The Miracle of Self-Discipline
Why are some people more successful than others? Why do some people make more money, live
happier lives, and accomplish much more in the same number of years than the great majority? What
is the real secret of success?
Again, everyone smiles, some people cheer, and they all raise their hands. Then I say, “Wonderful!
These are great goals that everyone has. We all want to make more money, spend more time with our
families, be fit and trim, and achieve financial independence.
Not only do we all want the same things, but we all know what we have to do to achieve them.
And we all intend to do those things, sometime. But before we get started, we decide that we need to
take a little vacation to a wonderful fantasy place called Someday Isle.
We say that ‘Someday I’ll read that book. Someday I’ll start that exercise program. Someday I’ll
upgrade my skills and earn more money. Someday I’ll get my finances under control and get out of
debt. Someday I’ll do all those things that I know I need to do to achieve all my goals. Someday..Probably 80 percent of the population lives on Someday Isle most of the time. They think and
dream and fantasize about all the things they are going to do “someday....
Losers make excuses; winners make progress. Now, how can you tell if your favorite excuse is
valid or not? It’s simple. Look around and ask, “Is there anyone else who has my same excuse who is
successful anyway?”
It is self-discipline that enables you to “vote yourself off the island.” It is the key to a great life and,
without it, no lasting success is possible
Your Two Worst Enemies
Just as self-discipline is the key to success, the lack of self-discipline is the major cause of failure,
frustration, underachievement, and unhappiness in life. It causes us to make excuses and sell
ourselves short.
Perhaps the two biggest enemies of success, happiness and personal fulfillment, are first the Path of
Least Resistance and, second, the Expediency Factor.
The Path of Least Resistance is what causes people to take the easy way in almost every situation.
They seek shortcuts to everything. They arrive at work at the last minute and leave at the first
opportunity. They look for get-rich-quick schemes and easy money. Over time, they develop the habit
of always seeking an easier, faster way to get the things they want rather than doing what is hard but
necessary to achieve real success.
The Expediency Factor, which is an extension of the law of least resistance, is even worse when
leading people to failure and underachievement. This principle says, “People invariably seek the
fastest and easiest way to get the things they want, right now, with little or no concern for the long term consequences of their behaviors.” In other words, most people do what is expedient, what is fun
and easy rather than what is necessary for success.
Every day, and every minute of every day, there is a battle going on inside of you between doing
what is right, hard, and necessary (like the angel on one shoulder) or doing what is fun, easy, and of
little or no value (like the devil on your other shoulder). Every minute of every day, you must fight
and win this battle with the Expediency Factor and resist the pull of the Path of Least Resistance if
you truly desire to become everything you are capable of becoming
Take Control of Yourself
Another definition of self-discipline is self-mastery. Success is possible only when you can master
your own emotions, appetites, and inclinations. People who lack the ability to master their appetites
become weak and dissolute, as well as unreliable in other things as well.
Self-discipline can also be defined as self-control.
Your ability to control yourself and your
actions, control what you say and do, and ensure that your behaviors are consistent with your long term goals and objectives is the mark of the superior person.
Discipline has been defined as self-denial. This requires that you deny yourself the easy pleasures,
the temptations that lead so many people astray, and instead discipline yourself to do only those things
that you know are right for the long term and appropriate for the moment.
Self-discipline requires delayed gratification, the ability to put off satisfaction in the short term in
order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term.
The Habit of Self-Discipline
Fortunately, you can develop the habit of self-discipline. The regular practice of disciplining yourself
to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not becomes stronger and
stronger as you practice it. You refuse to make excuses.
Bad habits are easy to form, but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to form, but easy to live
with. And as Goethe said, “Everything is hard before it’s easy.”
It is hard to form the habits of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control, but once you have
developed them, they become automatic and easy to practice. When the habits of self-discipline are
firmly entrenched in your behavior, you start to feel uncomfortable when you are not behaving in a
self-disciplined manner.
The best news is that all habits are learnable. You can learn any habit you need to learn in order to
become the kind of person that you want to become. You can become an excellent person by
practicing self-discipline whenever it is called for.
Every practice of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline.
Unfortunately, every
weakness in discipline weakens your other disciplines as well.
To develop the habit of self-discipline, you first make a firm decision about how you will behave
in a particular area of activity. You then refuse to allow exceptions until the habit of self-discipline in
that area is firmly established. Each time you slip, as you will, you resolve once again to keep
practicing self-discipline until it becomes easier for you to behave in a disciplined way than to
behave in an undisciplined way
