Online learning is an excellent platform to enhance and upgrade your skills. But it’s not for everyone. Completing an online course requires self-control and commitment. Luckily these skills can be acquired with a little practice. Here’s how you can become self-disciplined:
Learn to care enough about the outcome:
If you want to start achieving your goals, start by caring enough for them. How many times have we have begun a task but given up before we hit the finish line? It’s not that you do not want to achieve that goal, but you give up because you don’t care enough about the results. In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains the importance of experiencing small wins. Use this to instill discipline within you – when you care enough for the little things that you do, it becomes a habit. This soon becomes a discipline.
Realize that you have to do a task even if you don’t want to do it:
The secret to self-discipline is to force yourself to behave differently than what you feel. It is a realization that you have to do what you have to do even when you don’t want to do it. You don’t wait for things to ‘feel right.’ Successful people have a schedule. They plan their entire day from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed because they know this helps them get things done.
Remove temptations:
The adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ holds true when it comes to matters related to self-restraint. Keep all distractions at bay. If you’re trying to lose weight, stay away from junk food. And if you’re trying to get a task done, turn off your cell phone and log off from social media. If you’re having trouble focusing at work, block access to websites that you are often tempted to browse.
If you’ve caved in and things didn’t go the way you’ve wanted, acknowledge the failure and move ahead. If you’ve failed to meet a homework deadline, hire a tutor for online class help. But make sure you’ve read reviews about their service!