16 Questions to Measure Your Self-Control

If you lose self-control, everything will fail.

Coach Wooden expanded on this key idea of his: Discipline yourself and others won’t need to. If you lose self-control everything will fail. You cannot function physically or mentally or in any other way unless your emotions are under control.

Self-control has two parts:

1. Self-discipline: practicing good habits without anybody needing to tell you to do things a certain way.

2. Maintaining emotional balance (not being under other’s control, but rather under your self control): the actions of others or adverse situations do not make you lose control of your emotions.

Here are a few examples of self-discipline. Give yourself a score of 1 to 10 (10 being the best) to gauge your self-discipline.

1. I am very good at planning things carefully.
2. I usually don’t take shortcuts. I am thorough and do things right the first time.
3. I usually do one kind deed a day for somebody who cannot do anything for me.
4. I am reliable. My actions almost always reflect my promises.
5. I don’t interrupt people while they are speaking.
6. I don’t think about what I’m going to say next when the other person is talking.
7. I give people my complete attention when they speak to me. I do not continue looking at a computer screen, phone or something else.
8. I usually take at least 15 to 20 minutes a day to rest my mind/reflect/meditate.
9. I regularly take time for physical activity or exercise.

Here are a few examples of emotional balance. Give yourself a score of 1 to 10 (10 being the best) to gage your self-control.

1. I don’t whine or complain.
2. I usually keep my emotional balance. I don’t lose my self control when I get angry. I keep good control of my tone of voice.
3. I don’t worry about things I can’t control.
4. When others lose their self-control and are not nice to me I don’t get upset. I am under self control, not others’ control.
5. I don’t hang on to bad feelings or disappointments for a long time.
6. When something bad happens, I move ahead (on) quickly with a positive attitude.
7. When faced with a bad situation, I usually look for the advantage in the disadvantage; take it on with a positive attitude and get in the solutions department.

Self-control is not easy, but it is very valuable.

Photo by @Chalabala/Twenty20

Craig Impelman

As Coach Wooden’s grandson-in-law, Craig Impelman had the opportunity to learn Coach’s teachings firsthand and wrote about those lessons for his site, www.woodenswisdom.com. He is a motivational speaker and the author of Wooden’s Wisdom, a weekly “e-coaching module” that is distributed to companies nationally.