Self-discipline is an excellent antidote to feeling powerlessness.
Here’s how it works: Every time you discipline yourself, regardless of how or why, you are communicating to yourself that you have the power to choose. Which means that you have control over your life. Which means that you are not powerless.
What causes many to hesitate is the doubt that self-discipline may not “work”. Good thing it doesn’t really matter! Because if your first choice didn’t work out as you wished, you have the power to make others that will.
The whole point of self-discipline is that you’re the one making the choice. Whatever the outcome is – good or bad – is not really the point. The point is that you made the choice – nobody else did it for you. And that means you have the power and the freedom to make your own choices. And that’s the antithesis of powerlessness – of feeling that you don’t have any power to make your own choices.
Bonus: You can see how self-discipline is the surest means of not only being in control of your life but of earning your own self-respect as well.