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5 Lessons That Self-Discipline Teaches You to Achieve Your Life Goals
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” — Jim Rohn
Nicole and Chris are strangers to each other and they both live in the same city.
Nichole wakes up before dawn every morning to exercise. She’s immensely focused at work — ignoring distractions and devoting all of her attention to her projects and clients. In the evening, she catches up on her online classes; she’ll be graduating in a few months with her MBA.
Chris, on the other hand, wakes up an hour before work. He’s constantly in a rush and struggles to meet deadlines. The work just keeps piling up and all he wants is to get it out of the way. From one thing to the next with no break, Chris finds himself getting stressed at the end of every working day.
We each spend our 24 hours differently every day. So how do people like Nicole achieve so much, so consistently? How do they have such unwavering focus on their life goals?
Part of the answer lies in self-discipline (or just simply discipline).
Having self-discipline is like possessing a cheat code that unlocks every perk in a game. You could call it the Krabby Patty secret formula because it is quite literally the key to success.
This is essentially what pushes us to deliver, even when we don’t feel like doing so. Don’t get this confused with being motivated. Your motivation can fade or change completely, and when that happens, your self-discipline has to step up to the plate and keep you moving forward — especially when the going gets tough.
What is self-discipline?
Let’s break this down first.
The word “self-discipline” is made up of two parts; discipline is a noun that means “training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The self pertains to yourself and your ability to perform these actions on your own accord.
There are many definitions and synonyms of self-discipline out there, but they all have the same meaning. My favorite definition, perhaps, is this:
