Self Discipline
“We must unweave every strand of our cable of habits, slowly and methodically, until the cable that once held us in place becomes nothing more than scattered strands of wire.”
“How do you get a miracle going? It’s all a matter of discipline. And it begins with one simple step: doing what you can do.”
“Once you have seen and felt your ideal future, you will be ready and able to pay any price to get there.”
The Bridge Between Thought and Accomplishment
If there is one magic word that stands out above all the rest, it is self-discipline. Self-discipline is the bridge between thought and accomplishment, between inspiration and achievement, between necessity and productivity. Remember, all good things are located upstream from us. The passing of time takes us adrift, and drifting only brings us the negative, the disappointment, and the failure.
Failure is not a cataclysmic event. It is not generally the result of one major incident, but rather of a long list of accumulated little failings.
The danger is looking at an undisciplined day and concluding that no great harm has been done. But add up these days to make a year—and then add up those years to make a lifetime—and it will become apparent how repeating today’s small failures can easily turn your life into a major disaster.
Self-discipline is like a set of magic keys that can unlock all the doors of wealth, happiness, culture, high self-esteem, pride, joy, accomplishment, satisfaction, and success.
The first key to self-discipline is awareness of the need for and value of self-discipline, especially the discipline to make the necessary changes. What will it take? What must I do and what must I become to get all I want from life?
The second key is willingness. More than that, it is the eagerness to maintain your new discipline deliberately, wisely, and consistently.
The third key to self-discipline is the commitment to master the circumstances of your daily life—to see and harness the opportunities to make something of the good as well as that which comes in the guise of misfortune.
Self-discipline does many things, but most important of all is what it does for your mind-set—it makes you feel better about yourself. Even the smallest discipline can have an incredible effect on your attitude. And the good feeling you get—that surging feeling of self-worth that comes from starting a new discipline—is almost as good as the feeling that comes from the accomplishment the discipline brings.
A new discipline immediately alters your life direction. You don’t change destinations immediately—that is yet to come—but you can change direction immediately, and direction is very important.
Self-discipline cooperates with nature. Everything strives. It is a common life function. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it can. Everything strives to become all it can possibly be. And that is what self-discipline is all about… striving to fulfill our natural potential, to become all that we can
be.
The human will in action—driven by inspiration, enticed by desire, tempered by reason, guided by intelligence—can bring you to that high and lofty place called the good life. Self-discipline attracts opportunity, which is always attracted to ambition and skill in action. Self-discipline taps the unlimited power of commitment.
Self-discipline: those unique steps of intelligent thought and activity that put a lid on temper and a faucet on courtesy; that develop the positive and control the negative; that encourage success and deter failure; that shape lifestyle and control frustration; that enhance health and curb sickness;
that promote happiness and manage sadness.
Self-discipline: the continuing process that brings all the good things. Remember, anyone can start the process. It’s not, “If I could, I would;” rather, it’s “If I would, I could. If I will, I can.”
So start the process. Begin a new habit, no matter how small it is. Size isn’t important; whether or not you start and whether or not you continue are all that matter.
A Spiral of Achievement
What’s at the core of achieving success? It is not learning how to set goals. It is not learning how to better manage your time. It is not mastering the attributes of leadership.
Every day in a thousand different ways, we are trying to improve ourselves by learning how to do things. We spend a lifetime gathering knowledge—in classrooms, in textbooks, in experiences.
And if knowledge is power, if knowledge is the forerunner to success, why do we fall short of our objectives? Why, in spite of all our knowledge and collected experiences, do we find ourselves aimlessly wandering? Settling for a life of existence rather than a life of substance?
There may be many answers to this question. Your answer may be different from that of everyone else you know. While there may be many answers to this question, the ultimate answer may be the absence of discipline in applying our knowledge. The key word is self-discipline.
It doesn’t really matter how smart you are if you don’t use your knowledge. It doesn’t really matter that you graduated with a first class honours if you’re stuck in a low-paying job. It doesn’t really matter that you attend every seminar that comes to town if you don’t apply what you’ve learned.
We spend our lives gathering: gathering knowledge, gathering skills, gathering experiences. But we must also apply the knowledge, skills, and experiences we gather in the realms of life and business. We must learn to use what we’ve learned.
And once we’ve applied our knowledge, we must study the results of that process and refine our approach. Finally, by trying and observing and refining and trying again, our knowledge will inevitably produce worthy, admirable results. And with the joy and results of our efforts, we continue to fuel our ambition with the positive reinforcement of continued progress. Pretty soon,
we’ll find that we’re swept into a spiral of achievement, a vertical rise to success. And the ecstasy of that total experience makes for a life triumphant over tragedy, dullness, and mediocrity.
But for this whole process to work for us, we must first master the art of consistent self-discipline. It takes consistent self-discipline to master the arts of setting goals, time management, leadership, parenting, and relationships. If we don’t make consistent self-discipline part of our daily lives, the results we seek will be sporadic and elusive. It takes a consistent effort to truly manage our valuable time. Without it, we’ll be consistently frustrated. Our time will be eaten up by others whose demands are stronger than our own.
It takes self-discipline to conquer the nagging voices in our minds: the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of poverty, the fear of a broken heart. It takes self-discipline to keep trying when that nagging voice within us brings up the possibility of failure.
It takes self-discipline to admit our errors and recognize our limitations. The voice of the human ego speaks to all of us. Sometimes, that voice tells us to magnify our value or accomplishments beyond our actual results. It leads us to exaggerate, to not be totally honest. It takes self-discipline to be totally honest, both with ourselves and with others.
Be certain of one thing: every exaggeration of the truth, once detected by others, destroys our credibility. It makes all that we say and do suspect. As soon as a business colleague figures out that we tend to exaggerate, guess what… he’ll think we always exaggerate. And he’ll never quite hold us in the same regard again. Never.
The tendency to exaggerate, distort, or even withhold the truth is an inherent part of all of us. It’s starts when we’re kids. Johnny says, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it!” Well maybe Johnny didn’t do it, but he probably had something to do with it. And then it continues when we’re adults: exaggerating the benefits of a product to make a sale, exaggerating our net worth to impress old friends, exaggerating how close we are to closing a deal to impress the boss. Only an all-out, disciplined assault can overcome this tendency.
It takes self-discipline to change a habit, because once habits are formed, they act like a giant cable, a nearly unbreakable instinct that only long-term, disciplined activity can change. We must unweave every strand of the cable of habits, slowly and methodically, until the cable that once held us in bondage becomes nothing more than scattered strands of wire. It takes the consistent application of a new discipline, a more desirable discipline, to overcome one which is less desirable.
It takes self-discipline to plan. It takes self-discipline to execute our plan. It takes self-discipline to look with full objectivity at the results of our applied plan. And it takes self-discipline to change either our plan or our method of executing that plan if the results are poor. It takes self-discipline to be firm when the world throws opinions at our feet. And it takes self-discipline to ponder the value of someone else’s opinion when our pride and our arrogance leads us to believe that we are the only ones with the answers.
With this consistent self-discipline applied to every area of our lives, we can discover untold miracles and uncover unique possibilities and opportunities.
The Rewards for a Disciplined Existence
Self-discipline is a constant awareness of the need for action paired with a conscious act to implement that action. If our awareness and our implementations occur at the same time, then we begin a valued sequence of disciplined activity.
But if considerable time passes between the moment of awareness and the time of our implementation, that is called procrastination, putting off until tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is almost the exact opposite of self-discipline.
The voice within us says, “Get it done.” self-discipline then says, “Do it now, to the best of your ability.” Heed this voice always, and the habit will become instinctive.
Procrastination says, “Later. Tomorrow. Whenever I get a chance.” It also says, “Do what is necessary to get by or to impress others. Do what you can, but not what you must.”
In every circumstance we face, we are constantly presented with these two choices: do it now or do it later, self-discipline or procrastination. Bearing the fruit of achievement and contentment (self-discipline) or living with the bare branches of mediocrity (procrastination).
The rewards of a disciplined life are great, but they’re often delayed until some time in the future. The rewards for a lack of self-discipline, on the other hand, are immediate. But they are minor in comparison to the immeasurable rewards of consistent self-discipline. An immediate reward for lack of self-discipline is a fun day at the beach. A future reward of self-discipline is owning the beach. Unfortunately, most of us would choose today’s pleasure over tomorrow’s fortune.
So how can you get rid of the easy distractions? How can you keep your mind on what you’re trying to do? How can you keep an attitude of doing it all and doing it now? How can you make the choice of self-discipline over procrastination? How can you stay focused on your ambitions? How can you avoid conversations at the water cooler?
You can keep your focus on your work. You can get it done today instead of tomorrow. You can do your socializing when your work is done. You’ve got to really work on your consistent selfdiscipline on a daily basis. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself distracted. Distracted by negative thoughts. Distracted by negative people. Distracted by water-cooler chatter. And pretty soon,
depending on the type of people you associate with, distracted by self-doubt. Never underestimate the power of influence and associations. And never underestimate the power of your own consistent self-discipline.
Improving the Quality of Your Life
Let me give you some keys to self-discipline. Start with the little things and work up to the big ones. The little things are minor things you can do to make your life better and make you feel better about yourself. Make a list of them. Life will give you some pretty big challenges, but unless you practice on the small ones and master those, you don’t have a chance on the major ones. A
man strides out of his house to go straighten out the corporation, and he has not yet straightened out his garage. Who’s he kidding? So work on all the disciplines, small as well as large, that will improve the quality of your life.
And here is an important thought: everything affects everything else. Every lack of discipline affects every other discipline. Mistakenly, the man says, “This is the only area I failed.” It’s obvious that’s not true. Every failure, no matter how small, affects the rest of your performance.
Now here is the positive side: every new discipline affects every other discipline. Every new thing you try affects the rest of your performance. Isn’t that exciting? So get started on every small discipline you can think of. You can’t believe what it will do for your self-confidence. Remember, the greatest deterrent to success is lack of self-confidence; and lack of self-confidence comes from not doing what you could do.
Next comes self-motivation. Really, that’s the only kind of motivation there is. I can share my ideas and my experiences, but people have got to motivate themselves.”
I’ve discovered that you can’t change people. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. Lord knows I’ve tried.
Good people are found, not changed. If you want good people, you have to find them. That’s the best answer I can give you. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them. The first rule of management is this: don’t send your ducks to eagle school. Why? Because
it won’t work. I’ve tried it all. I picked up a magazine not long ago that had a full-page ad in it for a hotel chain. The first line of the ad was, “We do not teach our people to be nice.” Now that got my attention. The second line said, “We simply hire nice people.” I thought, what a clever shortcut!
Motivation is a mystery. Why are some people motivated and some are not? I don’t know. I call it “mysteries of the mind.”
I give lectures to a thousand people at a time. One walks out and says, “I’m going to change my life.” Someone else walks out with a yawn and says, “I’ve heard all this stuff before.” Why is that?
Why aren’t they both affected to the same extent? I don’t know. Mysteries of the mind.
The wealthy man says to a thousand people, “I read this book, and it started me on the road to wealth.” Guess how many of the thousand go out and get the book? Answer: very few. Isn’t that incredible? Why wouldn’t everyone go get the book? Mysteries of the mind.
To one person, you have to say, “You’d better slow down. You can’t work that many hours, do that many things, go, go, go. You’re going to have a heart attack and die.” And to another person, you have to say, “When are you ever going to get off the couch?” What is the difference? It’s called mysteries of the mind. Why wouldn’t everyone strive to be wealthy and happy? I don’t
know. Mysteries of the mind.
So be self-motivated. Don’t give that job away to someone else. The guy says, “Boy, if someone will just come by and turn me on.” Hey, what if he doesn’t show up? You’ve got to have a better plan for your life. You’ve got to have self-discipline.
Doing Your Best
I’ve got a good question for you. Is the best you can do all you can do? Strangely enough, the answer is no. Imagine dropping to the floor right now and doing as many push-ups as you possibly can—and let’s say for some reason you haven’t been doing any push-ups lately, so the best you
can do is five.
But is five all you can ever do? The answer is no. If you rest a little, you can do five more. And if you rest a little more, you can do five more. How did we get from five to fifteen? It’s a miracle!
If you continue that pattern, is it possible to get up to fifty push-ups? Of course! How do you go from five to fifty? It’s a miracle!
So how do you get that miracle going? It’s all a matter of self-discipline. And it begins with one simple step: doing what you can do. Once you have done that, you can keep working to bring your best to a higher level. Each time you complete an activity and take a rest, you’re preparing yourself for even greater accomplishment. But here is a note of caution: don’t rest too long.
Why? Because the weeds can take over the garden. You’ve probably noticed that kids have that figured out. Here’s how they keep things moving: they take rest as a necessity, not an objective. The objective of life is not to rest. The objective of life is to act, to think of more disciplines.
Think of more ways and means to use your own wisdom, your own philosophy. Use your own attitude, your own faith, your own courage, your own commitment, your own desires, your own excitement. Invest yourself in discipline so your talents are not wasted. The smallest of disciplines
can thereby transform your life.
Join that small percentage of truly disciplined people and discover what your best truly is.
Reaping a Multiple Reward
For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. That’s one of life’s great arrangements. In fact, it’s an extension of that Biblical law that says that if you sow well, you will reap well.
Here’s a unique part of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Not only does it suggest that we’ll all reap what we’ve sown, it also suggests that we’ll reap much more. Life is full of laws that both govern and explain behaviors, but this may well be the major law we need to understand: for every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards.
What a concept! If you render unique service, your reward will be multiplied. If you’re fair and honest and patient with others, your reward will be multiplied. If you give more than you expect to receive, your reward is more than you expect. But remember: the key word here, as you might
well imagine, is discipline.
Everything of value requires care, attention, and discipline. Children require discipline. They must have a structure built for them. They must have boundaries to work within so they feel secure and comfortable to explore and grow. They must learn to recognize what’s right and what’s wrong,
what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not acceptable. Children require constant and consistent discipline. Otherwise, they’ll be confused as to how they’re supposed to behave.
Likewise, our thoughts require self-discipline. We must consistently determine our inner boundaries and our codes of conduct, or our thoughts will be confused. And if our thoughts are confused, we will become hopelessly lost in the maze of life. Confused thoughts produce confused results.
Remember the law: “For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards.” Learn the discipline of writing a card or a letter to a friend. Learn the discipline of paying your bills on time, arriving to appointments on time, or using your time more effectively. Learn the discipline of paying attention, or paying your taxes. Or paying yourself. Learn the discipline of having regular meetings with your associates, or your spouse, or your child, or your parent. Learn the discipline of learning all you can learn, of teaching all you can teach, of reading all you can read.
For each discipline, multiple rewards. For each book, new knowledge. For each success, new ambition. For each challenge, new understanding. For each failure, new determination. Life is like that. Even the bad experiences of life provide their own special contribution.
But a word of caution here for those who neglect the need for care and attention to life’s disciplines: everything has its price. Everything affects everything else. Neglect discipline, and there will be a price to pay. All things of value can be taken for granted with the passing of time.
That’s what we call the Law of Familiarity. Without the discipline of paying constant, daily attention, we take things for granted. Be serious. Life’s not a practice session.
If you’re often inclined to toss your clothes onto the chair rather than hang them in the closet, be careful. It could suggest a lack of self-discipline. And remember, a lack of self-discipline in the small areas of life can cost you heavily in the more important areas of life. You cannot clean up your company until you learn the discipline of cleaning your own garage. You cannot be impatient with your children and be patient with your distributors or your employees. You cannot inspire others to sell more when that goal is inconsistent with your own conduct. You cannot admonish others to read good books when you don’t have a library.
Think about your life at this moment. What areas need attention right now? Perhaps you’ve had a disagreement with someone you love or someone who loves you, and your anger won’t allow you to speak to that person. Wouldn’t this be an ideal time to examine your need for a new discipline?
Perhaps you’re on the brink of giving up, or starting over, or starting out. And the only missing ingredient to your incredible success story in the future is a new and self-imposed discipline that will make you try harder and work more intensely than you ever thought you could.
The most valuable form of discipline is the one that you impose upon yourself. Don’t wait for things to deteriorate so drastically that someone else must impose discipline into your life. Wouldn’t that be tragic? How could you possibly explain the fact that someone else thought more of you than you thought of yourself? That they forced you to get up early and get out into the marketplace when you would have been content to let success go to someone else who cared more about themselves?
Your life, my life, the life of each one of us is going to serve as either a warning or an example. A warning of the consequences of neglect, self-pity, lack of direction and ambition… or an example of talent put to use, of discipline self-imposed, and of objectives clearly perceived and intensely
pursued.
Price vs. Promise
Our lives are affected by two major things: one is price, and the other is promise. And it’s not that easy to pay the price if you can’t see the promise.
I think kids are having problems these days trying to pay the price because they can’t see the promise. But nobody would mind paying the price if they could have a clear view of tomorrow—next week, or next month, or next year. If we had the assurance that everything were going to work out, do you think we would hesitate to pay? The answer is no, but everybody hesitates if the future isn’t clear. So we’ve got to do two things to help our kids: help them see the promise and help them pay the price.
It is so much easier to pay the price if we can see the promise. My boxing instructor said, “Mr. Munene, you cannot believe the incredible feeling of walking down any city street unafraid.” I said, “Let’s get on with the classes.” I was willing to sweat; I was willing to put myself through the paces to achieve that feeling.
What would you do for an extraordinary promise? The most unbelievable things. Would you crack the books? Would you burn the midnight oil? Would you engage in the extra thoughts and the extra disciplines if the promise were adequate? And the answer is, of course. But who wants to read, who wants to burn the midnight oil, who wants to put themselves through the paces if the promise isn’t clear? Nobody. So do what it takes to discover what you truly want. Once you have seen and felt that ideal future, that promise of achievement, you will be ready and able to pay any price.
The Time to Act
Engaging in genuine self-discipline requires that you develop the ability to take action. You don’t need to be hasty if it isn’t required, but you don’t want to lose much time. Here’s the time to act: when the idea is hot and the emotion is strong.
Let’s say you would like to build your library. If that is a strong desire for you, what you’ve got to do is get the first book. Then get the second book. Take action as soon as possible, before the feeling passes and before the idea dims. If you don’t, here’s what happens. You fall prey to the Law of Diminishing Intent. We intend to take action when the idea strikes us. We intend to do something when the emotion is high. But if we don’t translate that intention into action fairly soon, the urgency starts to diminish. And a month from now the passion is cold. A year from now it can’t be found.
So take action. Set up a discipline when the emotions are high and the idea is strong, clear, and powerful. If somebody talks about good health and you’re motivated by it, you need to get a book on nutrition. Get the book before the idea passes, before the emotion gets cold. Begin the process.
Fall on the floor and do some push-ups. You’ve got to take action, otherwise the wisdom is wasted. The emotion soon passes unless you apply it to a disciplined activity. Self-discipline enables you to capture the emotion and the wisdom and translate them into action. The key is to increase your motivation by quickly setting up the disciplines. By doing so, you’ve started a whole new life process.
Here’s the greatest value of self-discipline: self-worth, also known as self-esteem. Many people who are teaching self-esteem these days don’t connect it to self-discipline. But once we sense the least lack of discipline within ourselves, it starts to erode our psyche. One of the greatest temptations is to just ease up a little bit. Instead of doing your best, you allow yourself to do just a little less than your best. Sure enough, you’ve started in the slightest way to decrease your sense of self-worth.
There’s a problem with even a little bit of neglect. Neglect starts as an infection. If you don’t take care of it, it becomes a disease. And one neglect leads to another. Worst of all, when neglect starts, it diminishes our self-worth.
Once this has happened, how can you regain your self-respect? All you have to do is start with the smallest discipline that corresponds to your own philosophy. Make the commitment: “I will discipline myself to achieve my goals so in the years ahead I can celebrate my successes.”