DISCIPLINE

This week I as I read my weekly book I came across this saying “Its not what you have, its what you do with what you have that will make the difference.” Reading books, attending seminars and listening to tapes won’t make us better people. Its what we do with all the information that will make the difference. Again for us to make the difference we have to walk the desert, because just acting on what we have once, won’t change us. We have to make a decision to want to use it and develop something with that information. But application of that information is required by a very tough thing called discipline. That very thing we then use to form a habit.  Have you heard that “If you don’t have discipline, you don’t have anything.” Discipline ranks in the must-have category, just like food, water or oxygen. Why you may ask? Why should discipline be so important? Because without discipline, no plan, no matter how brilliant or how big it is will amount to anything. The man who is known to have invented telephone was not the original inventor, but he made money because someone else lacked discipline in follow through. The drink 7 UP is another example of someone’s lack of discipline, I understand the original owner gave up at 6 UP and someone took up the after him and today the brand is a hit and they did well. How many ideas has God has given you that you have lacked the discipline to act upon and someone else has cashed on them?  Discipline is not something waiting to be discovered it is created. Discipline is the process of training that is designed to produce specific desired patterns of behavior, intended habits and attitudes that then leads to a successful performances in life. We all want success but it will remain in the future if we don’t discipline ourselves. For one to create winning disciplines, one must base them on very firm values. That because a good foundation to springboard for production in one’s life.  I visited one church on Sunday evening and the Pastor spoke about the 7 habits of unhappy people. The major key habit I picked up on was that those who are always unhappy don’t control their thinking. Now many sayings surround that topic for example, ‘an empty head is the devil’s workshop.’ What I picked from his sermon was that we need to train our thinking, but for us to be able to do that we need discipline . We need to train ourselves to form good habits such as right thinking as the writer wrote in Philippians 4vs 8 “…if anything is excellence or praiseworthy… think about such things.”  To succeed one has to overcome any hurdle that might be in one’s path. If its your environment, habits, or personality, your decision-making ability preempts them all. Isn’t it funny that everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves. What are the little steps that you can do this week towards creating discipline in your life? Remember only when we are discipline can we be true leaders.