Leadership Thought #250 – The Importance of Personal Discipline

As somewhat of a free spirit, I have always found discipline challenging. My inclination is to resist structure and “wing it” or “go with the flow.” However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand that this mindset can be detrimental, particularly in certain areas of my life. There are realities that I’ve come to accept and strive to embrace with varying degrees of success.

• If you want to be healthy, you need to schedule regular checkups, work out consistently, and watch what you eat.
• If you want economic security, you need to live within your means, manage a budget, and minimize impulse purchases.
• To help your community, you must volunteer your time and money regularly.
• To be an active, engaged parent, you must be available for your kids and their activities and manage your work-life balance accordingly.
• If you want to be successful in your professional life, you must continually invest in your own growth and development, use your time well, and prioritize the most important activities/responsibilities daily.
• If you want a successful relationship with another person, you must regularly make time for this person and not take them or the relationship for granted.
• To live a religious or spiritual life, you must explore and cultivate this part of yourself through ongoing study, dialogue, and practice.

As adults, there are too many things competing for our time. It is easy to get lost in the fog of responsibility and fall behind. If we are honest with ourselves, we end up using our time very inefficiently and often make it up as we go along. As a result, there is usually some level of imbalance in our lives as we prioritize what is most pressing or convenient.

The problem is that gaps unattended only grow with time, and at some point, the chasm becomes too difficult to navigate. The very thing we value most, our independence and freedom, becomes a victim of the personal stress created by not being disciplined about our decisions, time, and activities. Paradoxically, we end up with the outcomes we most wanted to avoid.

Related articles

• Three ways to build self-discipline (successful-blog.com)
• How self-respect leads to discipline (successful-blog.com)
• Discipline Is Key (dancingwithscars.com)