To be “normal” is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than average ability, people who never found it difficult to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world’s work — for them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of Procrustes — deadly and insupportable boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness.

Carl Jung

There’s nothing “normal” in building self-discipline. Most people avoid all kinds of discomfort and effort. They don’t want to experience personal growth because it interferes with them stuffing themselves with French fries, wasting countless hours in front of TV, spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need, lollygagging at work, and cutting corners whenever they can.

If you want to join the minority of people who do possess self-control and strive to strengthen it even further, you’ll be considered weird. This means that you need to prepare yourself for potential ridicule, being frowned upon, and not being understood.

It might be hard at first to face so much adversity when all you want to do is to improve yourself. To overcome this situation, get the following fact at the forefront of your mind: “normal” is the ideal for the mediocre, “exceptional” (or, in the words of the unsuccessful, “weird”) is the ideal for the high-achievers and trailblazers.

Every time you feel out of sync with the rest of the world, remember that there are other people like you. During the challenging times, when’re you’re stumbling, remind yourself that even when you’re failing, you’re still forging your own path, something that the vast majority of people will never do. You can enjoy the fruits of your success in a way that they will never experience, and that’s why it’s worth it to be exceptional. Be exceptional.

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.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself and be lenient to everybody else. Henry Ward Beecher

The only standards that should concern you are your own standards. If you act in accordance with the standards of the majority of people, you’ll be overweight, unfit, unhealthy, lazy, hating your job, not having enough time for your family, and in debt.

I sometimes get flak for my goals. “You’re already slim. Why do you still watch your diet?” “Why do you save so much money? You should live it up!” “Can’t you live like a normal person, instead of waking up at 5 a.m. and going to sleep as early as 8 p.m.?”

By the standards of the person criticizing me, I should have stopped improving myself a long time ago. According to my standards, the growth should never end. I always hold myself responsible for a higher standard, and this allows me to maintain success-friendly habits in my life and achieve even more success.

If you allow yourself to have low standards, how are you supposed to ever achieve excellence? Exhibiting self-control is one of the most powerful demonstrations of having high standards; letting fleeting emotions and urges control your life — as most people do — is a sure-fire path to mediocrity.