Use positivity and discipline to improve your life

"Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it." ¨C Madame De Pompadour (Somehow, I don¡¯t think she meant it for women or men who are completely drunk!)

To start with, how do the words "positivity and discipline" make you feel? Does the mere uttering of them bore you or imply restrictions? Even if you answered yes, it¡¯s completely understandable because until you see and feel these two words in a positive light, you will forever be dragged into a downward spiral of two steps forward and 4 steps back.

Understanding the Concept

Moderation is beautiful, but we have cross-wired it to mean boring. We live in a world of superlatives where we want an excess of everything, be it giving more or giving everything. We don¡¯t want to impose stop-points or structure and boundaries; we even scoff at people who do and label them bores. However, here¡¯s a little secret--the only way to stick to your plans of getting where you want to go is to embrace moderation.

The Problem

For example, let¡¯s say your desires are to get really fit, increase your income and to foster a deeper connection with your partner. Let¡¯s say you sat down earlier in the year and made the decision and declaration that you were going to achieve all your heart's desires this year and let¡¯s also say that you strategized and planned your steps forward sufficiently.

You were disciplined and motivated and you embarked on the journey towards your vision. You stuck to it for half of January and all of February and then suddenly, you noticed yourself ¡°caving¡± several times. You said to yourself ¡°it¡¯s just this once, just this weekend, just Holi, just now, I will get back on track soon.¡±

This is the catch though; the only way to have all the stuff you want in your life is to become the person you need to be in order to have it all. You embody it and you embrace the behaviour as your own, you live it and make it your lifestyle. It is not a temporary thing you do for a while in the hopes that it will make a difference--it is a commitment for the rest of your life. The only way to be able to stick to such transformation is to ensure it is moderate and to instill discipline. The conflict here is that if you see moderation as boring, you will be bored. If you see discipline as restrictive, then you will repel discipline and resist it.

The Solution

It sounds simple but it¡¯s easier said than done. Change your relationship and feelings with these two words and you will be able to have anything you set your heart on. What comes in the way of the achievement of our goals, and causes the sabotaging of our dreams is the resistance to these 2 words because we associate them with boredom and being held back and restricted.

Can you instead think of personal discipline as an empowering and attractive quality to have? Let¡¯s try this together. On the one hand, you have a part of you that so wants these dreams and desires and on the other hand there is the part of you that wants to indulge in the habits that you know will inevitably keep you away from them. So, let¡¯s say that you want to run a half marathon and yet there¡¯s this part of you that wants to drink a lot of beer every night which then prevents you from going for training in the morning.

These two desires are directly conflicting with each other and when you do not succumb to your desire or your friends¡¯ invitations to go out and down a few beers, you feel like you are being boring. If you do go and drink a little and come home in time to get enough sleep so that you can still train in the morning, do you think of that as moderation and hence boring?

Integration

In my upcoming book, I explain an NLP technique that I use with my clients to help integrate these conflicting parts. If you could ¡°speak¡± to each part separately, what would their highest intention for you be? Let¡¯s take the one part that wants to down the beers. Let¡¯s say we ask ¡°him¡± to stand on your left palm ¡ª while you can have both your palms facing upwards and quite close together ¡ª now get the other part to stand on your right palm, this is the part that wants to run the half marathon.

If we asked the left part why he wants the beer, he may say things like "it is fun," "I am stressed," "the boys are meeting up," "there¡¯s a game to watch," "I want to feel good, or "to enjoy the taste"; if we keep prodding and asking why again and again, attempting to get to the highest intention of that part, we may come up with an answer like ¡°to be happy¡±.

Now if you put the part on the right side through the same line of questioning, (¡°Why do you want to run a marathon?¡±) the answers might be "to feel fit," "to cross it from my bucket list," "I have always wanted to," "my friends have done it," "I think it is cool," "I want to prove something to myself," "I want the exhilaration of running through the finish line," or "to be more attractive to women"; ultimately, this side will more than likely come to the same highest want: ¡°to be happy¡±.

This is when I would encourage you to bring both palms together and place them on your heart. This ¡°revelation¡± often makes us feel quite humbled and peaceful and we can practice this anytime we identify conflicting parts that come in the way of us living our dreams.

So in the hierarchy of desires, drinking the beer falls way below the desire to run a marathon, although both parts only want you to be happy. So once you can integrate the parts, the ¡°bigger¡± desire will become more dominant and therefore better guide you in making your choices. Then being able to make decisions based on discipline and moderation will feel OK.

The same goes for those of you who want to be in a relationship and yet also want to be free to keep all your space and time to yourself. Or the person who wants to make a success of their business but also wants to play video games for several hours a day. Or the person who wants to stay in their job but also wants to turn their passion or talent into a business.

The Realization

You will realize that the pursuit of your dreams is not a temporary situation or a short sprint. Rather, it is like a marathon; it is a long journey called your life. You make it your lifestyle and the only way you can do that is if you accept moderation and live it with grace and joy instead of resistance.

Malti Bhojwani is a certified life coach who offers her services at Multi Coaching International. When she's not teaching people how to improve their lives, she's helping scores of corporates, educational institutes, and individuals better themselves using her unique coaching techniques. She's also launched a series of videos offering tips and advice; check them out here.