The POWER of Self-Discipline | Brian Tracy

Revealing a Secret Ingredient

I’m about to reveal a secret, an ingredient missing in most success formulas existing today, and that’s why they don’t work. Without this magical component, your dreams and goals will fail, no matter what they are or how long you’ve had them. With this magical ingredient, you can achieve anything and everything you want. This ingredient is called self-discipline. There are several disciplines you need to develop if you want to reach your full potential.

Discipline of Clear Thinking

The first discipline of all is the discipline of clear thinking versus confused thinking. Sometimes you’ve heard me ask, “What is the highest-paid job in the United States? What is the most important job in any job or any company?” The answer is thinking. The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your decisions and choices. Your decisions and choices determine the actions you take, and the actions you take determine your results. Your results determine the quality of your life, and it all starts with very clear thinking.

Importance of Focus

There’s a little story that was in the newspapers recently. Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, along with Bill Gates and Bill Gates Sr., were dining together as they are good friends. While they were talking, a person approached them and said, “I’ve been watching you gentlemen, and you have a lot of success. Can you tell me, what would you say is the most important quality of success?” The three interrupted their conversation, turned around, and simultaneously said, “Focus.” Focus is the most important requirement for success in our fast-moving world today. If you can focus, you can succeed, and if you can’t, you won’t. It always surprises me when I walk down the street, on a flight, or driving, I look at people, and they seem totally immersed in consuming things. They have devices in their ears, they look at their cell phones, they listen to music in their cars, or watch the lies on television. They just can’t stop bombarding their minds with sensory information.

Practice Clear Thinking

And of course, when you’re doing that all the time, it’s impossible for you to think well. Thinking well requires that you practice a couple of techniques. First, as Peter Drucker said, you must take time to think. The rule is that quick decisions are often wrong decisions, especially quick decisions involving people or money are often wrong decisions. So, if you’re going to make a decision that has long-term consequences, you must think it over carefully. You have to look at it like a beautiful piece of porcelain, you look at it from all sides, and you think about it deeply. The more carefully you think about a decision, the better the quality of it when you finally make it. How many times have you said, you know, if I had thought about it a little more, I wouldn’t have done it, or if I had just thought a little better, you just have to take the time to think like superior people through experience and especially through painful experience to learn. You must take the necessary time on important decisions. One of the best ways you can develop the discipline of clear thinking is when you have

Solitude and Clear Thinking

An important problem in your life, you must sit in solitude for 30-60 minutes. What happens is that in solitude, all the energy, all the restlessness disappears, and you simply calm down. It’s like a bucket filled with water with sediment. If you leave it there for a while without moving it, the water will become completely clear. This is what happens to your mind. Your mind becomes completely clear, and after 30 minutes, what will happen is that ideas will start flowing like a river. They will simply start flowing through your mind. This is not directed. In other words, don’t think about that problem or goal. Focus on your breathing, just relax. Look towards the horizon, look at a picture on the wall or a flower. Some people look at a candle, but just look at it and keep your eyes open. This is not meditation, simply sit in silence. At some point, ideas will begin to emerge, almost like a boat on a calm pond. The idea you need to solve your biggest problem or to achieve your most important goal will magically appear. Embed it in your mind. It will be a clear idea like crystal, and it will be the most amazing thing. If you’ve never done it before, the first time you do it, you’ll get a result, an insight, a solution to a problem, or an idea to reach your goal. The first time you do it will be absolutely wonderful. The next time you do it, you’ll get it again. Every time you sit quietly and in solitude for 30-60 minutes, you’ll get ideas that can save you years of hard work. Now, here’s another way to think better.

Writing and Reflection

Take a sheet of paper, and the rule is to think about your idea and write down every detail. How do you solve this? What if you do this with problems, with your concerns, the cost it will incur, who can help you? Just write down everything you think. Something amazing happens between the head and the hand as you write down all the details. Sometimes the exact right option appears to you, and you light up. But that subconscious solution wouldn’t have been triggered if you hadn’t taken the time to think on paper. Aristotle once said that wisdom is the greatest desire of all humans. Wisdom is the ability to make good decisions. It’s a combination of experience plus reflection. What does that experience mean to me? How can I use that? What can I learn from it? Then reflect. And the best way to do it is to go for a walk. Just go for a walk where you can’t hear anything. Don’t take an iPod or anything, just go for a walk. 30 or 60 minutes, and just walk while you reflect on something happening at work or at home. You’ll be surprised at the quality of the ideas that will come to you. A good way to think better is to ask, especially if you’re frustrated or having difficulties, ask yourself, what are my assumptions? What am I assuming about this situation that might not be correct? What about my suspicions about this relationship, about this job, about this product, or this investment? What would I do if my assumptions were wrong? And here’s the key to thinking well, be open to doing something completely different. Be open to admitting the possibility of

Challenging Assumptions and Setting Daily Goals

What could be wrong, and what that does is open your mind and perspective so you can see all sorts of possibilities that you may not have seen before. So clear thinking is the first discipline. It’s the discipline practiced by the most successful, happy, and wealthy people in our society.

The second discipline is setting daily goals. Write down your goals; all objectives have to be written down. If you don’t have your goals written down, then they’re not really goals at all; they’re mere wishes. And as they say, a wish is just a goal without any energy behind it. Have your goals written down, write them very specifically and clearly, then do it every morning. Rewrite your main goals in the first person as if they already exist today. For example, if your goal is to earn $50,000 a year, write “I earn $50,000 a year” every morning, and then every evening, take 5 to 10 minutes instead of watching television. Just before turning on the TV, wait a second, sit down, and review your progress. Review what you’ve done throughout the day, what you’ve done well that has moved you toward your goals. The second question is, what would I do differently if I had to repeat these four steps today? Write and rewrite your goal every morning, review them at night, asking yourself these questions: what did I do well? What did I do to move toward my goals today? And what would I do differently if I had the day to live over again? If you ask yourself these questions over the next 30 days, you’ll accomplish more than you did in the last six months because every time you write down your goals, you’re programming them into your subconscious mind. When you program them into your subconscious mind, you establish a field of vibration within your brain. This law of attraction, based on this vibration field, attracts to your life people and circumstances that harmonize with your dominant thoughts.

Everyone here has had the experience of starting to read about a topic and becoming so interested in that particular topic that suddenly you started to bring into your life books, videos, articles, conversations, people, and opportunities to expand on this topic. If you’ve had that experience before, what you’re doing is creating a force field that we can’t scientifically explain, but it’s a vibration field that emanates from you, attracting back into your life everything you need to achieve your dominant goals. I promise you, if you do it for a month, actually 21 days is enough, your whole life will change, you’ll see changes that are amazing. People come up to me at every seminar and tell me it was incredible; I started writing my goals every day, I achieved eight of them in six months, I achieved five in one week, I achieved most of them in 12 months. They’ve transformed their lives. So all I ask you to do if you’re not already doing it is to give it a try.

Now, the third discipline

Courage and Financial Discipline

The third discipline is the discipline of courage. Courage means you have the ability, you have the will to face your fears because what I’ve found over the years is that brave people are not people who are fearless; they’re simply people who learn to master, they’re simply people who face and confront their fears. It was said many years ago regarding fear, “Do what you fear most, and the death of fear is certain.” Fear and courage tend to be habits that, if you yield and retreat, will become a habit of retreating every time you’re afraid or unsure. But if you’re afraid and force yourself to face it, it will become a habit. Whenever you encounter something that frightens you, you’ll find that most of them disappear when you confront them, and most fears like the fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of your limitations, fear of losing a relationship, or fear of asking for help, most of these fears disappear when you confront them head-on. So the reason you want to face your fears is not for the incident itself but for what it does for your character. You want to prove to yourself that you can face a fear, look it in the eyes, and suddenly, surprise, it disappears. You realize that the fear was in your own mind. I’ll give you an exercise to reinforce: identify a fear situation in your life and use it as your challenge. Use it as your test case. Say, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to face this fear. I’m going to hammer it, I’m going to crush it, and I’m going to look it straight in the eyes, and I’m going to confront it head-on like a car hitting a wall until the fear disappears. Once you’ve done that, you’ll look up, and you’ll be a different person for the rest of your life. You’ll know that nothing you’re afraid of can stop you.

The fourth discipline is the discipline of daily time management. The rule is that every minute spent on planning will save you 10 minutes in execution. Therefore, disciplining yourself to plan your day before you begin will save you at least 10 minutes for every minute spent planning. According to research, it will increase your productivity by between 25 and 50%, perhaps even double your productivity for each day you plan. Start the discipline of daily time management by making a list. Start with a sheet of paper, write down and note everything you have to do throughout the day. The best time to do this list is the night before. If you do this, your subconscious mind will work on your plan all night long. You’ll often wake up in the morning with great ideas to implement in your plan. Then organize your list by priorities before you start. Don’t just dive into it, use the 80/20 rule. This says that 20% of the goals on your list will represent the 80% most important, as they’re the most valuable. This is the hardest of all disciplines to learn; it’s the essence of my teaching worldwide. It’s the key to empowering the quality of your life and your results. If you can start every morning with a prioritized list and start with your number one task and stick with it until it’s done, you’ll recharge your life, release endorphins in your brain, make you feel very good, motivate you, and give you energy. It’ll boost all your other tasks. You’ll get twice the work done in the day you start completing your main task first thing in the morning. The discipline of time management will then extend into all other disciplines. When you can demonstrate every morning that you have the self-control, self-mastery, and self-discipline to begin and complete your most important task, you’ll simply feel fabulous achieving it.

The fifth discipline is the discipline of regular saving and investing. One of the smartest things you can do for yourself is to develop the habit of saving part of your paycheck every payday. Individuals, families, and even societies are stable and prosperous to the extent that they save money. Today’s savings are what guarantee tomorrow’s security and possibilities. The first rule of the law of saving to become an expert at saving money comes from the book “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George Clason. It consists of paying yourself first. Start today by saving 10% of your earnings and never touch it. This is your fund for long-term financial accumulation. Never use it for any other purpose except to secure your financial future. The noteworthy thing is that when you pay yourself first, you force yourself to live off the other 90%. In fact, you promote a simple life; you soon become accustomed to living on 90%, without losing comfort or anything. Remember, you’re a creature of habits; when you regularly save 10% of your earnings, you soon become comfortable living on the other 90%. Many people start by saving 10% of their income and then move on to saving 15%, 20%, or

even more. Their financial lives change dramatically as a result, and so can yours. Now here’s an interesting point I learned from one of the smartest money managers. He said, “When we’re young, we associate money with pleasure. We get our first allowance, run out, and spend it on candy. We think that when we have money, we go out and spend it on candy or things that make us feel good. When we become adults, every time we think of making a lot of money, our first thought is to spend it on something that makes us happy. If you go to a resort where people are on vacation having fun, and you find they’re selling stuff on every street, a bunch of knick-knacks, gadgets, and junk because people when they’re happy, associate going out and buying things. However, what this does is keep you broke your whole life. So what we can do is rewire a wire here and there, plug it in, and instead of saying I like to spend money, you say I like to save money, and you start to think about how much you enjoy having money in the bank, how much you enjoy saving, how much you enjoy delayed gratification, or how much you enjoy the idea of progressing towards financial independence. And when you develop the habit of being happy about saving money, you start to become increasingly careful with your expenses. Soon you develop the habit of living on less than you earn and change your mindset from I like to spend to I like to save. There’s a Japanese proverb that says making money is like digging in sand with a pin, and losing money is like pouring water into sand. It’s very easy to lose money, but it’s hard to earn it and keep it. That’s why it’s the most important discipline of all. Another important discipline is to pay cash as frequently and for as much as possible. Get rid of all your credit cards except for one and use it only when necessary. The very act of paying in cash really sensitizes you to how much you’re paying, making you spend less money. William Clement Stone once said, “If you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you.” The main reason you save your money and

Accumulating Wealth and Opportunity

You accumulate carefully is because you give two things. First, it gives you freedom. You know you have money in the bank. If you don’t like your job, you can leave it because you have money. But the second thing it gives you is the opportunity. If an opportunity arises, you’re prepared to seize it. You don’t have to say, “Sorry, I don’t have money. I can’t afford it. I’m broke,” and people shake their heads with pity and leave. As an adult, you should always have opportunities and money saved. And when you have it, you feel good about yourself. The difference between a person with little money and a person without money is like night and day. A person with a little money feels very good. A person without money always feels inferior, anxious, worried, irritable, and grumpy.

Constant Learning

The sixth discipline is the discipline of constant learning. What takes you from poverty to wealth is personal development. As Peter Drucker says, knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century, and it’s the only thing that will be relevant. The only skill that will be relevant in this century is the ability to learn new skills because practically everything you know is becoming obsolete at an accelerating rate. Stefan Cabid says his current knowledge base has a half-life of two years, which means half of everything he knows will be irrelevant in two years. More if you’re not continuously learning, improving your knowledge and skills, you’re not staying in the same place. Patty Lehi, the basketball coach, says if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. If you’re not constantly learning, you’re actually falling behind. So here are the three keys to continuous learning.

1. Reading: Read for 30 to 60 minutes every day. In other words, turn off the TV, turn off the radio, stop watching the news and your phone. Just read something related to your field. The best places to learn are books. Read the best-selling books written by the most successful people in your field because books contain a wealth of information that can allow you to operate at a much higher level to get much better results than you could before. Countless people over the years who are reading an hour a day have doubled and tripled their income in a year.
2. Taking Courses: Take as many courses as you can. The courses and seminars that are available to you in your field that are taught by professionals, courses that have been developed for years and years and have been tested. The person speaking has spent thousands of hours learning about the topic, has dry-tested it, and has performed it with tests on thousands of people. When you take a course, you can learn enough information in one or two days more than you could learn in two or three years or maybe even a lifetime. All filtered and combined. People say they can’t afford a course. They can’t afford to buy books. And if you can’t afford to go to courses, then use the third way you can improve your skills, which is listening to motivational audios constantly like what you’re hearing on our channel here is an interesting point.
3. Listening to Motivational Audios: The more you commit to becoming the best person you can be, the more you will like yourself, and the more you will respect yourself. The more energy you have, the more goals you will set, and the more you will persist. When you invest in yourself, read and learn, improve your skills, you tell yourself I am a person with a great future, and it is up to me to maximize it. Your potential and your self-esteem increase. Your sense of personal pride increases. You will start to be promoted and paid better in every part of your life.

The Discipline of Hard Work

Now, the seventh discipline is the discipline of hard work. Nothing helps you more than developing a reputation as a tireless worker. In the studies of self-made millionaires once again, they said they didn’t have the best education or the best talent or the best knowledge, but they were willing to work harder than anyone else. Most self-made millionaires work 60 to 70 hours a week for 5, 10, 15 years before they get ahead. Most other people are trying to survive five days a week, and during those five days a week, they’re not even working hard. Thomas Jefferson was asked if he believed in luck. He said, “I believe in luck, and the more I work, the luckier I get.” So the more you work, the luckier you’ll be. The more you work, the more opportunities you have, the more doors open to you, and the more opportunities you’ll see.

Work Ethic and Success

Nowadays, there’s something going around in the United States about having fun at work. No, work is not fun. Work time is not the sandbox or the sandbox. Work is work. What you do is go to work all the time. Don’t worry about having fun. Have fun later knowing that you’ve done a fantastic job and that you’ve done your best. Finally, work one hour later. Be the last to leave. Be the person who turns off the lights. If you look at a new company, a company run by someone who’s really driving it, you’ll find that the business owner is usually the first one to arrive at work during the day and is usually the last one to leave. The business owner generally works on Saturdays and Sundays. But at the end of the day, they have a beautiful house on the hill, beautiful cars, a beautiful life, vacations, and a yacht, and everyone says they’re lucky. No, they’re not lucky. They just work all the time. It works if you work 3 extra hours, start earlier, work more, and stay later. You’ll add 6 productive hours of work to your day. Each uninterrupted hour of work translates into three hours of productivity. When no one is interrupting, so always keep asking yourself at work and in life, what’s the most valuable use of my time right now to keep growing and learning? Your discipline will help you achieve success and purpose in life. Have confidence in yourself. Remember, success is learning all of this was done with a lot of effort. Leave us a comment. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please like if you enjoyed it. Thank you, and until next time.