That quote, courtesy of Jim Rohn.
Here’s the deal: Discipline is what separates most average work, average success and, really, average everything from greatness.
There is a lot to be said for knowing when you are most productive. Charlie Gilkey has a great resource on Heatmapping Your Productivity, but at the same time, you can only be productive if you choose to do something each and every day. That choice eventually becomes a habit, but every day before that takes discipline.
I struggle with discipline. It is so much easier to just let things happen. I have all kinds of excuses, all kinds of reasons why I don’t need to do anything to advance myself today. But I know that if I sit back and do nothing, I’ll lay my head down on my pillow and beat myself up over all the things I should have done. Discipline is really a mind-game. It takes a lot of will power to overcome the lizard brain, so, if you find yourself going to bed and constantly thinking about how you should have done this or that, here are a couple of practical ways to help your mind with discipline:
- Write your goals down + keep them somewhere you see them consistently! I find notecards are great for this. In fact, the picture for this post is on my corkboard right now to remind myself to do something every day. Something concrete. That something is this blog post.
- Set reminders. You need to keep a calendar, either online or in a notebook or something, but set reminders. If you are bad about remembering to look at your calendar, set a reminder that will email or text you. 37Signals have created some awesome products that do just that. I use Backpack {affiliate link} to keep track of a lot of different stuff, but the reminders feature is really cool. I can literally “set it and forget it”.
- Get an accountability partner. This one sounds cheesy, but it is probably the most effective. As humans, we don’t like to let ourselves down, but we certainly don’t like to let other people down. Find someone who you can work with to keep you accountable. A teacher, a mentor even a colleague work great. The best part about it is, you learn a ton from the other person and you have the natural tendency to ratchet each other up.
How do you do it? What other tips and tricks do you find useful in staying disciplined.
