Do you have the magic ingredient to success?

Good day,

I know a lot of you probably think you have it, but if you're not headed quickly in the direction of your goals, and having at least a modicum of success, you may be missing the main ingredient to success in life. What is it? It's what makes you keep going when you really don't feel like working any more. It's what causes you to keep making changes at your job, or business, or whatever it is you do, until you are totally satisfied it's "right". It's what makes good people great, and keep doing what they do year in and year out.

Ok, if you can't guess what I'm talking about I must divulge the secret - one word, discipline. Yup, that's it. Without it the smartest person can't do much at all. Without it, the most talented people in the world fall flat on their faces! It's the one thing you just can't be successful without, am I right? So do you have enough of it yet? Could it be that is the main reason you aren't reaching the kind of success you have been looking for?

I speak and write a lot about having passion for what you do in life, whether it's your job or business, and I still think that's extremely important to success as well. However, without the discipline to keep focused on what you need to do every day it's very hard to accomplish what you need to do. As they say, good intentions are useless without the follow through, and that is done with discipline. You don't have to be a drill sargeant, but if you can't make yourself do what you have to do on a daily basis, you are just not going to make it this competitive world my friend! It's that simple...

So I guess the question begs - if I don't have enough discipline, how can I improve it? Is it something I can fix? Of course, being lazy isn't a genetic defect, it's just a bad habit like many others. If you have that habit, then you have to break it fast. Will it take some work? You bet, it's gonna take a bunch of work. Like any bad habit you have to first resolve yourself that it can be changed, and they way to break any habit is to be conscious about it and know your weaknesses. You aren't consciously being lazy, are you? It's something that you do without thinking most likely, so start being conscious and in control more each day. Also, write down the things you want to accomplish on a daily basis, this forces you to think about what you know you need to do, and the excuse of "I forgot!" is totally taken away. If you need to, keep that list with you at all times. I must say, I make the lists myself nearly every day because I know if I don't I will forget something, so do it! If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work for you, try harder or try something else. Everybody is different, but some things like this work for almost everybody.

You know, that's the thing about discipline. If you don't have any at all, it's going to be a bunch of work to develop it. But the work will be well worth it, because you will notice your productivity will explode and you will find you can accomplish much more on a daliy basis. Besides what's the alternative? Go through life being lazy and unproductive? I don't think so! You must, for your own good, get this magic ingredient to success. So write it down, tattoo it on your arm, whatever you need to do. Just get it!

To your continued success and happiness!