discipline Archives - Page 2 of 4

Focus On The Task, Avoid The Interruptions

Being able to focus in a world of ‘shiny objects’ is difficult to do these days. A ping here, a ding there – notifications have taken over our lives.

What if you could get back your focus and actually do what you really want to do? Distractions are convenient, but your focus must be intentional if you want to reach your goals.

Internet & Social Media

One thing you can do is turn off any notifications that you have on. There may be some that you need as a reminder, but for the most part, they are just a signal for your attention.

What happens as soon as you hear that chime? You stop what you’re doing and you put your focus on that thing. Whatever it is, it’s probably not that important, but you don’t want to miss anything. Everybody wants to be the first to get the breaking news.

Is it worth losing your focus over? What could be more important than working on your plan?

Like potato chips, you can’t eat just one. It snowballs into a full blown hour of scrolling social media and looking at celebrity gossip. This is what a pretty little sound does to your attention.

Discipline Your Focus

Secondly, you could simply build your discipline. You don’t have to look every time something happens. Distractions are all around us, but we choose to allow it to steal our concentration.

After your concentration is gone, it’s very hard to turn back and get on track. The best thing to do is to ignore it in the first place. Don’t take a peak, or even look for five minutes. Keep working away and finish what you started.

Practice staying in rhythm and locking in to what’s in front of you. The more you let a distraction interrupt your attention, the more you have to start over and build your momentum, again and again. Ultimately, nothing gets done.

Attention Seekers

Third, personal relationships can also deter your focus from your goals. People will demand your time and attention, just to make them feel good. Most times, they really don’t want much of anything or they just don’t have anything else to do. They simply want you to provide them with entertainment.

It’s okay to say no. Don’t be afraid to cut a conversation short if there’s something more important that you’d rather be doing. Wasting energy and focus leads to wasting time and we all know that you won’t get your time back.

Other times, people will cause drama to break your concentration in order to give them your attention. Some people actually crave attention and can’t live without it. It’s sad, but true. Don’t let that type of person become dependent upon you and take away your power.

Keep Your Focus In Check

When focusing, nothing should pull you away from your task. Make it a productive habit to ignore the distractions that fight for your attention. It’s hard to be successful when you have weak focus.

Turn off the notifications and practice the art of ignoring those pretty sounds. There’s no secret or trick to making it go away – just reinforce your mindset with discipline and you’ll be more productive!

Being Prepared Is A Life Skill

Ever wonder why things happen to you? Yet, you see other people who seem to skate through the same situation without worry?

It makes you think that they were just lucky – they had money to handle the issue. Their beautiful life goes on, but you’re stuck trying to figure out what to do next.

This is where jealousy can rear it’s ugly head. Instead of seeing the situation for what it is and preparing for the next time it happens, you’d rather have a pity party and keep the other crabs company.

Blaming and complaining is always the easy way out of those negative thoughts that you have. Taking personal responsibility for your lack of thinking (or for anything) is a hard thing to do. It forces you to look at your flaws and deal with them constructively.

If you want to become a person with high standards, you have to do high standard things. Being prepared is one of those things.

Being prepared requires discipline. When a power outage happens and you have no generator to back up your home, it’ll make you think of all the times you could’ve bought one in the past. Your discipline wasn’t strong enough to prepare for the outage and therefore, you have to suffer through the consequences.

That’s the part we don’t like. It’s like someone is laughing at you for not thinking ahead and being prepared like others. Don’t be mad because someone else took the time to buy a generator when it was out of season – be mad at yourself for buying five pairs of shoes, instead of the generator.

How Can You Stay Prepared?

Staying prepared is a habit that pays many times over. The reason many people find it hard to do is because there is no instant gratification. They think they’re wasting money or it won’t happen until much later down the road.

If you know your gas tank is close to empty, put gas in your tank. Better yet, whenever your tank gets to half full, fill it up. Don’t be the person trying to get to work on the last drop of gas (thinking you’ll get it later) and you end up in a traffic jam.

Always think ahead. It will save you so much worry and stress. Would you rather be the one suffering through it, or the one who was able to manage the situation? Staying prepared gives you peace of mind and confidence to get through any situation.

It’s the same with money – money will solve the majority of your challenges. Why not have some stashed away for emergencies? It hurts a lot less when you have the money to fix a broken pipe than having to wait another two weeks for your next paycheck.

This also applies to your health. Eating the right food and exercising will put you in a better position to avoid diseases and weakness, as opposed to eating junk foods and developing an illness. If it can help you become a more healthy person, why not do it?

It takes discipline to exercise, eat right and to save money. Those are just a few examples of how being prepared will pay off in the long run. Just because you don’t see the benefits right away doesn’t mean it’s not a good time to start.

There are many more areas in your life where you can manage your habits a little better so you can get more positive results. Think ahead about what you want in advance and create a plan to get there.

It’s better to live a prepared life, than to play catch up all of the time.

How Discipline Outweighs Instant Gratification

Discipline is a word that successful people are comfortable with, but for others, it’s a Debbie Downer. Having self-discipline allows you to stay ten steps ahead of those future obstacles and challenges.

It takes discipline to achieve any goal, whether you’re a toddler learning to walk, or an adult getting in shape. It may sound repetitive and boring, but that’s where your achievement lives and if you want it bad enough, you’ll use discipline to get you there.

Instant Gratification

The opposite of being disciplined is indulging in instant gratification. Instant gratification is nothing more than doing what feels good in the moment.

Eating cake feels good in the moment, but if you have too many of those moments, you’ll gain weight, among other things. Once you start noticing the outcome, it’s not so gratifying anymore.

We all want to feel good in every moment, but a lot of times, it doesn’t turn out good in the end. Too much of anything isn’t good for you, so you have to be mindful and consider what’s more beneficial in the long run – eating cake all day and feeling crummy, or replacing it with an apple and feeling vibrant?

Yes, it sounds like a buzz kill, but when you experience the results that you thought were impossible, it feels awesome! Discipline turns some people off because they can’t see an immediate change, but all you need is a strong focus and determination to reach your desired outcome.

The person who decides to save a dollar a day, will benefit more financially down the road, than the one who decides to spend a dollar day. Not only will they be in a better financial position in the future, they will also have developed a mindset of discipline.

Discipline Is A Major Advantage

When your friends want to go out and have a good time every Friday and Saturday night, that’s instant gratification. When you make the choice to stay home and work on your side business, that’s discipline.

Who doesn’t want to have a good time on the weekends? You deserve it, right? Who wants to stay in the house, working on their future all the time?

Spending most of your paycheck as soon as you get it is not the move. It feels good over the weekend, but when Monday comes, you’re back to where you started. Having discipline will take care of that ‘back to rock bottom’ feeling.

Discipline is not sexy. It’s not the fun or hip thing to do. As boring as it seems, it’s the best tool you can use to prepare for the best results of any goal in mind.

Drinking water everyday, or putting money aside for unexpected emergencies can be hard at first, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Drinking water for two weeks will show the glow in your skin and the energy in your step. Having money saved for those little emergencies won’t blow your bank account back to zero. Being disciplined is a major advantage.

Discipline Gives The Best Rewards

If you’re not used to making small sacrifices in order to meet your achievements, take it one step at a time. The most important thing to do is start.

You don’t have to save $500 every week – start with $10. You don’t have to start doing cardio an hour a day – start with 10 minutes and build. That’s how you develop discipline and eventually, dominate life.

Discipline gives you the best rewards. No one can be their best without practicing some form of self-control. We all want to live our lives on a beach, not worrying about money or going to a job we hate every morning. In order to do what you want to do, you must do what you have to do. It’s going to take time and a strong, consistent effort, but that’s discipline.

When you master self-discipline, you grant yourself more options and opportunities. Take hold of your future by building your discipline, today.

#BeGoalden

#TBT: You Don’t Have To Like It (Just Do It)

You’re ready to start committing to your goal. You’ve done all of the research and you know what it’s going to take. The plan has been thought out and you’re prepared. The start date comes around and you realize that you’re not feeling it. It looked good during research, but now it’s time to do the actual work.

When people say they want to reach a certain goal, they mostly think about the parts they like to do. This can be fun and it’s part of the reason why you want to do it, right? Everyone says, “Follow your passion! Do what you love!” That’s called a hobby. If you want to make a living off of what you love to do, it’s called a business.

Now, you have to do business things. It doesn’t seem so fun anymore. You can only get paid under the table for so long. You will run into someone who will ask you to fill out an I-9 or W-9 for whatever type of tax or identification purposes*. Now, you need to temporarily stop baking cupcakes and start doing the paperwork necessary to make your business official.

Yes, I know you hate paperwork and filling out different forms and making payments to cover your business name with the state, etc. Well, you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. While you’re baking those lovely cupcakes, you also have to make time for the things you need to do to make your business grow and to generate more customers. You can pay someone to do these things for you or you can take the time and do it yourself. I know it’s laborious, but you should always aim to have all of your ducks in a row.

You just learned that you need a license in order to bake those lovely cupcakes you’ve been baking for the last ten years. You already know how to do this, so why do you need a license? Well, it’s the law (for example purposes). If you get a surprise inspection one day, you’ll be glad you did it. Get your lovely cupcake baking license and keep moving forward. Want to be recognized as a woman-owned business? That’s a task – you’ll need the last three years of taxes, articles of organization, the date your business started, meeting minutes, NAICS codes, etc*. Ask anyone in a legal business and they will tell you that there’s much more to running a business, other than doing the part you love.

It sucks that these things come up, but don’t let it ruin your passion for those cupcakes. There are many other things you will have to do, just so you can bake those lovely cupcakes. As your business grows, you’ll be able to hire someone to help you with the boring, tedious paperwork. Again, you don’t have to like all of the exhausting, monotonous work, but you have to do it. Don’t let it stop you from starting your business. Everyone has to do it – no one is picking on you. If it’s needed, then do it. Plain and simple. The complaining and whining will only hinder your progress.

One more time: you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. If it was easy, everyone would be successful.

*The examples in this post are merely used as a guideline in starting a fictitious cupcake business. Please do your own research in order to succeed.

Intention Will Get You Farther Along Than Hope

It’s the beginning of the New Year and everyone has a resolution. Most resolutions are created in the spirit of the event, but very few are realized in real life with intention and focus.

What normally happens is, we begin to hope. We hope that we can lose weight or we hope that we can make more money. Hope doesn’t do what intention will do.

How Far Can Hope Take You?

When we’re young, people often ask us what we want to do when we become adults. No one ever tells us the details in order to get to that destination.

This leads us to hoping and wishing for the desired result. If we don’t know any other way to become what we want to be, we don’t don’t how to take the necessary steps to get there.

You can hope all you want, but the only thing that will change is the amount of time you’ve wasted. A car that doesn’t move doesn’t go anywhere. Thinking about the destination won’t magically get you there and hoping won’t either.

Hope is a good place to start, but it won’t carry you to your end goal. Now, we must connect our hope to intention. When the connection is made, things will start to happen and you will see more opportunities to grow.

Intention Involves Work

Intention is where the real work begins. Doing things on purpose builds your character and allows you to design your own path to success, with confidence.

Do you hope to win the game or do you practice in order to have the best advantage to win the game? Will you hope to read two books in one month, or will you come up with a strategy to read two books in one month?

The difference is night and day. Hope feels good in your mind, but intention will actually exercise your mind to get to where you want to be.

With intention, you know what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. You create a deadline and you think of alternate ways of following through. If you don’t make your deadline, you intentionally keep going anyway.

Be intentional with your free time. Create strategies to reach your achievements. We see successful people, but we don’t see the intentional work that went into their accomplishments.

How To Be Intentional

Understand that being intentional will take work (that’s why it’s called intention, not hope). Make your habits a daily practice in your life, so that you are making progress, everyday.

Make a detailed plan and put aside time to do productive work. This means actually doing the small things that will eventually lead to the big things. Don’t hope you’ll start walking this week, actually get out the door and walk to the end of the street.

Even if you don’t have the appropriate gear, it shouldn’t stop you. There are some things you have to do or figure out along the way, but the most important thing is to start.

All you need to do now, is walk everyday to the end of the street. As the days continue, go farther to develop your stamina and endurance. This is how you develop a habit with intention, which will lead to reaching your goals. There’s no other way to get there – you must simply make a detailed plan, put in the time and DO IT!

Stack The Odds In Your Favor

Nothing happens just because. People accomplish what they set out to do by being intentional and deliberate with their habits. Again, you may see their success, but you never see the details that produced it.

Make it where you will see progress in your life. Only you can force yourself to have better focus, discipline and consistency. Demand more from yourself than others. Know that it won’t get done, unless you take on the personal responsibility and do it.

Instead of looking at the next year, concentrate on today, this week, next month or the next ninety days. Once you begin, you’ll see results within a month and definitely in a year.

Don’t cheat yourself. Be productive on purpose, but most of all, be more intentional than hopeful.

#BeGoalden

How To Achieve Big Dreams With Small Steps

Having goals and dreams are an important part of success. How would you know where to go or what to do without some sort of plan in place?

Having a strategy will give you direction, but what else do you need? When we’re asked what our dreams and goals are, we normally respond with our hopes and wishes. That’s great, but that won’t be enough to get you there.

“What Are Your Dreams And Goals?”

“I hope I can make lots of money! I hope I can work for a top 10 company!” This is how we look at our goals. We know the results we want, but we don’t think about the details and how we’re going to get there.

Everyone wants to make a lot of money, but the most important thing is how will you make it happen? Exactly, what do you need to do? Do you need to go to school for training? Are you able to work as an apprentice? Could you read a couple of books and get started right away?

Seeing the big picture is the blueprint of your goals. The other aspect you must focus on are the details.

Details Create Results

Everyone wants a chocolate cake, but no one wants to go through the process of making it. Sometimes, it’s enough to make some people not want it at all.

If you want your dream bad enough, you’ll work through the small details. Hoping and wishing will not get you the results you’re looking for. Yes, it’s important to have faith and believe in yourself, but you must back that up with action and the action is in the details.

Don’t be afraid to tackle the process – it’ll be well worth your time and effort. Being lazy about it won’t bring it to life.

The details are what make your dreams come true. It doesn’t happen overnight – you have to continue to move forward, even in the face of adversity.

Obstacles And Challenges

Working through the process also comes with hurdles that you must solve and get over.

Obstacles and challenges can occur at any moment. Remember, this is not permission to stop, but to figure it out, become smarter and move on. These inconvenient mishaps are what teaches you lessons and make you stronger.

Also, you will make mistakes. No one has ever achieved their goals without getting things wrong. Making a mistake simply gives you feedback and allows you to create a better way of going about your strategy.

Dreams Aren’t Easy

People on social media make achieving their dreams look so easy and stress-free. No one posts about their failures and setbacks. All you get to see is the pretty side of success.

We know the end result of what we want, but let’s not forget to do the hard part and fill in the details. The details are where you actually build your dreams.

No, it’s not easy and you won’t get it all done today. What you can do is start today by being productive and intentional by working on your plan. Write down the little things you need to do on a daily basis to see the big picture.

The results are the byproduct of your journey. If you concentrate on the details while keeping the dream in mind, you will accomplish what you set out to do and possibly more.

#BeGoalden

You Have a Choice: Discipline Or Disaster?

Consider how productive your life would be if you had to choose between discipline or disaster. Everyday, we make the decision to create good habits, or to take the easy road.

Your daily habits lead to the outcome of your life. If you choose to be intentional with what you practice, success is very attainable.

If you decide to let life lead you and go with the flow, it can be disastrous. It’s your choice: live with discipline or suffer the consequences of potential disaster.

Life’s Path

Understand that you are in control of your life. Whether you were born with certain advantages or not, your life is still your’s to create.

You can only do what you can manage. Things happen out of the blue that aren’t within our control – those are the situations we have to adjust to.

The things you can control will drive you towards your achievements, but only if you make the right choice. You are able to control many situations like when you sleep, what you eat, when you study, and making good and bad choices.

The outcome is the result of those habits that you can control. Let’s see how building the habit of discipline can guide you toward accomplishing your goals.

The Discipline Habit

Discipline is the foundation of becoming successful. It takes focus, consistency and other characteristics to get there, too, but they all fall under discipline.

Your mindset plays a big part in being disciplined. Being disciplined requires you to do things that are not easy – it’s when you make the difficult choice, instead of the easy choice. When you want to eat that piece of cake, but you choose the apple, or when your friends go out to party, but you choose to stay home and work on your craft.

Doing the thing that will lead to long term, positive benefits is definitely a challenge, but it can be done. When you have to make the conscious decision to do what you’re not used to doing, even when you don’t feel like it, you’re building the habit of discipline.

What happens when you don’t have the habit of discipline?

Unconscious Disaster

When you aren’t disciplined, you’re allowing life to happen to you. If you don’t control your daily habits, it can potentially lead to a disaster.

What happens when you don’t pay your bills on time? You have to pay late fees and ultimately, it will affect your credit score and then you’ll have to pay more interest for a loan. See how that breaks down in the long run?

What happens if you don’t exercise and eat right? You may gain weight and have less energy. When your kids want to play with you, you easily give out of breath and have to sit down. A heart attack may surprise you one day and after staying in the hospital, you’re hit with a huge medical bill.

Think ahead – your decisions and actions have consequences. Some of these can end up being disasters that can last a lifetime. Make sure the results you want will benefit you in the future.

Choose Your Discipline

Being disciplined is hard, but so is dealing with a potential disaster. If you can direct your life away from misfortunes, it should be an easy decision to make.

Choose your hard. There are habits we can control, to the point where we can influence the results that we want. It may not turn out in our favor sometimes, but adjustments have to be made in order for things to grow and work out.

Don’t settle for instant gratification – think long term. The more disciplined you are now, the less disaster you will face in the future.

We aren’t able to control every aspect of our lives, but let’s make the best of the parts that we can control. Life does happen, but we do have the ability to lead our lives in a more positive and disciplined direction.

#BeGoalden

Emotional Discipline

Having emotional discipline is important. Anyone can say anything to push your buttons, but you must recognize when they are doing so, in order to respond accordingly.

This is what catches most people off guard. They get so wrapped up in what others are saying, that they quickly react without thinking. Before they know it, the situation grows out of control.

When you have discipline over your emotions, it allows you to think from a calm place. You can respond instead of reacting, while your mental energy remains intact.

Some Things Don’t Deserve A Response

Realize that no response, is a response. There are some things that don’t deserve your emotional energy.

If you react to everything that happens to you, your energy will be wasted. You will tire yourself out mentally before the day is over with.

Pick your battles. Learn to stay calm and respond from a place of peace. Everything doesn’t deserve your power or acknowledgement. As soon as you give in and react, it’s out of your hands – they win.

Responding vs. Reacting

Some may think that responding and reacting are the same thing, but they carry different meanings.

Reacting is when you answer back to something instantly – it’s your first reaction to what someone has said or done to you.

The first reaction is not always the best reaction. When someone criticizes you, you instantly want to criticize them back. Now, you are in their control because you’ve given your power to them by reacting.

When you respond, you take a second to think. If someone criticizes you, you either ignore them or quietly reply with a smile. It shows that you are not bothered and no matter what they say or do, you won’t stoop down to their level.

When you are in charge of your emotions, you maintain your sense of control. As soon as someone can get you to react, they are in command of the situation.

You Don’t Have To Win Every Argument

Believe it or not, there are some people who like to argue, just for the sake of arguing. It’s like a sport – whatever you say, they will say the opposite, just to spark a reaction.

When we get into heated debates and arguments, our immediate objective is to win. We have to prove ourselves and show that we are right and they are wrong.

When you come across people who like to play ‘devil’s advocate’ for sport, let them win, or don’t participate at all. They will not let go and it will drain the energy right out of you. When they’re done, they walk away with a smile, while you are left feeling defeated, for no good reason.

Discipline Yourself

You may not have the ability to control others, but you can surely control yourself.

Remember, you don’t want to give up your control to anyone else through letting go of your emotions. Letting others successfully push your buttons is a way to break your emotional discipline.

Remain calm and hold your position. Know that some people will say things just to make you angry, but you don’t have to accept their foolishness. Learn to let it go and keep your mental energy in a positive place.

#BeGoalden

3 Distractions You Can Avoid To Gain An Edge On Life

Building yourself in a world full of distractions is difficult. Knowing how to gain an edge on life can be a great benefit to you.

What do you do in order to get ahead? Do you possess the traits of a person worthy of success? Are you willing to put forth the effort to separate yourself from those who are average?

3 Distractions You Can Stop Today

Stop gossiping. Why are you talking about someone else? It has nothing to do with you. In fact, discussing other people’s personal business is one of the biggest distractions. Never mind what they’re doing and how they’re doing it – if it has nothing to do with you, it shouldn’t be up for discussion. Talk about how you’re going to make yourself better and more productive.
Don’t be jealous. I understand that it’s hard to not pay attention to how well things are going for others, but being jealous doesn’t help. Again, if it has nothing to do with you, don’t give it your energy. We all have a unique journey and some people reach their goals faster than others. Also, you don’t know the backstory of how they got there. Take your focus back and use it to follow your own path.
Never hold a grudge. Let it go. You’re only hurting yourself when you hold a grudge against someone. Every single time you think about it, you’re taking away precious time from your life. It gives you unnecessary anxiety and stress. Whatever happened, forgive them for your sake and move on.

1 Thing You Can Start Today

If you can discipline yourself to stop doing those three things, you’ll notice a shift in your personal productivity.

There’s one thing you can do to help you gain that edge – do more. No matter what it is, do more. Even if you do just one more, that’s more than what the average person will do.

Over time, doing more will give you an advantage. When you read one more page, do one more rep, or make one more call, you’re preparing yourself to win. Doing one more will give you the advantage, but you won’t know until you practice it.

Give Yourself A Chance

No one is going to do it for you. It’s not just going to happen. If you stop gossiping, being jealous and holding grudges, you’re way ahead of those who enhance those habits by scrolling through social media and watch reality TV.

Give yourself a chance to build your life into who you want to be. You have a choice to be distracted or to be focused. Concentrate on yourself and mind your own business. Whatever it is, do more than needed and you’ll gain an edge on life.

#BeGoalden

Raising Your Standards

Being comfortable with where you are could be a sign that it’s time to raise your standards. Challenging yourself may seem boring and unproductive, but in the end, it pays off.

How does it pay off? When you start developing a good habit, it follows you throughout your life. It will show up in how you do everything. You may not be able to recognize it right away because you’ve been working on it for so long, but others will be able to notice it and see your potential.

Think Differently

How do you get better results? What can you do to separate yourself from the average person? Why do you even want to challenge yourself when no one is paying attention?

You get better results by going the extra mile. Most people can do what they’re asked to do, but very few will go the extra mile. How do you go the extra mile?

Going the extra mile means you take it one step further, even when no one is watching. Run one more lap. Read one more page. Save one more dollar.

Do what others aren’t doing.

Raising your standards is where growth happens. You are doing more than the regular person to become better. It doesn’t happen all at once, but you will improve one step at a time.

Stretch Yourself

Even when it seems like you can’t do one more, take a deep breath and go for it! It might hurt, but it won’t kill you.

Get into the habit of doing more. Doing more will allow you to create a pattern of never giving up. When the others stop, you keep going.

This is a characteristic that is only found in people who are disciplined and focused. Distractions will not get in their way. Limiting beliefs will not destroy their work ethic. They know they can only grow if they stretch themselves.

Get Rid Of The Excuses

It can be done, you just have to believe it and raise your standards.

There are many people who are ready to give you a million reasons why you should stop and how it’s a waste of time. These negative comments begin to stick in your head.

When you’re alone, thinking about going the extra mile, those voices will speak to you:

“Who are you to do this?”
“That will never work…”
“You don’t even know how to do that.”
“Why don’t you relax, it’s not going to happen anyway…”
“Who do you think you are?”

All of these whispers are floating around in your head, but don’t let it hold you back. It feels good to do more than what’s expected of you – it defines who you are and what you’re capable of. All you have to do is follow through.

Stop Expecting It To Be Easy

Greatness is within you, but you have to do the work in order to activate it. That means not listening to the naysayers and expecting things to come easy.

We want things to meet us where we are. Greatness doesn’t meet you where you are – you must get up and go to it! Rise to the occasion and display your best efforts.

It’s not going to be easy. If you want to step into your future, there is work that has to be done. Raise your standards and meet your potential. You’ll surprise yourself at how productive you can be and how far you can go.

#BeGoalden