Posted on

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.

Posted on

Appreciation: with gratitude

Appreciation is what we are discussing this month at Balanced Life Skills. By showing respect and gratitude for the people, things and places in our lives we can bring a smile and good feeling to both the recipient and to ourselves.
One way of demonstrating appreciation is to say thank you. We can do this when someone has been kind to us, helped us out when we needed it, provided a gift for us or any other act that touches our heart. This is where it gets interesting.
In our busy lives we forget to say thank you or somehow the gift we are given is not really seen as a gift or not valued as it might be. As a leader it is so important to show our appreciation and gratitude as this is a motivator for those around us to do their very best.
If we are a parent we are a leader of the most precious kind. Our recognition of real things in our children – not just saying things to make them feel good – is one way of teaching and encouraging our children to be aware of the things around them that are of value that they can show appreciation and respect for.
Lets try our best not to take the actions or words of others for granted. Lets spend the next 30 days being aware of the special things others do for us and then take the time to express our appreciation.