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Whenever I tell my clients I’m NOT very disciplined they look at me like I’m mad.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re the most disciplined person I know” is a common response.  In fact when I did a recent survey of some of my dear friends and family on my top 3 qualities the only thing that bet disciplined as most frequent answer was loyal.

I’ll agree with loyal… however disciplined I’m not, I’ve just admitted my weakness’s and taken the time to out-plan and out-smart a lot of them… at least so far as food and exercise.

You see it’s the person who believes they’ll be able to have the block of chocolate in the house and just stick to one square… or let those golden crispy fries just sit going cold and soggy on their plate while they stick to the steak and veg… or arrive at a party without eating for half a day and expect to be able to resist the greasy, more’ish canapés… it’s that person who constantly tests their discipline who will constantly lose the discipline game.

Discipline is a game.

I know I don’t have any more of it than you… it’s just that since it’s finite for all of us, you need to choose how you spend it and out-plan those tricky situations we can all find ourselves in, especially when your daily discipline quota is all used up.

Where is the value in staring at the left-over pizza every time you open the fridge or knowing your fav ice-cream is hanging out in the freezer?  You’re not going to forgot about it – you’re going to think about it constantly… testing your discipline non-stop until you break.

This is especially true if you’ve been disciplined all day at work. 

Perhaps pushing yourself to power through all your most important tasks, declining the biscuits at morning tea, getting to the gym at lunch, resisting resorting to road-rage or turning to take-away on the way home… even preparing your go2dinner as discussed in show #002.

At the end of a day like that, fair chance your daily discipline quota is near all used up.

I guarantee 100% if I had one of my trigger foods (like roasted cashews) living at home after that day I’d be nibbling away at them in no time flat.  The nibble would likely turn into an all out demolish… because, I’ve started now so what does it matter any way right?

When it comes to winning the discipline game here are 3 key considerations:

1. Make it as easy on yourself to succeed as possible.

For example:

=> Clear all the foods that test your discipline constantly out of the house.

=> Power straight into your exercise first thing in the morning when you’ve got a full daily discipline quota.

=> Avoid grocery shopping on an empty stomach… or arriving at a restaurant super-over-hungry.

2. Avoid a focus on restriction… or what you ‘can’t’ have.

So instead:

=> Choose to focus on the abundance of fresh, quality food you do consume. The food that leaves your body looking and feeling great.

=> Take the time to find the options that taste awesome in addition to being great for your body. They do exist.

=> Perhaps spend a few extra dollars to get the fresh fruit, veg and meat you most love – in the long run it’s cash-o-la well spent.

3. No matter what, it’s never a right off.

A bad meal or skipped work out can be rectified at the very next meal or very next chance for a work out.  Never throw in the towel because of a bad meal or 10… for as long as it’s important to you, you get another go.

So grab that towel and go sweat it out in a strong weights session. Or grab a clean towel and use it to make a batch of awesome zero-discipline-zero-guilt Kale chips… you need it to pat the Kale dry after you wash if so it goes nice and crispy… see, now I’m getting distracted, I’m not really that disciplined (!) …as I drag myself back on topic, I’m realising that winning the discipline game requires a degree of discipline before the game starts.  It’s all in your preparation.

If you turn up on the day expecting to perform without prior preparation you’re making it hard on yourself.

You’re flirting with temptation and temptation is crafty and attractive.

Let’s make this actionable.  Today’s action step is to identify the food that is a part of your regular routine that is your biggest temptation and discipline tester.  It’s something you daily waste precious discipline on – whether you break and eat it or resist and don’t… it’s there testing and tempting you.

Time to evict this food from your routine.  Whether that means throwing it out of you house or going to the cafe that doesn’t sell those muffins.  Now, that the tempter has been evicted I want you to decide on the alternative that is not detrimental to your health goal.  The thing you can enjoy instead.

As always lets finish the Monday Motivation show with a quote.  Today I’ll hand over to Aristotle and his wise words:

“What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do”.

If you liked this you’ll also like: Healthification 003: Wednesday Weigh-in, Eat Better Not Less.

Thank you so much for your support! To rock even more – and share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.