The Value of Discipline
Introduction
Of all the subjects we have covered over the years, subjects
such as goal-setting, time-management, and personal development,
among others, surely none are more important than that which we
have decided to cover in this book. We are going to look closely at
the disciplines for success - those fundamentals for discovering
wealth and happiness.
But before we look specifically at those fundamentals, let’s
look at the major key to the good life. The major key is not in
learning how to set goals, the major key isn’t in learning how to
manage your time, or in mastering the attributes of leadership.
Everyday in a thousand different ways people like you and I are
trying to improve themselves by learning how to do things. We
spend a lifetime gathering knowledge. Gathering knowledge in
classrooms, from books, and from life’s own experiences. All of us
probably have all the knowledge we need to attract all that we want.
We probably have all the knowledge we need to become all that we’d
like to be. But in spite of the knowledge we spend our time
acquiring, most of us fall short of our goals and ambitions. We
settle for a small fractional part of what we could have otherwise
had, in spite of the immense knowledge we’ve gathered in a lifetime.
Someone once said, “Knowledge is the forerunner to success.”
If that is so, then why do most of us fall short of our objectives?
Why, in spite of all we know and in spite of our collective
experiences, do we wander somewhat aimlessly settling for a life of
existence rather than a life of substance? While there may be many
answers to the questions we have posed, the basic and fundamental
answer is: the absence of discipline in applying all that we know.
That’s the key word: discipline. In fact, we might add one
more word to the word discipline. The other word is consistent.
Consistent discipline.
You see, life is basically a process of gathering knowledge and
learning to apply that knowledge in the world of life and business.
But like anything that is newly learned, we must learn to use what
we’ve learned. Better than knowledge, is applied knowledge. And