I’ve been working with a client who has a Net Worth of over $1.5 million.
On paper they are doing very well. They have multiple investment properties. They’re living a great life.
Why the hell would they want to work with me?
Napoleon Hill said that,
“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.”
But the opposite is also true.
Every success brings with it the seed of an equivalent failure.
And this is what can happen when you start to experience a level of success in your chosen pursuits.
- You get complacent
- You get comfortable
- You stop doing the things that brought you your success
Have you experienced this before?
This is where my client found themselves.
Their standards had dropped with their finances and money management practices.
What they wanted was help to cultivate self-discipline.
My client told me how they felt resistance around the word ‘discipline’.
This was because their father was quite the disciplinarian when they were growing up. Now they had created a level of freedom in their lives which had resulted in rebelling against structure and discipline – two of the ingredients you need for freedom, two of the ingredients that got them here in the first place.
And this is one of the biggest misconceptions about cultivating ‘self-discipline’.
Most people confuse ‘self-discipline’ with ‘being disciplined’
Being ‘disciplined’ is when an authority figure enforces their standards and expectations onto you.
- You resist it
- You rebel against their authority
- You don’t like being told what to do
Sound familiar?
When we are young we need discipline enforced on us. Children don’t have the capacity to create their own structure and self-discipline without the guidance of their parents.
(And to be fair a lot of adults still struggle with this…)
It reminds me of when I was a boy.
My Mum & Dad disciplined me to practise the piano for 30 minutes before school each day. I hated it. I didn’t choose this discipline.
Although I didn’t like it at the time, I appreciate what this discipline instilled in me.
Self-discipline is choosing your own standards to follow and enforcing them upon yourself
When you become an adult you get to choose what you become self-disciplined in.
The problem is self-discipline is hard. It goes against our inherent nature of wanting things to be easy. Always choosing the path of least resistance.
But easy choices create a hard life.
That’s why we live in a society that are:
- Addicted to junk food
- Stuck in a 9-5 they hate
- Riddled with consumer debt
Choosing the path of least resistance results in a painful existence.
What society needs is more self-disciplined people.
