Discipline by itself doesn’t produce results. It’s how you use discipline to train yourself to create good habits that makes the difference.
People that appear to be highly disciplined practice good habits. They understand that discipline and habits go hand-in-hand, but it’s the habits that create the sustainable success.
It took me discipline to finish a 100-mile trail ultramarathon I completed a few years ago, but it was the habits I put in place to prepare me mentally and physically that made the goal achievable.
Success is about recognizing the most important habits that will help you achieve your goals and using enough discipline to develop those habits into natural behaviors.
The good news is, even if you’re not “disciplined” you probably have enough self-control to put into practice good habits. Once good habits are established, it requires less discipline to maintain the behaviors. Discipline can then be reallocated to create the next good habit.
Identify what you want to achieve; e.g., eating healthy, exercising at the same time every day, spending quiet time focusing on the most important thing each day, carving out time for the people you care about on a regular basis.Then use enough discipline to create the good habits that will allow you to accomplish your goals.
It takes discipline to get a good habit started, but once it’s started, you don’t have to spend any more energy thinking about it. It works.
What’s an important goal you want to achieve? What are the good habits it will take to achieve the goal?