Success does not occur without discipline. You cannot be highly successful in any endeavor without consistent, hard work. Of course, highly successful people make their success look easy. Last year, our family went to see James Galway, the famous flutist, perform. He made playing the flute seem effortless. But my daughter and I are both flute players, and we understood the thousands of hours of work that went into his seemingly effortless performance.

Even famous movie and television stars like to make their stardom seem effortless. They perform in what seems like such a natural manner. Moreover, they pretend to have very frivolous lifestyles. We see pictures of them at galas, shopping with small dogs, or posting their new haircut on Instagram. But behind their feigned easy-going, fun personas is thousands of hours of acting, dance and singing classes. Not to mention nutritionists, makeup artists, hair stylists and extreme exercise regimes.

Highly successful people are highly disciplined. So, if you have “big” goals that you want to achieve, they won’t happen unless you develop exceptional discipline. Below are some ways to train yourself to become more disciplined so that you can achieve your greatest dreams.

Be Disciplined in All Things: If you want to become a disciplined person, you can’t limit your efforts to one area of your life. Rather, you need to become disciplined in all things – even the small things. When you train yourself to be diligent in the small things, you naturally will become diligent in the big things.

So, start your diligence training with something small. For instance, train yourself to always make your bed every morning, or to never leave dishes in the sink. Those are tasks that you could easily talk yourself out of doing. But disciplined people don’t make excuses for not doing tasks. As Nike says, they “just do it.”

As you become disciplined in the small, seemingly insignificant areas of your life, you soon will become disciplined in all areas of your life. Then you’ll be able to charge ahead with your goals because you no longer will make excuses for not working toward them.

Be Willing to Make Sacrifices: If you want to achieve a big goal, you have to be disciplined in how you spend your time. Television shows, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are time killers. They aren’t for people who don’t have big goals that they want accomplish.

If you want to accomplish more than average things with your life, you are going to have to give up those things that are purely time wasters. You need to give the bulk of your free time to those things that advance your goals.

In my own life, I am not on social media. If people want to get in touch with me, they have to send me an email. That may sound antiquated, but social media is a rabbit hole. Once you start looking at one thing, it leads to another, and pretty soon you have lost an hour of your life looking at nonsense.

For disciplined people, their time is their most valuable commodity. As a result, they don’t waste it on activities that don’t have a high return.

Forget About What Other People Think: The biggest challenge to being disciplined is that undisciplined people will resent you. So, while you are trying to accomplish something meaningful with your free time on a weekend, they will be whining about how they want you to do something “fun.” My goodness. To the extent you are able, you have to ignore those people, and remain disciplined about how you spend your free time.

I am blessed to live with a husband and a teenage daughter who are both very hard workers. But I remember when my daughter was small, I would hear the familiar child’s lament, “I’m bored.” My response was always, “That is very sad for you. I’m not bored at all.”

If you start feeling responsible for the entertainment of others, they soon will waste your time with nonsense. Stick to your guns, remain disciplined, and let others be responsible for themselves. Only take breaks for fun when it suits your schedule, and when you you’ve accomplished what you want to do.  And if that approach makes others unhappy with you, that is OK!

Being disciplined will pay you back enormously in terms of having an organized lifestyle and accomplishing your goals. Follow the above strategies to increase your discipline. If you do, you will see your life improve in every area.

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