow our self-discipline.

Self-discipline is the capability to move towards your long terms goals, despite internal drives for short-term pleasures. There are physiological mechanisms to this short-term pleasure seeking, and there are certainly ways around that. But before we focus on tricks to skip the pleasure cycle in the brain, we should focus on developing grit. Here are five things to try today to grow grit:

1. Meditation. Living a mindful life is a spillover habit. The things that you gain through meditation will help you develop self-discipline, but further it will help you live a present life. If you have never tried meditation, do not fret. The practice isn’t easy, but it is progressive, so starting is not a disadvantage. Here’s a great article detailing how to meditate. If you have practiced meditation before, consider listening to this youtube video. It’s a guided meditation by Alan Watts, and very enjoyable. It’s short too, so once you are through, you can carry on meditating for any period of time.

2. Fasting. Food is one of the primary drivers of the pleasure cycle in our brains. Consider removing that stimulus from your life entirely for a day at a time once in a while. There is a growing body of research that suggests that intermittent fasting is not only safe, it is beneficial for healthy brain aging, and leads to a longer lifespan. One way to go about this is the 6 to 6 method. You stop eating at 6pm on the first day and do not eat until 6pm the second. The drive to break the fast will be with you throughout the fast at first, but you will develop skills to avoid feeling that way.

3. Pushing through fatigue. For those of us who work out on a regular basis, try to push through your first feeling of fatigue. Research shows that your first wave of fatigue is a feeling in your brain more than a feeling in your body. If you are a runner, push through your mileage goal and extend it for tomorrow. If you are a weight lifter, get a spotter and push yourself beyond your typical goal in reps. The mental fatigue signal is very real, especially when you are feeling it in the moment; persevering through that fatigue can lead to long-lasting benefits in your performance. Like meditation, this practice has spillover benefits.

4. Little Habits. Make your bed in the morning. Wash the dishes after each meal. Wash your hands. Drink a glass of water every hour. Floss your teeth. There is a list a mile long of habits that we all have that derail our living spaces and obstruct our long-term goals. Don’t let yourself turn a blind eye to the little stuff, make it happen. You will find choosing just one of these habits every month, and focusing with white-hot intensity on it can make a lasting improvement while you move on to other habits.

5. Journal. Journaling goes hand in hand with meditation. Journaling will help you become self-aware, and lead to a deeper understand of your feelings and the way they influence your actions. Consider recording your feelings each hour, on the hour. Just jot out one sentence on what you are feeling. The way to match this to your actions is to record actions in the narrow field that you care about. Hourly journalling matches well with food journaling and is a good place to start. The discipline to write each hour and each time you eat will eventually help you choose different foods in the future. Food journaling can also put you on the track to a quantified self.