Create Your Best Life

Learn How Discipline, Commitment and Positive Thinking Bring Freedom and Success

By Susan Smith Jones, Ph.D.

One of the greatest truths of life is that it flows from the inside out. We are affected by what happens inside, by our feelings and our thoughts and these, in turn, affect our emotions, the words we speak, and the actions we choose to take. What you feel or experience at any point in time is up to you. Change your thoughts and you change your life.

Easier said than done, right? Well, in this article, I will cover a variety of topics that will help you understand your inner world better so that you can create more success in your life. And a great place to start is with the important role of the mind in creating positive change.

Your mind is a powerful tool for creating your best life and positive change, but it isn’t always your friend. Sometimes it is often a less than willing participant. Let’s use exercise as an example here since there’s no refuting its paramount importance in creating vibrant health and your very best life.

Perhaps you’ve taken up walking or jogging and promised yourself that you’re going to get out there at least every other day. For the first week you have a lot of motivation, but your resolve is flagging. It seems that something always comes up that is more important than exercise. Perhaps you need to be in the office early and can’t take time for a morning run, or your children might begin complaining about not receiving your undivided attention. Or maybe you just stayed out too late and an extra hour’s sleep seems more inviting than 10 laps around the track. Whatever circumstances you create — and they always seem legitimate at the time — be aware that your mind is doing a number on you. It is creating excuses so it won’t have to change familiar patterns. According to behavioral psychologists, it takes 21 days of consistently repeating an activity before your mind accepts the activity as a habit. Here are three steps you can take to ensure you’ll stick with your new exercise program.

1. Choose an exercise program that includes activities you honestly like to do.

Ideally, you will choose a variety of activities, such as jogging, walking, hiking, bicycling, swimming, and weight lifting to work different muscle groups and give you a change of pace. Most important, though, is to choose an activity that you won’t dread doing a minimum of three times a week.

2. Create an exercise plan that seems easy to accomplish.

You might, for instance, want to make an agreement with yourself that every day you will spend 30 minutes jogging or walking, depending upon the way you feel that day. Or you might agree to spend 15 minutes stretching or doing yoga every morning. Don’t create a plan so difficult that it sets you up to fail, i.e. one that requires you to be running 10 miles a day, pressing 130 pounds on the leg press, and doing the splits within a month. Your mind and body will rebel against these drastic changes, and you won’t succeed with any of them.

3. Resolve to stay with your agreement every day for 21 days.

If you skip a day, you must begin the 21-day cycle over again. The reasoning behind this is simple. Because it takes 21 days to form a new habit, it will probably take 21 days for your mind and body to stop resisting the new pattern. Twenty-one days isn’t a very long time, so if you find your mind coming up with excuses, you can regain control by reminding your-self that you only have to do it for 21days.

If, at the end of that time, you still don’t enjoy the activity or feel you aren’t receiving any benefit, you can always reevaluate. What you will almost surely find is that by the end of the 21-day period, you no longer mind doing the exercise. It has become a normal part of your life. At this point you are ready to incorporate a slightly more demanding fitness program, which I describe in detail in my book A Fresh Start: Accelerate Fat Loss & Restore Youthful Vitality.

This 21-day process can be used in any area you choose, including changing your eating habits, drinking more water, getting more sleep, simplifying your home or office space (15-20 minutes daily cleaning out and organizing drawers, closets, and cupboards), expanding your vocabulary, or establishing a meditation program.

Discipline and Commitment

What you’re probably seeing by now is that discipline is an important part of creating your best life. Discipline is a choice. If we are to achieve our highest potential, we must practice self-discipline in every aspect of our lives. Success and fulfillment are available only to those who learn to control their body, mind, and emotions.

Discipline, to me, means the ability to carry out a resolution long after the mood has left you. It also means doing what you say you are going to do, and doing itwith courage, eagerness and enthusiasm. If your attitude is positive, you well get positive results. There is no way to get 100 percent success without putting in 100 percent effort.

With discipline comes freedom and peace of mind. A disciplined person is not at the mercy of external circumstances. Whereas an undisciplined person is usually lazy, undirected and unhappy or depressed, a disciplined person is in control of what she thinks, feels, says, and does. A disciplined mind creates a disciplined body. And from a disciplined body comes an exhilarated mind. It’s a powerful cycle.

Discipline ignites your inherent inner power and helps create miracles in your life. Breakthroughs and miracles occur when people are willing to live out their vision and commitment and to honor their decisions. When you’re committed, you allow nothing to deter you from reaching your goal. Discipline keeps you going even when you are not feeling motivated. You get past your excuses so you follow through and do what you said you are going to do.

Make your word count. Be responsible and accountable. How do you ever expect someone to make a commitment to you or think you will follow through on a commitment to them unless you first show a commitment to yourself?

I welcome friendships where commitment, discipline, follow-through, and taking risks is a way of living and being. When I’m with those friends, I feel empowered, inspired, motivated, and energized. I have very little patience or respect for people who don’t honor their commitments. In fact, I have weeded out several such friends over the past few years. These people can be very energy draining.

If you are ready for commitment — if you are ready to create your best life — you will arrange your personal circumstances so that your lifestyle totally supports your commitment. You will do whatever it takes, whatever you need to do to order your life, let go of excess baggage and the superfluous non-essentials, and consciously focus on what is important.

Self mastery begins by recognizing our power and using it to bring our vision to life. Some years ago, I made a conscious choice to stop allowing myself to go where life pushed and pulled me. Instead, I began to acknowledge that I could choose my responses and master my life. Since then I’ve begun to use the power that I had previously been giving away to self-limiting beliefs.

This moment — right now — can be a new beginning. You no longer need to repeat the past, worry about the future, or struggle though life as a victim of circumstance. Here are the seven key tips I embrace in my life and with my clients to help boost self-esteem and make life more of a celebration filled with success. You’ll see that all these tips require a degree of discipline and commitment.

1. Take loving care of your body.

Eat a variety of colorful, healthy foods and exercise regularly. Think of your body as more than pounds of flesh and tissue. Treat your body as the miracle it is and honor it with love and respect.

Your body is self-repairing, self-healing, and self-maintaining and, as a matter of course, persistently marshals its forces in a tireless quest to achieve and maintain radiant health. Health is the normal, natural state of the body. When you’re healthy, the body automatically directs its efforts toward maintaining that state. When you’re in a state of “dis-ease,” living a life filled with stress and lack of balance, the body diligently strives to restore balance, to restore health.

Unconditionally cherishing, appreciating, loving, respecting, and nurturing our bodies, no matter what our current shape or level of wellness, is one of the first steps to experiencing vibrant, radiant health and living your best life. Let your body be your friend; love it with tender, loving care. Although your body is only a temporary home for your spiritual being, we must still take care of it daily.

2. Be grateful and count your blessings.

Gratitude (and appreciation) is a magnetic force that draws more good to each one of us. Gratitude is a dynamic spiritual energy that allows you to exert a powerful influence on your body and life. Plato wrote, “A grateful mind is a great mind—it eventually attracts to itself every great thing.”

Buy or create your own special gratitude journal. Every day, write down at least three things for which you are grateful. Remember, whatever you put your attention on, expands and grows in your life.

Look at all the positive aspects about your body and life and write them down so you can see them all the time. Make a list of all the things for which you are grateful: your eyes, which show you beauty; your hands, which let you touch; your children, spouse and friends who support and love you unconditionally; your animal companions who bring you joy; or the flowers in your yard or home that bring resplendence to your daily life. It was Paramahansa Yogananda who wrote, “Always think of your mind as a garden, and keep it beautiful and fragrant with Divine thoughts.”

3. Be patient, trust and “act as if.”

Everything happens in its proper time. Be patient with yourself and choose to live one day at a time.

When you feel frustrated that things aren’t going as you planned and your dreams seem to be continually beyond your reach, don’t give up. In fact, act as though your best life is yours right now, for on some level of your being, it is yours. If you want more peace in your life, you must choose to be peaceful. If you want more joy, be joyful. If you want more friends, you must first be that friend to yourself and others. And if you want more prosperity, act and live as though you were living your highest vision for yourself right now. In other words, “acting as if” will help you through many challenging times and will become a powerful bridge between you and possible channels of good in your life. It was Shakespeare who championed this sage advice in his immortal words in Hamlet, “Assume a virtue, if you have it not.”

4. Let go of all criticism and judgments.

Be loving and kind towards yourself and release all criticism and judgments. Harboring critical and judgmental thoughts affect your body and health. When you let go of your self-criticisms and judgments of others, and instead choose to practice living with unconditional love and forgiveness, your authentic, beautiful self then reveals itself. So when you catch yourself being judgmental and critical, stop and think of something positive. Say your affirmations. Count your blessings. And at least once a day, look in your mirror and take one minute to praise and support yourself. You deserve it.

5. Be of service to others.

One of the fastest ways to feel better about yourself is to do something nice for another person. It could be as simple as giving someone a hug, cooking a meal for a sick neighbor, watching a friend’s child so she or he can have some quality time to themselves, or sending a card saying “thank you.” In giving to others, we give to ourselves. Find ways to volunteer. A 10-year study of 1,300 Michigan men found that those who were active in organizations outside the home lived longer, healthier lives than those who were not. Some scientists even speculate that volunteering produces a “helper’s high,” an exhilaration caused by the release of endorphins, the brain’s own mood-elevating chemicals.

6. Laugh as often as possible.

Along with meditation, and spending quality time out in nature, laughter is one of the best ways I know to help mollify stress and enrich life. It is okay to laugh, even when times are tough. Toxic worry almost always entails a loss of perspective and a sense of humor almost always restores. For me, laughing often is truly the elixir of life.

It was Norman Cousins, noted journalist and author who, during a life-threatening illness, was able to achieve two hours of pain-free living for every ten minutes he devoted to laughter. He watched old Marx Brothers comedies, the Three Stooges, and Candid Camera by the hour. He learned that laughter — hearty belly laughs — produced certain chemicals in the brain that benefit body, mind, and emotions.

According to researchers, Cousins was right on! Studies now disclose that laughter releases endorphins into the body that act as natural stress beaters. It aids most — and probably all — major systems of the body. A good laugh gives the heart muscles a good workout, improves circulation, fills the lungs with oxygen-rich air, clears the respiratory passages, stimulates alertness hormones that stimulate various tissues, helps relieve pain, alters the brain by diminishing tension in the central nervous system, and counteracts fear, anger, and depression, all of which are linked to physical illness and stress.

7. Live in the presence of loving thoughts.

There is nothing that will transform your life more quickly than living with a consistent feeling of love in your heart. For the next twenty-four hours, maintain a consistent feeling of love; your entire life will change for the better and will be enriched. It’s not very easy. Keep practicing and see how long you can go. This means that you must relinquish all critical and judgmental thoughts about yourself and others and constantly practice forgiveness. Remember, you are always attracting back to yourself the equivalency of what you think, feel, say and do. Strive to make your life about living in the presence of love. Invite love to be your guide. A loving attitude, and heart is a magnet for unlimited blessings and miracles in your life and the lives of your loved ones.

We are powerful spiritual beings meant to create good on the earth. This good isn’t usually accomplished in bold actions, but in singular small acts of love and kindness between people. The amount of love and good feelings we have at the end of our lives is equal to the love and good feelings we put out during our lives.

So start now and choose to live the way you have imagined, without interfering with anyone else’s right to do the same. Henry David Thoreau, in all his sagacity, wrote the following: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

When you advance confidently and courageously, with a passion and enthusiasm about what you are doing — be it your health and fitness program, your job, or hobbies — success is inevitable. You will start living your vision and creating your best life when you get out there and act “as if.” Advance confidently in the direction of your dreams.