While we all hated being scolded by our teachers in to stand in line in the school assembly and hated our parents for kicking us out of bed and sending out to school every morning it is these very routine that was instilled in us that helps make our way to our workplace today seamlessly and be successful in what we do .
Small changes can lead to a huge impact.
Renowned Social psychologist Amy Cuddy in her famous TED talk “Your body language may shape who you are ” tells us about how a few minutes of standing in a power pose before a stressful situation before a job interview or going on stage to speak can lead to increased confidence in these activities .
With people practicing just few minutes of meditation a day researchers found big differences in brain functioning. Specifically, meditation shifts activity in the frontal regions of the brain towards a pattern indicative of greater positive, approach-oriented emotional states.
It is also common knowledge that engaging in workouts and having healthier food choices lead to an increased quality and longevity of life.
While each of these activities take a short amount of time incorporating them in our lifestyle takes some Will power. But many scientists argue that we have a limited amount of will power a day which depletes with every decision we make. We can see this when an after a day full of resisting the urge to surf the web instead of finishing your work,eating salads when craving a burger, biting our tongue before saying something inappropriate towards the end of the day we cheat and give into the cravings. Researchers ts liken willpower to a muscle that can get fatigued from overuse.
So with ever busier days and a limited amount of will power , then how can we make these changes and benefit from the good effects of these changes. The answer is cultivating habits. We humans after all are a creature of habit and work on the autopilot most of the time.It is widely known that our neurons get re-wired(aka form new neural pathways) within 30 days of following a new habit which makes the amount of will power necessary to keep up with it almost zero as we go along with it.
What drives a culture of cultivating and maintaining habits is DISCIPLINE. Discipline is all about researching the best practices to reach a goal or serve a higher purpose and having a sense of doggedness and grit in incorporating those habits.
One school of thought argues is that discipline is just like a mental switch that we can ON every morning which brings about a sense of resolve in the actions that we take day which are bringing us one step closer to our goal.
Majority of the greatest inventions of the world have come from a sense of discipline, in fact the very light in the room that you sit in,reading this blog is a product of the discipline which allowed Thomas Edison to try a thousand times while inventing the light bulb.
Whether our goals are as big as Edison’s or as small as losing a kilogram of weight by the end of this month, it is our discipline to set and follow our habits that is going to get us where we want.
So set a goal , thank your teachers and parents for empowering you with a strong sense of discipline and get started on the road to greatness.
