My mind goes a million miles a minute, and I bet yours does too.
Sometimes you get so distracted by every idea floating your way, you drop the ball on other projects.
Other times, you find it hard to stick with the things you committed to because the new things show “shiny.”
But we’re selling ourselves and our potential short, my friends.
Notice I said “we” here.
I’m just like this too.
What we need is to understand why self-discipline is important and how to improve our discipline.
Self-discipline is important because it is what allows people to rise above their pain and build successful habits. You build self-discipline by changing your mental attitude and sticking with it until the discipline becomes a part of who you are.
Welcome All
I’m Kenny Chapman, and I’m super pumped to be writing for you today.
I’m just honored that you’re taking some time to check-in and really check your own mindset where we’re working on helping people.
Let’s get some control of that driven mind, right?
We all have these driven minds that run around like crazy.
And today, I’m going to talk to you about a pain point, and that is discipline.
We often times we all need to upgrade our discipline.
You need to do better.
For myself, I ended up needing to go into the United States army to improve my level of discipline because I was a punk kid, and I needed to get my…stuff…together, as we might say.
There are all kinds of different conversations around pain points and why we make decisions.
I’ve dedicated my life to helping people improve behaviors, to change the game, and to create the dream life.
Let’s get to it.
What’s A Pain Point?
We were taught that we want to avoid pain.
I’m not saying now:
Hey, let’s run out and find pain today!
but I do want you to think about and realize that sometimes pain is there to serve a purpose.
What if we chose something that was actually painful in the beginning in order to really create the result that we want and change our lives for good in the long term?
One of the greatest people ever to walk the planet in personal development as a speaker and author was Jim Rohn.
He still is one of my favorites.
I know many of you are fans of Jim as well.
Jim once said there are two types of pain that you will go through in life:
- The pain of discipline
- The pain of regret
Discipline weighs ounces.
Regret weighs tons.
Let that land for a minute.
My friends, discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want you to carry around tons of weight on your back in your head and your body in your mind.
The amazing Jim is saying:
Hey, it’s going to be painful either way.
Either implement some pain of discipline in order to really change the game and change what you’re doing and change behavior or end up with a pain of regret when you didn’t take action.
Why Is Self-Discipline Important?
Let’s look at discipline as pain and why it’s important.
Discipline’s an amazing thing.
Discipline can be challenging.
It can be hard to embrace.
But when you look at your life down the road, what kind of pain will make a difference?
What kind of pain do you want?
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather deal with lighter and more temporary pain of self-discipline than the pain of regret.
Regret doesn’t go away.
Discipline helps avoid the pain of regret.
I want to embrace my greatness.
I don’t want to sit there at the end of my life and wonder, what if?
What if I had done this?
What if I had gotten that job?
I wish I could have taken that trip.
Now I’m not saying go live recklessly.
You have to be practical.
I’ve known people who live like there’s no tomorrow with no thoughts for the future.
It looks brave, but it’s just wishful thinking.
My mother operated that way, and my dad operated that way.
And my cousin operated that way.
My previous spouse operated that way, and they just flew in the face of everything, and they didn’t live in a world of reality.
You can’t live like that.
Discipline Vs. Living Recklessly
You’ve got, I’m not talking about recklessness.
Although sometimes, when you live your greatest self, other people may consider it and call it reckless.
Let’s be honest.
Let’s be clear.
Think about what you want out of life.
That’s why as I started creating a self-managing company in the plumbing heating air conditioning world, I took a six-month trip.
It’s why when I was in the army, I became the best soldier that I could be.
It’s why I’ve had multiple businesses.
I’ve created a few successful companies in my time, but I’ve also had a few that didn’t work out.
Was that “reckless?” Was it a “failure?”
Only if it came from a place of recklessness.
Things fail, but if we learn from it and have the discipline to avoid those mistakes in the future, I wouldn’t ever call those things “failures.”
Productive Pain
I don’t want you to focus on regret.
I don’t want you to focus on unnecessary pain, but what if discipline is a productive pain?
What if discipline is something that can actually serve your life?
It can help you move forward.
That can help you do different things and become the better version of yourself that’s available to you.
When we think about pain, what if we could use pain as a driver?
What if you could take the pain and embrace it?
Studies prove that we as human beings do more to avoid pain than we do gain pleasure.
Okay, that’s fine. But what if avoiding pain isn’t actually the goal?
If I’m trying to avoid pain, I’m going to go away from it.
If I embrace the right pain, the right stuffle, I’ve got to have some discipline.
If I’m going to create a new morning ritual, if I’m going to get up and I’m going to meditate every day, if I’m going to work out every day, if I’m going to commit to a journaling practice every day, if I’m going to feed good mental food into my body on a daily basis, that takes discipline and discipline equates to pain.
Why?
Because it’s a different program than I’m used to running.
It’s doing something different than I’ve done in the past. I’m not conditioned to do this on a daily basis.
Therefore new discipline feels like pain.
Make Pain Serve You
But I want you to answer this question for me.
When has pain possibly been serving you?
When is it actually helping you, perhaps?
When we stop to think about it, the brain is a hundred percent wired to solve problems for you.
That’s one of its main functions. It wants to solve problems.
And yet, if you want to remove all the pain in your life, you’re going to end up creating even a bigger problem, right?
Your brain will stop working at its maximum potential.
Giving yourself something to work on on a daily basis is a very healthy thing to do.
However, most of us shoot for the curve when it comes to this.
We end up fighting the same battle over and over, and we kind of create Groundhog day over and over again.
Is Self-Discipline Really That Important?
You better believe it.
In fact, some research says that self-discipline is the greatest predictor of success in life.
Let’s look at this study published in the Association For Psychological Science.
If you asked most people what causes success in life, they would say intelligence.
The measure of intelligence is IQ or the intelligence quotient.
For years, we’ve accepted this, and it still holds true that those with higher IQ are more successful.
But it’s not the biggest indicator.
This study looked at 140 8th graders and their success that year around a number of factors including a measurement of IQ and self-discipline.
The power of self-discipline was almost twice that of any other factor.
This study has repeated with the same results.
I’m no scientist, but I know this means it’s true.
Self-discipline is a must-have for success.
How To Improve Self-Discipline
Number one, discipline is about doing what you have to do when you have to do it.
It’s all about mentality.
Make discipline a “get to” instead of a “have to” thing.
I “get to” wake up and run every day, not I “have to.”
You get to work out.
You get to meditate.
It’s better than the alternative.
I have to write in my journal.
I have to eat healthy.
No, you get to.
You get to be a good steward of finances.
But if you can change this mentality and write a new mental story, your life will begin to change.
I get the opportunity to work out because I have a physical body that I can actually move and I can walk, and I can run, and I can jog.
I get to figure out my credit card debt.
And I get to figure out how I’m gonna run my business a little bit better.
I get the opportunity to solve my recruiting challenge or the issues that I have.
Discipline As A Habit
Here’s the beautiful secret, my friends:
You only have to have the discipline until it’s a habit.
From there, it’s just who you are.
What are you talking about here?
Well, let’s just think about what Webster says when we’re talking about the definition of discipline.
One of the main definitions is: “control gain by enforcing obedience or order.”
That’s what I’m doing when I’m forcing myself to get up with the alarm and get on the elliptical or yoga mat.
It’s what you do when you force yourself to eat your healthy smoothie or journal.
Your gaining control over my situation in your life by enforcing.
I’ve got to do this in order to get it right.
You should make dealing with anger a discipline. Learn how to release anger.
Rise Into The Pain
It’s a discipline until it becomes a discipline.
I can hear you now:
Kenny, you can’t use the same word twice to define it. That doesn’t make any sense.
I had to exercise a lot of discipline when I first started getting into my morning ritual.
When I started committing to my greatness, when I self-care was my number one priority in life, that took a lot of discipline to make it happen every day.
Now, my friend, it is a discipline in my life.
What does that mean?
It’s just a rule of the way that I operate.
It’s a ritual, not a routine.
It happens every single day.
I can’t not do it because it’s now become such a discipline in my life.
So think about where that shows up for you.
Think about how this kind of will manifest for you when it comes to you really doing these things.
Final Thoughts
I have a question for you today as we wrap up our talk about why self-discipline is important and how we improve.
Where do I need to level up my own discipline?
Even if it’s painful, do I need to commit to being a better communicator in my relationship?
Do I need to communicate better with my team?
What do I need to make my goals more clear when it comes to finances?
Set your goal and commit to the discipline until it becomes a discipline.
The pain is temporary, so don’t run away from it.
Remember, the pain of discipline weighs ounces, but the pain of regret weighs tons.
Until next time, let’s make it a better than fantastic week!
You may also want to check out my 3-part change formula.