Discipline Defines You
What do Kevin Durant, Mike Tyson, George Washington, Michael Jordan, Einstein, and Kobe Bryant have in common? They are all esteemed for their tremendous discipline. Whether its an athlete, politician, musician, or even a family member or friend you look up to, it is most likely because they demonstrate tremendous discipline.
Although we esteem this quality to the point of paying hundreds of dollars to see our favorite performer live, or attend a conference with a lauded business guru, we often fail to apply it. You see at the first sign of opposition we typically don’t apply discipline.
My son and daugther train 3x per week, period. This is no matter whether it is rain or shine, whether they feel like it, whether they have time or not (Yes we take breaks and miss from time to time, but less than 1-2 per months over the course of 12 workouts).
The clients I work with who employ this trait, without exception, are elite. Not because they are doing anything special, other than applying tremendous discipline. It’s definetly not me, many of them don’t work with me 3 days per week, but they will implement training on those days some other way. The point is they are super consistent in executing their plan of improvement.
Perhaps therein lies the problem. You see we don’t view discipline as special when it comes to us. Although we admire it in others, we acknowledge it’s power when it comes to investing, eating, or even religion, but we still think its not a big deal to stifle our momentum when we take days off.
When was the last time you watched a game when Team A was losing by double digit points, and all of a sudden they began to go on a run? It may have started with a steal and a put back, then a drive and a free throw, then a three. All of a sudden the atmosphere starts to shift and you begin to think, ‘they are going to come back and win this game., and they usually do.
Team A has leveraged the power of momentum. Getting defensive stop after defensive stop, and bucket after bucket didn’t vanquish the opposition in one felt swoop, instead Uncle Mo took his sweet time to show up…but when he did manifest it was as an unstoppable force destined to bring about wins.
I’ve recently witnessed the phenomenon of discipline/momentum in my nutrition. My goal has been to return to 12.5% body fat, down from a current 14.5%. But I must confess, I love Snickers ice cream bars! They are a great night cap after a long day of work. Well, these delights were not helping my fat loss goals. Everyday despite two workouts, +10k steps and sound nutrition throughout the day, these babies would take me just over my caloric intake goals.
But I fortified myself and denied enjoying the Snickers for a week…then another…then another. Before I knew it I had strung together several months without the taste of the delicacy. Guess what happened??? I lost .5% of my body fat.
I’m not sure if it was day 10, or day 30, but I know at some point, oh Uncle Mo decided to wake up and show himself. If you want momentum to work for you do not practice stifling it by starting and stopping.
Whatever you want to accomplish, become a person who would accomplish that thing. If you want to run a marathon, become a runner. Runners wake up early to run when everyone else is sleep, they have the expensive running shoes and know when their next race is. They drink lots of electrolytes and take care of their feet and IT band.
If you want to become a good basketball player, do what good basketball players do: practice shooting multiple days per week, work on skills 2-3 days per week, complete 2-3 strength work outs per week, compete in small sided play 1-2 days per week, do speed work once per week and stretch nightly before bed.
THEN KEEP DOING IT! WEEK AFTER WEEK, MONTH AFTER MONTH, YEAR AFTER YEAR.
Then watch Uncle Mo’ show up for you in a major way.
The ultimate example of discipline most of us esteem is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He was disciplined to the point of death. His willingness to be disciplined at all costs defined Him and set him apart from all others, forever.
We too are defined by our discipline, whether we know it or not.
If we can help you become more disciplined checkout our schedule here.
