Everybody, these days, seems to be talking about execution. But execution is a bunch of crap!
The problem is not that people don’t know how to execute, it’s that they don’t. And all the books and seminars on “Execution” are not going to help in the least.
What is lacking is not the knowledge of execution, but the practice of DISCIPLINE!
Without discipline, execution will never happen.
Without discipline people will go on procrastinating and putting off every single activity that is necessary for success—from exercise to right eating, from making the next sales call to making the next product, from actually sitting down and writing the next book to hitting the pavement to get it published.
Every success completely and utterly hinges on the practice of DISCIPLINE! And yet virtually nothing useful has been written on the subject.
People talk of discipline as if it were something just for children and soldiers, but not for the rest of us.
The practice of DISCIPLINE is indeed for the rest of us—that is, if we ever hope to succeed and achieve our full potential.
What Is DISCIPLINE?
Discipline is simply doing what we have decided to do.
It is just that simple.
Discipline is doing what we have decided to do.
If you have decided to exercise in the morning, being disciplined means you get up and do it.
If you have decided to write a book, then discipline is applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and getting it done.
If you have decided to hold a meeting at three o’clock, discipline is starting at three, without delay.
It is not possible to imagine success in the absence of this simple habit of following through on those things that we have decided in advance to do.
So the question is, are you carrying through? Do you do that which you have set out to do? Do you do those things that you have decided when you have decided, and in the way that you have decided to do them?
For a slightly more formal definition, DISCIPLINE is the execution of predetermined things, at predetermined times, reinforced through appropriate feedback.
DISCIPLINE is the execution of predetermined things, at predetermined times,
reinforced through appropriate feedback.
Pay especially close attention to the last part of this definition. DISCIPLINE can be created; and the way it gets created is through feedback, both positive and negative, that reinforces either a disciplined lifestyle or a life of procrastination, distraction, and avoidance.
In the end, DISCIPLINE will create your character. Cavett Robert said, “Character is what lasts long after the desire has faded.”
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