Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Picture yourself saying to your body, “Kissheart you are bright you can make a distinction this semester!” Without self-discipline that intention won’t become manifest. But with sufficient self-discipline, it’s a done deal. The pinnacle of self-discipline is when you reach the point that when you make a conscious decision; it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll follow through on it.
Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Within the domain of problems it can solve, self-discipline is simply unmatched. Moreover, it becomes a powerful teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning.
Self discipline is based on certain pillars of that make it firm and help one walk on it. One of the pillars is acceptance. Acceptance means that you perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what you perceive. This may sound simple and obvious, but in practice it’s extremely difficult. If you experience chronic difficulties in a particular area of your life, there’s a strong chance that the root of the problem is a failure to accept reality as it is coupled with the failure to accept who you are and be comfortable with the same. One of the grave mistakes we may tend to make each day of our lives is failure to accept who we are, where we have come from and where we are now. Acceptance really gives us insight of what we are going through and the courage to know that where we are standing we can be better. As such in reference to self discipline it is good to picture where you were sometime back where you are standing now and really where you want to be. It is so blind of one to think of just standing and moving on without reflecting. You will be bound to propagate the same mistakes you did the previous day. Reflect, learn, stand up and move on.
Another important pillar is will-power. The greatest source of energy to achieve lies within us. It is you therefore and your willingness to work on your discipline that will really matter where and how far you will go. The will power is the ability to set a course of action and embark on it saying, “I can do it, I will do it, I am doing it and see……….I have done it.” In essence it is the starter of your life and provides the force to overcome the power of inertia and hence you are able to move on. One needs to learn how to formulate and maintain strong objectives that are attainable and realistic. These helps one to create a good work plan that sets the way to your destiny. Without these there are no ways you can really maintain your path. Anyway if you were going nowhere, isn’t anywhere a destiny?
The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work. This statement sets us to the other pillar. Hard work. The nice thing about hard work is that it’s universal. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in — hard work can be used to achieve positive long-term results regardless of the specifics. It is what challenges you; it is what demands your energy when you are feeling depleted. Well sometimes may not always be the case but my belief is most of the easy things that we like doing are already saturated and won’t earn us as much. Therefore, it is time to take the challenge and do what is hard. Challenge is good as it help us know what we are and what we are made up of. Some us are tough and able to do great things but because we never take up the challenge, we believe we are not up to the level. That remind me of time while in high school.
I happened to attend a local harambee high school that was not a good performer. Many a time I really use to feel like I belong to the level the Cs and Ds that were the order of the school. One day our mathematic teacher, (oh yeah, blessed thee Mr Gaterina) told me that I was supposed to attend a District mathematic contest. Men, I laughed, this teacher want me take my Ds to the district contest!! He insisted that he was not joking and that I had to it. I went home that day kinda feeling that the teachers were up to embarrass me. On sharing the issue with mom, she was like. “mhhhhhh, that is nice, between now and Saturday if you work hard you are going to make you grades better. You just need to work a little harder.” Mind you it was on Wednesday and mom was thinking I can make it by Saturday? I thought she was nutstoo. The following morning, Mr. Gaterina announces that further in the meeting they agreed that I shall sit for the mathematic paper two (comprises of work of form three and form four) while Sam, (who used to get Bs) would sit for paper one(basically form one and form two work). They couldn’t have consulted me? Did they know that we were still doing form three work (that is in May in form four!!!) worse still the teacher offers me two mathematic text books that am supposed to revise with them, guys am not friendly to text books!!
Well that was Thursday. As we were going home my girlfriend at that time told me that I should do something and make sure that I do not embarrass her. She too insisted that am brighter than even Sam and that’s why I was chosen for paper too, how I don’t know!! With that, for the sake of my love, I started to strategize. Went through few past papers and saw how questions were being set, and saw that if I would be ready with only six topics, then I can count on more than a half.
When Saturday came, there we were at Kiambu High School, with flashy national, provincial and district schools in attendance. I freaked out. My teacher told me that I can make it and that I should relax and remember that no matter how hard questions appear, I knew everything in the paper and I should let my mind to relax. Down with paper I went and when the results came out, there Kissheart was among the top 3 in the whole test. Funny enough none of the top five came from the national or provincial school. Ever since then I get the spring board for my mathematic performance. If I refused to take up the challenge, I doubt I would have made it the far I have.
The last pillar that I would mention is consistency of character, dreams, goals, vision and attitude. Human being can alter their lives by altering the attitude of their lives. One you have set and attitude and character to follow it sort of automatically translate to your life. With consistency one learns how to persist, not to be stubborn but to keep on going even when things seems tough. Remember it is in tough times do tough people rise. Persistence comes from a vision of the future that’s so compelling you would give almost anything to make it real. Persistence of action comes from persistence of vision. When you’re super-clear about what you want in such a way that your vision doesn’t change much, you’ll be consistent in your actions. And that consistency of action will produce consistency of results.
As I finish typing this note am surprised at how I can write, and how I speak to my heart in writing. Indeed I was giving myself a lecture because of a tough paper I did yesterday that I really felt that my failure in it is because of my failure to be disciplined in my studies, consistent and hardworking…….hold on stop laughing at me, think about yourself, what you want to achieve and work towards where passion and self-discipline function synergistically.
