Four Truths About Discipline

Four Truths About Discipline:

1. Discipline Comes With A Price Tag

Discipline is costly. It demands a continual investment of time, energy and commitment at the expense of momentary pleasure and ease. It meas giving up short term benefits for the hope of future gain. It means pressing on to excellence long after everyone else has settled for average.

2. Discipline Turns Talent To Greatness

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shared insight when he wrote:

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

3. Discipline Focuses On Choices, Not Conditions

In general, people approach daily discipline in one of two ways. They focus on the external or the internal. Those who focus externally allow conditions to dictate whether or not they remain disciplined. Because conditions are transitory, their discipline level changes like the wind.

In contrast, people with internal discipline focus on choices. You cannot control circumstances, nor can you control others. By focusing on your choices, and making the right ones regularly, you stay disciplined.

4. Discipline Does Not Bow Down To Feelings

As Arthur Gordon said, "Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. What you promise today must be renewed and redecided tomorrow and each day that stretches out before you."

If you do what you should only when you really feel like it, then you won't build disciplined habits. At times, you have to act contrary to emotions. If you refuse to give into your lesser impulses, no matter how great they will make you feel in the moment, then you'll go far.