No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline (6 page)
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Authors: Brian Tracy
Tags: #Self Help, #Business, #Non-Fiction, #Psychology, #Inspirational
BOOK: No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline
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Becoming an expert in your field, continually upgrading your skills—which I will talk about in Chapter 5—is like physical fitness. If you stop exercising for any period of time, you don’t maintain your fitness at the same level. You begin to decline. Your body and your muscles become softer and weaker. You lose your strength, flexibility, and stamina. In order to maintain them, you must keep working at them every day, every week, and every month.
There is an even more important reason for you to practice the self-discipline that leads onward and upward to the great successes that are possible for you. The practice of self-discipline enables you to change your
character
, to become a stronger and better person. The exercise of self-discipline has a powerful effect on your mind and emotions, developing you into a different person from the one that you would have been without self-discipline.
character
, to become a stronger and better person. The exercise of self-discipline has a powerful effect on your mind and emotions, developing you into a different person from the one that you would have been without self-discipline.
Imagine yourself in a chemistry lab. You mix a series of chemicals in a Petri dish and put it over a Bunsen burner. The Bunsen burner heats the chemicals to the point at which they crystallize and become hardened. But once you have crystallized these chemicals using intense heat, they cannot be transformed back into liquid form.
In the same way, your personality begins like a liquid: soft, fluid, and formless. But as you apply the heat of self-discipline, as you exert yourself to do what is hard and necessary rather than what is fun and easy, your personality crystallizes and hardens at a higher level as well.
The greatest benefit you enjoy from exerting self-discipline in the pursuit of your goals is that you become a different person. You become stronger and more resolute. You develop greater self-control and determination. You actually shape and strengthen your personality and transform yourself into a better person.
The rule is that “to become someone that you have never been before, you must do something that you have never done before.” This means that to develop a superior character, you must exert ever-higher levels of self-discipline and self-mastery on yourself. You must do the things that average people don’t like to do.
Another success principle is that “to achieve something that you have never achieved before, you must learn and practice qualities and skills that you have never had before.”
By practicing self-discipline, you become a new person. You become better, stronger, and more clearly defined. You develop higher levels of self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. You move yourself up the ladder of human evolution and become a person of higher character and resolve.
The wonderful thing about the achievement of success is that every step in that direction is rewarding in itself. Each step you take toward becoming a better person and accomplishing more than you ever have before makes you feel happier, more confident, and more fulfilled.
You’ve heard it said that “nothing succeeds like success.” What this means is that the greatest reward of success is
not the money you make
but rather
the excellent person you become
in the process of striving toward success and exerting self-discipline every time it is required.
not the money you make
but rather
the excellent person you become
in the process of striving toward success and exerting self-discipline every time it is required.
In the next chapter, I will explain how you can become the truly excellent person you are capable of becoming.
Action Exercises:Take out a pen right now and write down your answers to the questions below.1. If your work life and career were ideal, what would they look like? What one discipline could you develop that would help you to achieve it?2. If your family life were ideal, what would it look like, and what one discipline would help you the most to make it a reality?3. If your health were perfect in every way, what disciplines would you have that make it possible?4. If your financial situation were ideal today, what one discipline would you have that would help you the most?5. Why aren’t you
already
as successful as you would like to be, and what one discipline would help you the most to achieve all your goals?6. What one skill could you develop that would help you to realize more of your goals?7. If you could wave a magic wand and be completely disciplined in one area, which one discipline would have the greatest positive impact on your life?
Chapter 2
Self-Discipline and Character
“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard
than anyone else expects of you.
Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself.
Be a hard master to yourself and be lenient to everyone else.”
—HENRY WARD BEECHER,
NINETEENTH-CENTURY CLERGYMAN
NINETEENTH-CENTURY CLERGYMAN
T
he development of character is the great business of life. Your ability to develop a reputation as a person of character and honor is the highest achievement of both social and business life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word that you say.”
he development of character is the great business of life. Your ability to develop a reputation as a person of character and honor is the highest achievement of both social and business life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word that you say.”
The person you are today, your innermost character, is the sum total of all your choices and decisions in life up to this date. Each time you have chosen rightly and acted consistently with the very best that you know, you have strengthened your character and become a better person. The reverse is also true: Each time you have compromised, taken the easy way, or behaved in a manner inconsistent with what you knew to be right, you have weakened your character and softened your personality.
There are a series of virtues or values that are usually possessed by a person of character. These are courage, compassion, generosity, temperance, persistence, and friendliness, among others. We will talk about some of them in Part 3 of this book. Coming before all these values, however, is the most important one of all when determining the depth and strength of your character:
integrity.
integrity.
It is your level of integrity, living in complete truth with yourself and others, that demonstrates more than anything else the quality of your character. In a way, integrity is actually the value that
guarantees
all the other values. When your level of integrity is higher, you are more honest with yourself and more likely to live consistently with all the other values that you admire and respect.
guarantees
all the other values. When your level of integrity is higher, you are more honest with yourself and more likely to live consistently with all the other values that you admire and respect.
However, it takes tremendous self-discipline to become a person of character. It takes considerable willpower to always “do the right thing” in every situation. And it takes both self-discipline and willpower to resist the temptation to cut corners, take the easy way, or act for short-term advantage.
All of life is a
test
, to see what you are really made of deep, down inside.
Wisdom
can be developed in private through study and reflection, but
character
can be developed only in the give and take of daily life, when you are forced to choose and decide among alternatives and temptations.
test
, to see what you are really made of deep, down inside.
Wisdom
can be developed in private through study and reflection, but
character
can be developed only in the give and take of daily life, when you are forced to choose and decide among alternatives and temptations.
It is only when you are under pressure—when you are forced to choose one way or another, to either live consistently with a value or to compromise it—that you demonstrate your true character. Emerson also said, “Guard your integrity as a sacred thing; nothing at last is sacred except the integrity of your own mind.”
You are a “choosing organism.” You are constantly making choices, one way or the other. Every choice you make is a statement about your true values and priorities. At each moment, you choose what is more important or of higher value to you over what is less important or of lesser value.
The only bulwark against temptation, the path of least resistance, and the expediency factor is character. The only way that you can develop your full character is by exerting your willpower in every situation when you are tempted to do what is easy and expedient rather than what is correct and necessary.
The payoff for becoming a person of character, for exerting your willpower and self-discipline to live consistently with the very best that you know, is tremendous. When you choose the higher value over the lower, the more difficult over the easy, the right over the wrong, you feel good about yourself. Your self-esteem increases. You like and respect yourself more. You have a greater sense of personal pride.
In addition to feeling excellent about yourself when you behave with character, you also earn the respect and esteem of all the people around you. They will look up to you and admire you. Doors will be opened for you. People will help you. You will be paid more, promoted faster, and given even greater responsibilities. As you become a person of honor and character, opportunities will appear all around you.
On the other hand, you can have all the intelligence, talent, and ability in the world, but if people do not trust you, you will never get ahead. People will not hire you, and if they do, they will dehire you as soon as possible. Financial institutions will not lend you money. Because “birds of a feather flock together,” the only associates (never friends) you will have will be other people of questionable character. Furthermore, since the people you associate with have a major effect on your attitude and personality, you make or break your entire life with the quality of your character—or the lack thereof.
Aristotle wrote, “All advancement in society begins with the development of the character of the young.” This means that advancement in your life begins with the learning and practice of values.
You learn values in one or all of three ways: instruction, study, and practice. Let’s look at each of these more closely.
Teach Your Children Values.
One of the chief roles of parenting is to teach children values. This requires patient instruction and explaining values to them over and over again as they are growing up. Once is never enough. The value—and the importance of living by that value—must be explained. Parents must not only give illustrations but also contrast the adherence to a value, especially that of telling the truth with its opposite, that of lying or telling half-truths.
One of the chief roles of parenting is to teach children values. This requires patient instruction and explaining values to them over and over again as they are growing up. Once is never enough. The value—and the importance of living by that value—must be explained. Parents must not only give illustrations but also contrast the adherence to a value, especially that of telling the truth with its opposite, that of lying or telling half-truths.
Children are very susceptible to the lessons they receive from the important people in their lives as they are growing up. They accept what you say as their parent as a fact, as absolute truth. They absorb what you say like a sponge. You write your description of values on their souls, which are like wet clay, so that what you write becomes a permanent part of the way they see the world and relate to life.
More than anything else, as we’ll see in Chapter 19, you demonstrate your values in your
behavior
. Your children watch you and strive to emulate the values that you not only teach and preach, but also practice. And they are always watching.
behavior
. Your children watch you and strive to emulate the values that you not only teach and preach, but also practice. And they are always watching.
The Rockefeller family children were famous for being taught financial values at an early age. Even though their father was one of the richest men in America, the children were given tasks and chores to perform before they received their allowances. They were then instructed on how to spend their allowances: how to save, how much to give to charity, and how much to invest. As a result, they grew up to become successful businessmen and statesmen, unlike children who had grown up in wealthy homes who were seldom disciplined in money matters.
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