Self Discipline
The Secret to Self-Discipline Rory Vaden
ChangeThis | 96.01
Today’s work environment has been dubbed everything from the Age of Distraction and the Age of Inattention to The Multitasking Generation. The bottom line is this: regardless of your job title, we are all trying to accomplish increasingly more with increasingly less resources—whether those resources are money, time, focus, or energy. How can we achieve success—however you define it— given these constraints?
ChangeThis | 96.01
I
study successful people for a living, and I believe the answer can be boiled down to one word: self-discipline. It’s not a breakthrough idea, and it’s certainly not popular. It’s an old-school way of thinking that has unfortunately fallen out of vogue, but and one that can yield measurable results when applied to the challenges of working in modern business.
Self-discipline can take many forms: the discipline to tackle problems head-on, to manage and protect your schedule, or to stop avoiding the major projects by filling your time with easier tasks. It can also mean simply saying “no” to certain things, in order to free up valuable time and mental space to focus on the things that truly matter. We can all look at our own situations and identify places where better self-discipline could help us improve the way we work and live. But it doesn’t sound easy, and it sure doesn’t sound fun. So, what have these uber-successful, self-disciplined people figured out that we haven’t? I’ve worked with these people one-on-one, and I can assure you they don’t enjoy self-discipline any more than the rest of us. It’s not that they find it easier to do things that most people don’t like doing; it’s that they think differently about it. Self-discipline is not about chores, or punishment, or doing things the hardest way possible. It’s simply about doing the hard things you know you should do, even when you don’t feel like doing them—and then doing them as early on as possible, to boot.
ChangeThis | 96.01
Today’s work environment has been dubbed everything from the Age of Distraction and the Age of Inattention to The Multitasking Generation. The bottom line is this: regardless of your job title, we are all trying to accomplish increasingly more with increasingly less resources—whether those resources are money, time, focus, or energy. How can we achieve success—however you define it— given these constraints?
ChangeThis | 96.01
I
study successful people for a living, and I believe the answer can be boiled down to one word: self-discipline. It’s not a breakthrough idea, and it’s certainly not popular. It’s an old-school way of thinking that has unfortunately fallen out of vogue, but and one that can yield measurable results when applied to the challenges of working in modern business.
Self-discipline can take many forms: the discipline to tackle problems head-on, to manage and protect your schedule, or to stop avoiding the major projects by filling your time with easier tasks. It can also mean simply saying “no” to certain things, in order to free up valuable time and mental space to focus on the things that truly matter. We can all look at our own situations and identify places where better self-discipline could help us improve the way we work and live. But it doesn’t sound easy, and it sure doesn’t sound fun. So, what have these uber-successful, self-disciplined people figured out that we haven’t? I’ve worked with these people one-on-one, and I can assure you they don’t enjoy self-discipline any more than the rest of us. It’s not that they find it easier to do things that most people don’t like doing; it’s that they think differently about it. Self-discipline is not about chores, or punishment, or doing things the hardest way possible. It’s simply about doing the hard things you know you should do, even when you don’t feel like doing them—and then doing them as early on as possible, to boot.