Emphasize the positive rather than the negative

We all have some areas where we struggle to be disciplined. For you, it might be your eating or exercise, or finances even. We tend to focus on what we are not doing and what we could be doing better. While there is importance in accurate self-evaluation, I would suggest a different approach as you are working on your discipline: Focus on the positive of implementing a new discipline instead of trying to remove a negative habit or activity.

I want you to focus on addition. Focus on that new, positive action or habit you can start today.

Don’t worry so much about removing undisciplined behavior and actions. Rather than focusing on stopping smoking, as an example, focus on adding exercise regularly to your routine. By adding a new discipline or action, you create a positive new habit. Every new discipline you add has a positive effect on all your other disciplines. Every new activity you add increases your performance and success. As you exercise regularly, you feel better about yourself; your self-confidence increases. This self-confidence increase will make it easier for you to stop smoking in the near future.

Even adding a small discipline creates positive momentum and positive motivation. Select the smallest new discipline you can think of. When you start it and keep consistent with it for a few weeks, this new discipline will start feeding your self-confidence.

One of the biggest barriers to success is the lack of self-confidence, which chokes out the willingness to try new disciplines.

So what new disciplines do you need to add to your day?

Think of discipline as a gift

We all like to receive gifts, and the anticipation of a gift is a powerful motivator. Think about the excitement kids feel on their birthday or Christmas morning. That's the attitude we need to have as we develop discipline in our lives.

Discipline is a gift that can be given through demonstration, and it can be received through observation. I received discipline as a gift from my father. He demonstrated the power of discipline throughout my formative years. Even at 87 years of age, he still demonstrates it daily through routine of early rising, working diligently on his goals and objectives, controlled spending, and passionate service and philanthropy. When I visited him recently, he was building an addition to his barn, framing the roof, and standing 12 feet up in the bucket of his tractor. He is amazing. Discipline is a gift my father wanted to give to everyone he encountered, especially the people that he loves. All you had to do was observe him and you would receive it.

Most of us look at success as a very complex combination of skills, abilities, attitudes, and actions joined together in a magical or secret formula to achieve grand results. Discipline is the fundamental building block that most successful people utilize to achieve greater success in life. Once you have acquired the skill of discipline, it doesn’t matter what the economy is doing or what business you are in, your success is within reach at all times. You possess the most important tool to help you through the storms and changes of life.

Discipline is a crucial missing piece for many people. Most people don’t have someone to demonstrate discipline to them, as I have had. That’s why I truly believe it’s a gift. I would encourage you to make a goal to demonstrate and give discipline to your loved ones.

I believe that, because our country has become so prosperous, we take the need for discipline for granted. Older people in our society remember the sacrifices they had to make to achieve a greater measure of success. People like myself, who were born in the 1960s and beyond, have grown up in a vacuum compared to older generations. We are far too removed from the struggles of the World War I generation, Depression generation, World War II generation, and even the Korean War generation. Those generations needed discipline just to survive. In modern-day America, you don’t need discipline to survive. We have slowed the train down so that undisciplined people can stay on the train. Discipline is the secret weapon of successful people. It is the one big tool that separates them from all others.

Deciding Where to Focus Your Discipline

If we can control and discipline three key areas of our life, we can control and discipline anything. These three areas are the toughest for most people to discipline themselves to take control of:

• Our finances: I meet too many high producers and high achievers who can’t control their money. Their hands are like a colander with lots of holes: The money just runs right through, and it all runs out. In the end, it’s not what you gross; it’s what you net. It’s not what you make; it’s what you keep.

  I always tell salespeople that I can easily teach them how to make another $100,000 in less than a year, but if they don’t discipline themselves to save a good portion of it, I haven’t really helped them that much. We have to learn the skill of increase, coupled with the skill of discipline and control, to dramatically change our financial picture.

• The cleanliness of our home: It takes discipline and hard work to maintain your home. For my wife Joan and me, the battle has increased exponentially with our children, Wesley and Annabelle. Those of you with children know what a challenge this is daily. It’s easy to let the laundry pile up, to not make the beds, to not control the kitchen. It’s easy to let the garage get filled with everyone's stuff to the point you can’t park the cars in it anymore. Keeping the house in order is hard.
• Our weight: For many of us, controlling what we eat and how much we move daily is a tremendous battle. I have to admit this is the one that gets me. I like to say that I'm too short for my weight presently. Given the low probability of an increase in height, I need to be more disciplined about my weight. What I eat, when I eat, and how much I move are disciplines that are a high priority. The discipline part really kicks in when it comes keeping the weight off for the long haul. Anyone can have success with a fad diet to lose some or all of the weight. It takes real discipline to change your eating and exercise habits for the long haul.

As I've said before, anyone who desires success must have discipline. Success is attracted to you because of the person you become. It comes to you due to the plan you are working and the specific actions you take to implement the plan. Success aligns with the law of attraction. You attract success to you. Have you ever known anyone that basically is successful at almost anything they try? That person is adept at the law of attraction.

It takes discipline to plan, to set the necessary time aside to evaluate the conditions, and to construct the plan that takes advantage of the current conditions and skills that you possess. You also need to evaluate the weaknesses that must be addressed to increase the probability of your success. So it takes discipline to plan, and it also takes discipline to implement the plan.

Most people quit before the plan can take full root and work. We live in a society where we all want instant success without significant effort. If we really knew the grand future that awaits us, if we could really see it, touch it, and feel it, we would be ready to implement disciplined activity to achieve it. In short, we would be willing to pay the price to get there.

An effective strategic plan should inject emotion and passion into you. You should be able to feel that emotion and passion. And that feeling, coupled with discipline, will move you to take action.

Taking action is really the goal for a successful person. Discipline is not magical; it’s merely movement — regular, consistent, purposeful. Discipline is the link between your thoughts and your accomplishments.

Mastering your circumstances

We all are faced with circumstances we would prefer not to face. It’s how we approach these circumstances in our daily life that determines the level of success we achieve. The bad things that happen to us happen to all of us. While you might be dealing with a horrible health diagnosis, you must recognize you aren’t the only one who has received this bad news.

Frequently, opportunity and success come to us with an exterior wrapper, like market problems or misfortune. We focus so much on the outside wrapper that we fail to open what's really in store for us inside.

In late 2008, when the economy was in free fall, the real estate market was tanking. The stock market was correcting to new lows. My personal finances and my businesses were taking a large hit in revenue. I had lost 50 percent of the value in my retirement accounts. It was hard to see beyond the wrapper of my latest set of problems. My circumstances, while not dire, caused me to be concerned about my devastated retirement assets. What was required was more discipline on my part to research and understand my options to correct my now significant retirement shortfall. I had been passive in my thinking that a financial planner was more skilled to invest my retirement money than I was. They are trained and educated to make wealth and money decisions. It was undisciplined thinking that caused me to passively let someone else captain my retirement ship. I threw that undisciplined thinking out the window.

I dove into learning and exploring the options I had with retirement assets. What I discovered through study was that I could self-direct my retirement assets into real estate. Real estate is an asset class I know a lot about, so I decided to go all-in on real estate investments from 2009 to 2011 when the real estate market was well below historic values. The banks had foreclosed homes and were giving them away below replacement costs. I knew this circumstance was a rare opportunity. Now almost a decade later, the disciplined action at that time has exploded my retirement account’s asset value.

Being able to master your circumstances, remain positive, and discipline yourself to continue searching for a solution will always lead to success.

Balancing discipline with procrastination

Being more disciplined creates a greater awareness of the need to take action. Change is a constant in life, especially in the pursuit of success. We have to be willing to take action on small changes that are needed and avoid any delays. If I am more disciplined, I am naturally more aware of the power of my actions and how important implementation is in success.

The voice of discipline inside both you and me says, “Get it done.” It says, “Always do the best you can with what you have.” It shouts, “Do it now!” The voice of procrastination says, “We can do it later.” And you think that doing it tomorrow, or when you get around to it, will be good enough. We are regularly cornered with the decision to do it now or do it later. If you develop the habit of taking action now, or very soon, your success will be guaranteed.

Be aware of the age-old concept called the law of diminishing intent. This law creates countless casualties on the road to success. It states that the greater the span of time from when you know a certain action must be taken, to when you actually start to take that action, the lower the odds you will ever take action or do it.

Let’s say you have been spurred through reading this chapter to add a new discipline of an exercise routine to your daily life. You feel quite good and resolved in that decision. But the longer you wait until you actually put on your athletic shoes and start your walk around your neighborhood, the less likely you will ever take that first step. So you can't wait until tomorrow or next week. You're just killing your chances of getting anything done.

My best advice: Avoid the procrastination pattern employed by so many. If you're resolved to do something, then do it now!

Balancing the price versus the promise

We all know in life the concept of delayed gratification: We delay receiving something today for something better, more meaningful, or valuable in the future. We have to understand, balance, and connect paying the price today with the promise of the reward in the future. The challenge is that if we can’t see the promise clearly, we are unlikely to pay the price, or any price for that matter.

If we can see the future — next week, next month, or next year — if we have comfort or assurances that the promise will be delivered to us, then the price becomes inconsequential. The society of today is less aware of the connection. Farmers understand the price and the promise. They prepare the ground for the seed with expectation of the promise this fall of a crop. They then plant the seeds and tend to them by watering and weeding. The promise is fulfilled with a bountiful harvest (with very few exceptions involving drought and other forms of bad weather).

What would you do in a disciplined manner for a spectacular promise? Would you get up an hour earlier and devote it to reading the books? Would you stay up late to craft your goals and success plan? Would you save 15 percent of what you make for the promise of wealth? What discipline do you need to connect the price and the promise to?

Multiplying your rewards from your sowing efforts

As Jesus explained in Matthew 13:3–9, when the seed landed in good soil, a crop was produced. But that crop wasn’t one to one. You don’t plant one seed and get one of anything back. You receive a multiple. In the scripture it says, “a hundred, sixty or even thirty times what was sown.” Think about it: By the disciplined act of first sowing, I can get a thirty-times return, and that's on the low end.

To put this in perspective, I will use money as my example. Why? Because money is easy to count and is relatable to everyday life. If you gave your financial planner $10,000 and he gave you $30,000 in return in 6 months to a year, you would likely be delighted with his services. That is what the scripture is expressing on the low end of the scale. The truth is, you get nothing if you don’t sow. The only way to receive a return is to sow. What the law of sowing and reaping says is that we actually reap more than we sow. In focusing on discipline, when you take disciplined actions and perform activities with discipline, you will reap more than you sow in seeds of discipline.

Here is the bad news as well. When you don’t take disciplined actions toward your success, you will reap more negative outcomes than you expect. This is called the compound effect: Everything in life compounds in its return. We often think of the compound effect for just money and wealth, but everything in life compounds. Healthy eating or unhealthy eating both compound in different directions in our bodies. You can give your kids attention, love, and time, or you can show them neglect and negativity. Both options compound in their lives.

And in your business, if you provide a unique and better customer service experience, if you give your customers good value, your business will multiply in gross revenue and net profit. Your reward will be compounded.

Dealing with the four types of soil you will encounter in life

We will encounter different types of people and different types of circumstances in life. Most of what we encounter can be broken down into the four different types of soil described in the Parable of the Sower. The key to success is to never stop your disciplined act of sowing. The second key is to observe the type of soil that you’re sowing efforts are being invested in.