Monday Motivation

Anytime you want to correct a behavior like those listed above or you want to improve a process, it takes focus, dedication and discipline. This week, I will explore the concept of discipline: how easy it is to ignore it but how powerful it becomes in our lives when we practice it.

Great reading,

Diane

P.S.  Please share your thoughts about this email or send future topic ideas to diane@dianeamundson.com  

Discipline is not a "warm" word. As a matter of fact, for me, it conjures up images of a drill sergeant shouting "Give me forty push ups!"

Webster's dictionary defines it as punishment or training that corrects, molds or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.

Most of us have experienced the drudgery of following disciplined steps in a sport like basketball when practicing free throws, in a sales process when making cold calls, or with paperwork that must be complete. Usually, we can see the payoff of being disciplined with improved results but it seems so difficult to maintain.

Let me give you an example of true discipline from someone that is controversial today, Tiger Woods. While you may argue that he lacked discipline in his private actions, I believe most of us would agree he is one of the best golfers in the world. In the book The Big Miss by Tiger's coach Hank Haney, Hank describes a day of discipline for Tiger:

6:00-8:00 am wake up and work out

8:00-9:00 am shower and eat breakfast

9:00-10:30 hit balls on practice tee

10:30-11:00 practice putt

11:00-noon play as many holes as possible

Noon-1:00 pm eat lunch

1:00-2:00 pm work on short game

2:00- 3:30 hit balls on practice tee

3:30-4:45 play nine holes

4:45-6:00 pm putt

6:00-7:00 pm shoulder exercises

7:00 pm dinner

Start over the next day.....

Over eleven hours a day of disciplined practice may be what has made Tiger a world leader in the game of golf. Most of us would not be able to focus this amount of time on any one aspect of our personal or professional life and we may wonder what type of person Tiger would become if he spent this time working on himself versus his swing.

But what if we took just one half or one fourth of our day on an area that we wanted to improve? How much better could we be? With this question, I created a few disciplined steps to help you stay disciplined:

• What disciplined steps have you sustained over the years in your personal or professional lives?
• Why were you able to sustain these steps?
• What about the end result made you want to keep at it?
• What area of your life now needs to see an improvement that discipline could help? Where do you feel pain?
• Seek out others that have found success in this area you want to improve
• Take a leap of faith and create an easy plan of action that will launch you into that new behavior
• Use the same process to motivate yourself in this new area that you are using in other areas of your disciplined life

Question for You:

Is there an area in your professional or personal life that is critical to your success and it needs to see improvement? Are you the best leader, spouse, parent you can be? Where do you fall short?

Action for You:

Seek out others who have seen success in this area and ask what they do. Analyze what helps you sustain a current disciplined process, i.e., brushing your teeth, working out, eating right, etc. From this analysis use similar motivators to keep this new disciplined process alive along with the seven steps listed above.

 "We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment."

Jim Rohn