Financially successful people tend to all have a lot of self-discipline. Improving your discipline in one area of your life often spills into every other area. With that in mind, here are seven different self-discipline exercises. Try taking one of these on for 30 days and watch as your increased discipline starts to spread toward other areas.
Tidy Up
Even if you keep your place clean, there’s always more you can do. Every morning, either right after you awaken or before you leave for work, make your bed. Put things away after you’ve used them. Wash your dishes right after you use them, and finish drying them and putting them away too.
Write Every Day
Daily journaling frees up your voice and creativity. If you do it in the morning, you can make it a daily gratitude list, where you write down everything you’re thankful for — or write down your dreams after you wake up. If you do it in the evening, write about what you did that day.
Read More
Find a book of interest to you that will help you learn or refine a skill and choose a time of day to read at leat one chapter.
Hydrate Better
Drink eight glasses of water or at least half of your body weight in ounces each day. An example of the latter: a 200-pound person would drink 100 ounces.
Work Out
Commit to exercising for 20 minutes per day – do whatever type of exercise you prefer, just be consistent. If you’re already physically active, then give yourself a fitness regimen.
Track Spending
Buy a cheap notebook and every day after work write down all of your expenses. Better yet, jot them down in real time. This is a step toward budgeting.
Sell Stuff
If want to turn your discipline into income, then look for something around your house to sell each day. Try Facebook, yard sales or Craigslist. Try to sell something new every day for a month.
Self Discipline Will Make You Financially Successful
The point of these practices is not to try and overhaul your entire life in a month. Instead, pick one habit that you can commit to sticking with, day in and day out, for 30 days. By sticking with this one thing, you’ll see your self-discipline increase in other areas of your life as well.
Readers, how did you do with the self-discipline exercise?
Jackie Cohen is an award winning financial journalist turned turned financial advisor obsessed with climate change risk, data and business. Jackie holds a B.A. Degree from Macalester College and an M.A. in English from Claremont Graduate University.
Here are some simple guidelines that will help you build wealth:
1) Do the math. Get a budget and calculate your net worth 2) Get an emergency fund. Save at least 6 months worth of expenses 3) Limit costs. Spend no more than 30% of your income on housing 4) Max your retirement. Maximize contributions to your tax-deferred retirement accounts 5) Pay yourself first. Set aside money for yourself before you take care of your other bills 6) Set goals. Goal let you get ahead faster 7) Avoid high interest debt. Avoid credit cards, title loans and other usurious loans 8) Diversify. Diversity your assets.
