The Value of Self Decipline

When one thinks about success and what it takes to be successful, self-discipline is certainly not the first thing that occurs to our mind. We attribute success to hard work or the never say die attitude. Hard work is certainly the key ingredient to success. When the burning desire to succeed takes physical form, it’s called hard work. But blindly working hard is not sufficient.

A large group of people believe that belief in ideas and in ourselves can play a pivotal role on your road to success. But we also bear the risk of blind belief and faith with no sense of logic or motivation that could lead to a disaster in the personality.

Clearly success can be attributed to several other factors but all of them remain incomplete without one important aspect. Your planning can be perfect but it’s equally pointless when you cannot execute your plan, and execution requires something more. It’s what completes all the above attributes. Yes, self-discipline. Hard work could work for a day, but it takes perseverance in your work to be successful and perseverance takes self-discipline. A committed effort cannot be put in a work without self-discipline.

Steve Jobs, in an interview, told that the most important thing required for success is doing what you love, because to be successful at something requires immense perseverance and any sane person would eventually give up if it’s not something he loves to do.

Once again perusing what we love is important but it takes self-discipline in us to keep going and not quit half the way. One does encounter triumph and disaster in life, we often get carried away by either of them, we either become over confident when we are doing well which will eventually lead to failure or we become depressed over our losses. To see success at the end of the tunnel, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, one must learn to treat both these imposters, just the same.

Again it takes self-discipline to keep ourselves grounded to our aims, to not deviate or give up.   

Belief in one’s ideas is necessary, but blind belief is sure to end in a disaster, one must admit when one is wrong and be disciplined enough to correct himself and progress towards success

When we extrapolate our reasoning we realize that self-discipline is probably the most important component for success, it’s what drives us to think different and peruse success beyond realms of competition, it’s what drives us to never give up on dreams and peruse them irrespective of our past. It’s what drives a mother to not give up on her child when he makes a mistake and what makes a leader stand tall and cheer his team to not give up even on the face of defeat, it’s what unites us with our dreams and ambitions and gives us the strength to push ourselves beyond our limits. It’s the voice inside the child that tells him that the world is his playground and that the sky is the limit to achievement; it’s what makes winners become champions and champions break their own records, thereby setting a new record.

Lastly I would like to leave you pondering on a quote by Albert Einstein

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” and that too requires self-discipline!