If there is one thing that still impresses my wife, shockingly, as I know I have many admirable qualities, is my ability to stay focused day in and day out. Haha, I brag, but seriously, my planner is a work of art. A super helpful widget. I firmly believe that one minute spent planning saves ten minutes of execution and countless minutes of frustration. I plan my work day the night before and organize those overlapping meetings and discussions, so I am not at a loss when my brain resets as my soul roams another astral plane. Sleep is also referred to as little death, but I digress, as sleeping is my other favorite topic apart from sales.
Write a list.
Clarity in thinking is where it is at. Writing down a list forces me to think at a higher level. It helps me increase my productivity by cutting down confusion. Writing a list forces me to straightaway jump to phase two, which is thinking of what is required to achieve that goal and how I must gather the information for the same. Do not shy away from checklisting the most banal of things. When you write it down, you are not expending energy trying to remember it and are not angry at yourself for not getting it done at the crucial moment. It might just be a trivial talking point with the customer or getting simple statistics from a colleague, a checklist will help free up mind clutter and leave you with space to process better and delve into deeper thinking.
Prioritize that list.
Once I have written my list, I tend to prioritize my tasks on that list. Why do you need to do that? For gaining a better work life balance. If you want to increase your productivity during work hours, so you can enjoy your time with the family better, it is absolutely essential that you tick off the tasks that will bring you mental peace, as they will be the most important for your goals. Apply the 80/20 rule. Which means, if you have 10 things that you need to do, do the two most important ones first. They need not be in a first come first serve order, unless you have been explicitly told to do so. Imagine that you are stuck without internet for a week, what task on your list jumps at you as most essential first? Do it in a needs-must order. This is called Single Handling by Brian Tracy. Completing your most important projects first thing in the day so it gives you a sense of achievement and keeps you self motivated. It helps you get all your jobs done quickly, as you actively want to be in that zone where you are mentally switched off and happy with yourself after accomplishing the most important tasks for the day.
This naturally leads me to the meat of the matter, which is
SELF DISCIPLINE
This one quality will do more to assure that you accomplish wonderful things in your life than anything else. It is so important that if you don’t develop it to a high degree, it will be impossible for you to realize your full potential. You may call it a practice or a way of life, but in my view, it is a personal strength by which we can control our behaviors and abilities to transform ourselves into successful goal oriented people. As Malcolm Gladwell explains, once a person has practiced his or her craft for 10,000 hours, they enter a threshold of genius through which fame and fortune become tangible possibilities. We often see in living examples, that great success in life is often preceded by long sustained periods of focused effort on a single goal. The most important goal. Along with the determination to stay with it until it is completed. Even in history, the most remarkable and worthwhile success often belonged to men and women who had engaged in long unappreciated and tedious hours of focused disciplined work, with a goal in mind that guides them and acts as their work map.
Why is self discipline particularly hard on us?
It relies on delayed gratification.
The world now amazon primes its material desires and Googles their mental curiosities. Spending countless hours over mastering tasks, delaying gratification and keeping the attention focused on the goal throughout sounds like lost ancient art. This is where self motivation and ethics come into play. Against all distractions and oddities, it takes real fortitude to keep onto your projects. To keep in sight of your objectives till all else becomes background noise. It starts with time management, fortifies itself with prioritization and comes to a complete successful circle by concentration like no other.
Consistent self discipline.
As Jim Rohn says, it does not matter how smart you are or how much you know, if you don’t really use it. It does not matter where you graduated from, if you fail to apply your theoretical knowledge. Thus, apply your knowledge, study the result, refine your approach by trying and refining until your knowledge will inevitably produce admirable and worthy results. With the joy that we get from the results, we continue to learn and observe and fuel our ambition with positive reinforcement of continued progress. This leads us into leading a fulfilling and substantial life. A life fuelled by innate confidence in our ability to triumph over dullness and mediocrity. But to enjoy this, we must master the art of consistent self discipline.
What does it involve?
It involves setting goals, time management, leadership, an art of maintaining good relationships, personal or business. To make sustained efforts in achieving targets, so results are not sporadic or elusive, but instead, obtainable, measurable and replicable.
CONCLUSION
Have you experienced bouts of motivation followed by slumps or vice versa? Guess what, every single human being experiences the same. Even the most motivated speakers or coaches go through periods in their life or day where they aren’t exactly geared up to face the world. So how are some people more successful than the others? Thats where self discipline makes such a huge difference. If you have a disciplined routine, it doesn’t matter if you are motivated for that time, because you get into action anyway. And when you consistently take action, the results follow.
You don’t have to change your world upside down. In fact that’s a sure shot way of failing in this ability. Make a resolve and change just one small thing. Be consistent and see your life transformed. All the best!
