Discipline

It's amazing how much of our lives are based on discipline.

Not of our children, but of ourselves. It effects so many aspects of out lives that we don't even realize. At least I didn't.

When we try to lose weight we have to train ourselves to eat the foods that are good for us. But more importantly, we have to discipline ourselves to not eat the foods that are bad for us. For some it's easy. For me it takes an enormous amount of willpower to walk past a chocolate chip cookie, or to not get a coke in the afternoons when I get tired at work. If I had to choose between a freshly cut up bowl of fruit and a slice of pizza that was a couple of days old... I have to say, it would be really hard to not go for the pizza. Even though the fruit is good, and I enjoy it once I start eating it. The pizza is just, well, pizza. It's tough. It also takes a lot of discipline to make time for a workout during the day. It's like my brain knows that if I eat the things I should and exercise everyday then I feel so much better than when I don't. My body works better, and I have more energy. Yet it's still so hard to do it.

Some days it's very easy for me to go home from work and be lazy. Maybe I have a show I've been wanting to watch. Then when it's over I realize it's time for me to work out... but I haven't washed the dishes or changed the laundry or this or that... so then I do the few things that absolutely HAVE to get done and forget about the rest and go to bed. I just wasted an entire evening. I didn't get my things done that I needed to do, so I just hit the high spots, the house still looks like a wreck and I missed my workout. Very frustrating. I need to be more disciplined when I get home to get the things done that I need to, then I can rest for a little bit before I workout. Nights that go this way make me feel better and make the house look better, but there again, it's so hard to do it.

Spending money is a tough one too. It's hard for me to not spend money on 'impulse buys'. It takes discipline. When I'm grocery shopping I try to stay with what's on my list, but then I see this one thing... and that one thing, and before I know it I'm $20-$30.00 over budget. It's also very tough to not spend money on 'pretty' things. Like shoes.... When you let your mind talk you into just this one thing that's on sale, it's crazy how fast it leads to two or three more things that are on sale. Then suddenly you've blown through $100.00. Wow, how did that happen?

Spending fuels more spending... laziness fuels more laziness... You get the idea.

Like feeding a fire...

...like when I say too much. When I say one thing that I shouldn't it leads my mind to other things that I shouldn't say. I just think "well, it's just this one thing. It won't cause too much trouble". Like eating just one cookie.... it's hard to eat just one. Before I know it I've eaten the whole bag..... and said way too many things that I shouldn't. I'm working on disciplining the things that I say. It bothers me enough to know that these thoughts are in my head, so why do I let them come out of my mouth? Or write them? One bad thought fuels many, many other bad thoughts. And just because I have these thoughts, that does not mean they need to be heard by anyone else. That takes discipline.

I hope that the fewer bad things I say, the fewer bad thoughts I will have. I pray this will happen for me. There are so many negative words coming at me during the day from every direction. It's hard to push the negativity aside and focus on the positive. The negative words start to become the 'norm', and that's not good.

Bad habits are hard to break. I wish the good habits were as addicing as the bad.