Building Discipline as a Full-Time College Student
Why is discipline so important?
One of the most difficult challenges as a college student is juggling all of the priorities that come with it. Whether you’re balancing academics, extracurricular responsibilities, working full or part-time, time management can seem nearly impossible.
But I’m here to tell you that it’s not.
This semester, I had the amazing opportunity to partake in a federal internship, while also doing school full-time, studying for the LSAT, and leading a bunch of extracurricular projects on the side. However, I’ve often found myself running into traps of burnout, unproductivity, and feeling like I’ve run out of time to do the things I actually enjoy as soon as the clock hits 11:00PM. I’ve realized that it takes an incredible amount of discipline to stay focused on everything I wanted and had to do—not just motivation. Let’s get to the difference between the two.
Motivation vs. Discipline
Motivation is the spark to becoming disciplined. What does that mean? While motivation gives us the initial drive to pursue our goals, discipline is the long-lasting force that allows us to follow-through on them. Self-discipline will never be easy, because those who practice discipline work towards their future and go beyond their current. To me, discipline is motivation maintained for a consistent period of time, fighting the instant gratifications to reap the long-term benefits of the future.
To Complete Short Term Goals
Speak your desires into existence (affirmations). Spend five minutes thinking about what you want to accomplish, hand-write everything down on a piece of paper (preferably a notebook), and tell yourself you will accomplish it. Read it off multiple times if you have to each day.
Write down one main task you’d like to complete for the morning, the afternoon, and evening. I am a huge calendar/planning girl, and I’ve found that journaling and setting up a concrete plan for each day works the best for me.
Eliminate distractions. If you feel yourself distracted by your phone, leave it on airplane mode or put it in a separate room. Don’t be afraid to switch up your working environment every once in a while. I find it unhelpful to do work in my dorm most days; I find my productivity climbing when I’m in quiet environments like libraries or cafes. Figure out what environment(s) work best for you!
Reward yourself after completing the task. Positive reinforcement is key. The best advice I’d give for this is to treat yourself like you would a friend. I’d be so proud of my friend for completing a task that they found difficult or had trouble getting to. Remember to give yourself some grace, especially on days where your mood is low and you feel more distracted than usual. You wouldn’t badly criticize someone you loved for not completing a task on time, or forgetting to do something, right? While it is important to maintain discipline, know that you will have some unproductive days, and resting when you need it is completely okay! At the end of the day, we are human—not robots!
Get proper sleep, nutrition, and hydration. If you are not practicing these steps on a consistent level, then you can throw the entire notion of discipline out the window. These three steps, as simple and repetitive as they are, are the foundations of discipline. Make sure to take care of yourself and your body first and foremost—you will definitely feel better with them!
To Complete Long Term Goals:
Figure out your “why”
What is currently keeping you going? What motivates you to wake up and put the work in? Remember that your why can change overtime, but it’s important to have one now to refer back to when you find yourself lost or wandering aimlessly.
Before you can find your why, you need to understand who you are as a person. Develop a good understanding of who you are, what you value for your life, what you're passionate about or what you’d like to explore, and what skills/traits you want to develop. This is the best method that helped me to figure out my purpose.
Set goals for the semester/year. What personally works best for me is setting 5-8 yearly goals that I will be completing by the end of the year, with little steps underneath each to get there. Make sure that these are attainable goals that you could work towards on a regular basis throughout your desired time frame. For example, if one of my goals this year is to maintain all A’s for the semester, you could easily work towards the goal by allocating time to study each day.
And for those who fear failure. . .
I’ve found that many people turn away from goal-setting due to fear of failure. To this I would say, begin anyways. Do it scared. Try your absolute best and give it your all to stick to your goals and complete them. In the case that you’re unsuccessful, analyze why you weren’t able to do so, hold yourself accountable for it, and then move on. Failure is bound to occur, and fortunately, it is something that we can all learn from. Use the fear of failure as all the means to succeed. The more you fear failure and stop trying, the more you miss out, not just on success, but on personal growth.
Conclusion
You only have one shot at creating the life you deserve, so stick to what’s most important to you. Remember that discipline isn’t about working hard 24/7, it’s about balancing your priorities, developing healthy habits, taking care of yourself, and maintaining focus.
