Discipline? What the?

I know, it’s not like the army where you are told to iron your beds and polish your boots to a mirror shine. It’s yours, my own self discipline I am talking about.

This is something that I have been thinking about for a few months now and the reason for mentioning it today is that everyday I see a pile of books sitting on my bedside table that have been gathering dust. I have been reading one of them for about 2 months now (finally finished it yesterday morning) but the other books sitting there with dust on them? I actually have started all of them but never got round to finishing them.

I am determined to start all over and finish them one by one. And so I launched into “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People”.

Why am I telling you this? Well I it’s got me thinking about my self discipline.

I got an email from Craig Ballantyne about Turbulence Training the other day. If I were serious about my exercise and training I would read them all one thing stuck in my mind from one of the most recent and I have heard him say a few times -

“You can never out-train a bad diet”.

I got thinking about my weight loss and although I want to lose 3kg (about 7lbs) I am not shifting it. I wonder why and despite my best efforts of saying we don’t have a bad diet, it’s clearly bad enough that I can’t outtrain it!

Anyway my point is that self discipline enters every facet of your being. I am working on mine and I know I always will.

I got out of bed late today like I have been getting out of bed later and later each day of last week. It means my days start later and later, I don’t do the things I usually do and before you know it the day is over and I feel as if I haven’t done anything. 

So it’s impact is like dominoes. Knock one over and the rest start falling too.

How on earth could I lose the 3kg if I were not self disciplined? There is no-way. I have to be disciplined with the number of times I train at the gym and what I eat to lose the weight. If 3kg doesn’t sound much I want you know I have been trying to shift it for the passed 3 years!

I was talking to a guy I met a few months ago about getting up in the mornings. He gets up every day at 5am and here’s a good tip for you…. when the alarm goes off at 5am (or whenever), you hit snooze however make sure you turn on the light. The alarm goes off again, this time you hit snooze and you ensure you sit up in bed. The third time the alarm goes off, actually swing out of bed so your feet are on the floor just as if you are sitting on the bed. Before you know it you are awake enough and up enough so you don’t just fall back to sleep.

The trick is discipline though. You have to do these things for it to work.

I was talking with a friend about a mutual acquaintence and although quite openly started off on something, in turn became to embarressed by not continuing to do this thing, that we didn’t see her for the next 8 months.

Whatever it is that you do, that you choose to do, I would suggest looking at the conclusions I have drawn down below and perhaps go back and re-evaluate your decision.

My conclusions:

1. You have to have a reason to do it.
2. Be committed to see it through.
3. Make sacrifices (for me it’s the biscuits with the cup of tea, getting up earlier). You just have to.
4. Make these things a routine. Do them over and over and then they will no longer become a chore, they become part of what you do.

Plans and goal setting are all great things to do, they all help in achieving the things you want to achieve however without the bigger picture, committment and willingness to make sacrifices, then you are probably going to set yourself up to fail. I certainly don’t want you to fail. Just think about the real reasons you start something. What was the last thing you started and didn’t finish? What was it you did for it not to be completed?

My simple answer is it gets too hard and something else looks better to do at that moment in time (so the book remains on the bedside and another book is started).

It’s so easy to give up however there will be that little voice in your head just beating you up for not doing it. I suggest you shut that voice up and just get on and do it. Get it done and imagine how it will feel when you achieve it?

I want to leave you with something I came across recently. It’s from Robert Kiyosaki and he says in his latest book – Increase Your Financial IQ -

“Quitters rarely win… While trying new ventures is commendable, people stop when their problems seem to big to be solved. Failure to push through failure and learn from your mistakes is failure to realise it’s the process, not the money, that makes you rich.”