Discipline of the self variety is an interesting reality. It can seem hard to live a disciplined life and even impossible, but that’s only because we have no discipline. To increase your capacity to live a disciplined life, you need to start doing the things you actually want to do even though you don’t feel like it.
Self discipline is defined as the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome one’s weaknesses; the ability to pursue what one thinks is right despite temptations to abandon it. The mark of self discipline is when you want to stop, quit, take a break, procrastinate but you don’t. This means that you are not doing anything wrong when you “feel” like quitting and follow through in spite of it. It can seem like you are going in the wrong direction due to the constant necessity to refocus, the length of time it is taking to reach your goal, the fact that you keep losing sight of your goal, but this means you are choosing to live on purpose. This means that you will not settle for a mediocre life.
Grant Cardone is a sales trainer and in one of his books he talks about how for the first three years of his business he thought about quitting every single day. John Maxwell in one of his books talked about how he was terrified to do the things he did in the beginning of his career. Kris Vallotton talks about how for the first fifteen years of leading a home group his nerves would put him in the bathroom. Fear, struggle, constant refocus are signs you are doing it right! They are not signs that you should quit. They are not signs that you are going in the wrong direction. They are signs that you are going up hill. Everything you want is up hill, meaning you don’t accidentally wander into the life you really want. You picture what you want in your mind and you take deliberate actions to create it because the reality is, no else is going to create it for you. That is your job. And you are extraordinarily suited for it.
We are built to work. We have a mind to see the future, a heart to believe it’s possible and hands to turn it into reality. Self discipline is the byproduct of vision. Vision is the picture of the future you keep thinking about. We must commit to our vision and then exercise discipline to create it. When the destination of your vision is what you actually want then the cost for running up hill is worth it. If you try to run uphill but have no destination, you will not last long. But when you have a clear destination, ever step in the right direction gets you closer to where you want to be.
Discipline is the byproduct of vision.