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Discipline: Thinking for yourself

All of us have friends that we like to hang out with and do things with.  Not all of our friends and acquaintances will have the same goals or even values that we have.  So what would happen if one of our friends asks us to take part in something that is not a good choice for us?  We know what that is called.  It is peer pressure.

No matter your age there is peer pressure on everyone and all of us must use our discipline so we do not allow others to get in the way of us making good choices for ourselves.  Every choice we make is going to have a result or a consequence.  It can be good for us and move us closer to reaching our goals and living our values or it can be bad for us and result in a bad consequence.

What would happen if we gave in to peer pressure to use drugs or alchohol, take part in an unsafe prank, or to not tell our parents the truth about a matter?  What would happen if we allow others goals for us to sway us from our own goals?

Even as teens and adults we can be swayed to consider following a line of work or education that does not really fit into our ‘purpose’ in life – or into what really makes us happy.  Then years later as we trudge through life and realize we are not happy, we may blame others for making us follow a certain course.  

Be 100% responsible for yourself. Recognize that “Discipline is remembering what you want.”  So what are the goals you are going after, that you really want to reach?  Think for yourself, do not be pushed by others to do something that is not in line with your goals and stay focused.  

Just because your friend are doing it – does not mean that we should do it too.  When you have discipline, you think for yourself!

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What makes disciplined people successful?

Have you ever noticed that those who reach their goals, that is achieve the things that they want, always seem to be the ones that do what is necessary, even when they don’t feel like it. 

There are many individuals who would have loved to have been in the Olympics, but there are very small percentage that the discipline to do what is necessary to get to that level of success and even less that place in the top 3 in the world.  If we look at what the most successful do though we see that every part of their life they practice discipline – so they can reach their goal.

How do they do this?   There is much involved but we could say that they work hard, plan ahead, practice, and schedule the time.  They know what they want to acheive and  then they practice what we will call WBP.  WBP stands for Work Before Play.  When we use our discipline we set our goals, make a plan, maybe get a coach to help us, then schedule how we can accomplish the goal, then we WBP.

No excuses, no goofing around, no doing it halfway.  We don’t play at it, or allow other activities to get in the way of it we just “Do it!”  There will be no procrastination… or if there is we recognize it immediately and complete the task at hand.

I have been working on this for so long and recently I read a book about getting things done that are important for the progress of my personal growth as well as reaching my goals.  The author, Brian Tracy, said “eat the big frog first”.  He went on to describe how everyday we should make a list of the three things that would have the biggest impact on our lives or business.  Then the hardest, most difficult of the three should be done first and stuck with until it was complete.  Eat the biggest, ugliest, stickiest frog first.  Then be sure to complete all three tasks no matter what in that day. 

Why?  Because when you get rid of that one you have a sense of accomplishment and the rest of the frogs don’t look that bad.  I have been trying this and it has been working very well for me.  You may want to try this too.  Having said that some of the hardest things to be disciplined about though is our diet and exercise.  More on that next time.

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Discipline is about following rules

All of us have rules to follow.  Some of them are created by others like our parents, teachers, bosses, legislators and these could be refered to as external rules.  We follow these rules because for the most part they make things safe, fair or are just good manners in the society that we grow up in. 

A second kind of rule though is rules that we make ourselves follow.  These might be called internal or “self rules”.  There is no one there that makes us do them –  we choose to do so because, it is the right thing to do. 

For instance, there is no rule that says that you cannot be lazy.  However we have have that rule inside of us.  It may say to us that we should work hard at school, work, personal development, physical activity etc…  

That is discipline, to be able to follow the rules that we create for ourselves or follow the rules set by others and do so even when no one is looking.  Having this type of discipline shows that we have respect for ourselves and for others.  In fact the great thing about this is that this type of discipline and respect for ourselves will give us the opportunity to succeed. 

So here is an assignment to think about.  List some of the rules that are important to you to follow.  They may be self imposed or those from external sources.  Then rate yourself on a scale of 1 – 10 on your tendency to show discipline by following those rules – even when no one is looking. 

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Special awareness day invitation

 

On September 19 at 9 AM there is a walk of awareness that is taking place in Annapolis to support suicide prevention.  While this is a subject that is hard to approach and one we hope we may never ‘have’ to talk about, it is one to be aware of the signs and what we can do to prevent the feelings of stress and depression to escalate to a more serious situation.

I would invite you to come with me on this walk and to support the Out of the Darkness organization in there quest to provide support and information to our community.

I have started a team of walkers on their website and contributed to a goal of raising $500.00 to support this organization.  The team is called Balanced Life Skills.  Please join me for the walk or if you are not able to do so please make a contribution of any size to be sure there is help and education on this subject for our community.

Go to:  Out of the Darkness Community Walks
Participant / Team Search: balanced life skills
Click on Team Balanced Life Skills
At bottom of the page “Join this Team”

When you are done you can get your own Personalized Sponsor Sheet and raise money for the walk.

The walk begins at 31 Rowe Blvd.  Annapolis, MD Registration is at 8 AM and the walk begins at 9 AM   See my special invitation.  Please include your friends in this cause.

 

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Clean up of our waterways

I have just learned that September 19th is an international day devoted to cleaning up the waterways and is used as a day of awareness of what we can do to contribute to the health of our oceans and rivers.  I would like to invite our school and community to join with Balanced Life Skills in creating one or more projects that we can do on that date to help in this cause. 

If you know of a beach or creek or any waterway that needs the attention of humans – to undo what humans have done – please contact us so we can put groups together to spend this one day working on this important type of self defense. 

Talk to your friends and neighbors and lets make a difference in our environment.

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Citizenship: Definition

 

 There are so many ways to demonstrate good citizenship.  We are all a part of many communities starting with our family, schools, community and the world.  Guiding ourselves and our children to be inspired to help others and make the world a better place is a worthy goal.

 

 

 

Young students:

Citizenship means: I take care of where I live, work and play!

Older students:

Citizenship means being a caring, helpful and responsible member of one’s community.

There will be more discussions on this site of this word to help everyone discuss it with their own children and to look at it more deeply with themselves in the coming month. Check back with us or you may join our community for even more information.