Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.

Helen Keller

A positive attitude is essential if you want to build self-discipline. What’s the point of denying yourself instant gratification if you don’t believe that you’ll get a greater compensation for it in the future?
If you suffer from pessimism, realize that along with improving your self- control, you’ll need to improve your ability to see the world in brighter colors.

Three easy steps you can take today to become more optimistic include:

1. Express gratitude for what you already have. If you can’t be happy with what you have today, you won’t be happy with what you have tomorrow.
2. Reframe negative events into opportunities and lessons. An event is bad for you only if you decide it is. Think of it as a lesson or an opportunity to change your life, in order to give it a positive meaning.
3. Surround yourself with positive input. If you only read fear-mongering news and hang out with pessimistic grumblers, you’ll have a hard time exhibiting optimism.

Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts.

Elbert Hubbard

I’m an avid rock climber. In rock climbing, particularly when climbing long routes, your forearms can get pumped to such an extent that you can no longer hold onto the rock. Climbers afraid of failing will often ask their belayer to take in the rope so that they can rest and try again with renewed strength.

While this strategy is good for learning how to climb a difficult route, sometimes it costs a climber an on-sight (a clean ascent with no prior practice of the route) or a redpoint (completing a route without resting on the rope) because they give up too quickly, right after they start feeling overpowering discomfort.

Even when you can barely hold onto the wall, often you can still perform one or two moves more — and those moves may be enough to upgrade your position to a rest stance where you can safely recharge and continue climbing without resting on the rope.

It’s the same with many other areas of life. You believe that you can’t go on any longer, that your self-discipline has run out and it’s time to throw up your hands in defeat, while in reality, persisting just a little bit longer is all that separates you from success.

The next time you feel like giving up, persuade yourself to push a little bit longer. Chances are, success is right around the corner.

It is better to practice a little than talk a lot.

A Zen saying, attributed to Muso Soseki

Announcing to all of your friends, family members, and colleagues that you’re going to change and going deep into details how you’re going to do it is useless at best and sabotaging at worst.

Firstly, not everyone will be happy to hear that you want to improve yourself because it will make it painfully obvious that they’re lazy or don’t have as much courage as you do. Instead of support, you can receive criticism that might make you less likely to act upon your dreams.

Secondly, research suggests that announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them. 38 By talking about your plans, you get the erroneous satisfaction that you’ve already taken action to change yourself and consequently, you’re less likely to take real action.

If you want to tell your friends about your new goal, choose a person whom you know will support you. In addition, instead of telling them in a self- congratulatory way that you’re finally going to achieve your dreams, ask them to hold you accountable if you don’t honor your resolution.

Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.

Gautama Buddha

When you set firm resolutions to improve yourself, you might be tempted to push your limits well outside of what you’re capable of doing. Ambitiousness is a virtue, but there’s danger involved in going from one extreme to another.
If you’re currently struggling to be productive, don’t force yourself to work sixteen hours a day. If you’re struggling to control your appetite, don’t impose a week-long fast. If you can’t find it in you to choose the stairs over the elevator, don’t expect that you’ll maintain a workout plan that requires you to work out every single day.
Find the middle path, stick to it for at least several weeks, and then, based on the results you get, decide whether you can further stretch your limits or require more time before advancing.
As much as I believe in pushing your boundaries and exploring the extremes, you don’t need to put yourself through mortification to achieve good results. Subjecting yourself to extreme hardships has some merits, but over the long term it’s unsustainable, if not downright dangerous.
Remember that there should be moderation in all things, including moderation itself. Sometimes a more extreme approach is needed for a short period of time, and sometimes it’s beneficial to set your goals lower. In whatever you do, seek to not spend too much time loafing around, but also make sure that your life hasn’t turned into the life of a self-flagellating ascetic.