We should discipline ourselves in small things, and from there progress to things of greater value. If you have a headache, practise not cursing. Don’t curse every time you have an earache. And I’m not saying that you can’t complain, only don’t complain with your whole being.

Epictetus

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t build self-discipline overnight. If you’ve never been particularly disciplined, start small with easy challenges and then build on top of them.

Epictetus suggests a simple exercise of not complaining when you feel unwell. To make the first step even easier, he says that you don’t even have to immediately stop complaining at all — just stop complaining “with your whole being.”

Could you do it just for today? Once you successfully go one day without complaining with your whole being, how about two days? Three days? A week? A month? Could you then add other little challenges and consistently strengthen your willpower?

Other simple practices you can implement to begin building more self- discipline include:
Resisting the temptation to yell in anger when another driver does something that irks you.
Eating just slightly less than you’d like to eat, like one square of a chocolate or one potato chip less.
Working for just one minute longer when you’re ready to call it a day.
Work on several such little challenges and soon you’ll gain more self- control and be able to progress to bigger changes.

The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

Pierre de Coubertin

Nobody will ever give you any grades for your level of self-discipline. There’s no finish line and there’s no podium for the winners. The only purpose of building self-discipline is to conquer yourself — your own urges, your own weaknesses, and your own self-sabotaging behaviors.

It’s easy to forget this fact and assume that when you reach your goals you’re done. In fact, the moment you make your dreams come true isn’t the most important moment. It’s important, no doubt, but without the process leading to it, in itself it means little.

The most important moments are the moments of struggle, when you’re striving to fight even when you can barely stand and the whole world is spinning around you. It’s this very act that proves your mettle and showers you with life- encompassing benefits, not the act of winning in itself.

Whenever you find yourself frustrated that you’re still a long way from the finish line, remember that it’s right now, at this very moment, that you’re collecting the biggest rewards. It’s the struggle in itself that improves you and makes you a more successful person.