If there is one personality trait that correlates with success in every sphere of human activity, it is that self-control & self-discipline. The secret to awaken your best self which is focus that is built on your ability to shut off distractions with the help of self-discipline.

Understand the Self-control for Success

There was one social researcher in Stanford in the 1950s called walter michelle, he wanted to check the self-control of toddlers of three-year-olds, so he designed this experiment and called it the toddler’s torture research. he would get the toddler and place before the little one a marshmallow and say if you like you can eat it but if you don’t eat it for 20 minutes then i’ll take this away and give you two. see now you can’t tell the toddler that you know you do this then your future will be bright, so 20 minutes either you have immediate pleasure now or you hold on and 20 minutes later you will get double the pleasure. This is also called as Stanford marshmallow experiment.

Walter Mitchell of Stanford, he tested 500 toddlers would put them there leave the marshmallow and then go behind and see from the window what happens for some of the toddlers it was a no-go when there’s gratification there what’s there to think about forget it. some of the toddlers deliberated over this, puzzle for two minutes. first time in my life this puzzle has come before me. don’t eat it then you will get two.

I never thought of such things after two minutes the intellect could give way to the tugging of the mind, eat it some toddlers held on for full seven to eight minutes and the way they would desist was also interesting they would try and distract themselves don’t look at it but after seven to eight minutes it was just irresistible now. Some toddlers actually held on for the full 20 minutes after 20 minutes they received the reward two marshmallows now an interesting twist happened to this.

The Effects of Self Control in Our Life

Later on Walter Michelle’s daughters were also among the tested children and they subsequently when they grew up also went into Stanford so interest in this study was revived and researchers said let’s find out how are the children doing now and they discovered that those children subsequently they continued following them for the next 15-20 years, they discovered one very revealing and interesting fact it was found that the children with the maximum self-control were excelling in all realms of human activity.

They were doing well in studies because they had self-control. when the mind said no, they had better control over their tongue, they were eating the proper things, their health was better, they were not lazy, they were exercising. they had far better physique, they did not have chemical addictions. when they worked, they were sincere, they were getting promoted rapidly because they could control their words. they had more interpersonal harmony.

Those children with the least self-control, they were the ones getting into all kinds of problems their bodies were out of shape because there was no control over the tongue. they repeatedly had interpersonal relational conflicts because they had these fits of anger. they were insincere in their studies, their sat scores were far below. they were repeatedly dismissed from their jobs; they had chemical addictions and 12 percent of them had been to jail and come back.

The researchers concluded that if there is one personality trait that correlates with success in every sphere of human activity, it is that self-control that self-discipline that will power so we are discussing the secret to awaken your best self which is focus that is built on your ability to shut off distractions with the help of self-discipline.

How to Develop Self Discipline in Your Child

Now that we know it is so important how can we develop it within ourselves. there’s one scientist called roger ferber he presented the technique called Ferberization. Ferberization of babies to help them develop their self-control. Now what is Ferberization? you must have heard of galvanization of steel. you probably have heard of vulcanization of rubber tubes as well so now hear about Ferberization of babies.

Ferberization is the sleep training between the age of six months to two years. what happens is when the baby cries the parents immediate responses no no no no no you should not face any problems come come come mama is here to the rescue, it’s all right, don’t cry so the baby doesn’t learn to handle that stress that pain that difficulty because the parents have over insulated it, so roger Ferber said no resist, let the baby cry for this much time on the first day and then you go and just touch it.

Don’t immediately lift the baby, let the baby know you are there and then after so many minutes you lift the baby and the second day you change the timing like this, so he’s created a whole schedule. once i was in somebody’s house and nowadays as parents do, they’ve got the video came on their child while they are working in the other room so i said your baby is woken up and is crying so they said it doesn’t matter, so we saw on the video cam the baby was crying and then after some time the baby stopped crying and started speaking to herself.

she had learned to handle the situation. the self-discipline had developed. it’s like the muscles you exercise, and they grow stronger, so she faced a situation learned to cope with it.

How to Discipline Your Self for Success

From childhood some people can develop this muscle of self-discipline however most of us were not ferberized as babies. what to do at this age now, is it possible to develop will power at this age as well. definitely, let’s go into the physiology of will power, see this will power actually comes from a portion of our brain. the human brain is special among all the creatures in that it is one fiftieth of the body weight.

Highest in proportion to the body weight but our brain also special because it’s got one feature called the prefrontal cortex that is the prefrontal lobe of the neocortex and that gives you the ability to trump. trump means the mind says this is pleasurable the prefrontal cortex says no don’t do it. the mind says this is painful, the prefrontal cortex says nevertheless do it, that prefrontal cortex is very little developed in small children, so they don’t have that control but as you come into adolescence it starts growing bigger and bigger and bigger. now this prefrontal cortex gives you the ability for self-control.

Start training your prefrontal cortex with little steps and increase it slowly, very soon you will be able resist yourself for immediate pleasures, and you will be able to focus on your long-term goals.

Thank you for reading this post.