Disciplining Yourself

Growing up, your parents (or other close relatives) are there to praise good behaviors and punish bad ones. But eventually they stop doing that because you're a grown human being. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't discipline yourself. I've always said that the self deprivation is the greatest form of self discipline. When you tell yourself that you can't have something, and then you make sure you don't give into your temptations, you feel a great sense of power and control. If I see that someone has brought cookies into work, I may look at them for a moment, and then tell myself not to eat one. If I do go for it anyway, I feel like a fat pig, but if I don't, then I know that the next time I see cookies, I can say 'no' again, since I've done it before. Now that example is to instill good behavior. But if you do something wrong, you also have to make sure you punish yourself to make sure you don't do it again. For example, yesterday I locked my keys in my car. What an IDIOT! So I had to call a cab to take me back to my place, have my roommate let me in so I could grab my second pair of keys, then had the taxi take me back to my car. So I dropped $35 for essentially nothing. Of course paying that exorbitant fee (about $1 per minute) is a "fine" to keep me from being so stupid again (like a fine for speeding). But I took it a step further, and would not let myself go to the grocery store yesterday. I told myself, "You just spent your grocery money on a cab. So you'll just have to eat whatever's in the house." This way, I can almost guarantee I will never lock my keys in the car again, because I never want to go through that experience of wasting my hard-earned money on something so ridiculous.

Even grown-ups need a time-out sometimes to learn a lesson.