How can improved self-discipline scale up your business and you personally for greater SUCCESS?
Self-discipline is one of the most important virtues to have for success of any kind. Unfortunately, it can also be one of the hardest to develop. There is good news! It can be developed.
The following are seven ways to improve this essential virtue; thereby strengthening your character toward greater success.
- Work Inside of Your Passion – When you are doing something you love, self-discipline comes naturally. When you do not enjoy what you are doing, self-discipline is quite difficult and much harder to maintain. The most successful people never put off the stuff that is hard or not fun.
ACTION STEP: Power through tasks to accomplish all that you want. - Remove Distractions – Phones, emails, and internet searches can sabotage productivity. Don’t fight them, eliminate them. Checking Facebook every few minutes will interfere with getting things done. Moments turn into seconds, seconds into minutes and soon time passes that cannot be re-captured. How important is your success?
ACTION STEP: Set times to make calls, answer emails, and check social media. - Reward Progress – Take scheduled breaks, eat snacks, get some exercise. Simple little things can provide refreshing and new focus.
ACTION STEP: Schedule something every two hours to break up the monotony of tasks. - Do the Hardest Thing First – Strange but we usually procrastinate on the one activity that brings us the greatest results. We all want the end result to happen with the least amount of effort. Successful people realize the importance of efforts that reap results.
ACTION STEP: Do the hardest task first to enjoy a lighter day with a sense of accomplishment. - Make Decisions – Self-discipline always comes down to a choice. Every moment, you are deciding to do what you need to do; or, to just do what you want to do. To be successful, you must analysis information available then make a decision. Putting off decisions or passing them to another is like putting your head into the sand while a truck runs over you because you could not see it.
ACTION STEP: Record decisions and review later to gauge their success. Never regret what has passed; only review for improvement. - Work within Your Biological Clock – Don’t fight your natural routine. If you are best in the morning, work then. If you do better later in the day, start later. Learn to recognize your peak times to accomplish the most.
ACTION STEP: Keep a daily log for a month of what is accomplished within an hour. Going forward, schedule tasks accordingly with the hardest to be completed when you are the freshest. - Action Equals SUCCESS! – You’ve just got to do it. Forget the thoughts of failure. Ignore the feelings. Don’t worry about how. Just do what you got to do. Many fail. It is the ones who pick up and try again and again that achieve success.
ACTION STEP: Never quit until the race is won.
Self-discipline is not easy. It can be developed with control and focus. But first! Realize do you want SUCCESS?
Rhett Power, Author