I want to return to the subject of success.
Recently I suggested that the skill of building skills is possibly the single most useful asset you can have if you want to be successful. I said make sure you live every
day in such a way that you are significantly better in at least one area, by the end of the year.
And to do that you need consistency. Consistent effort every day is the key to almost everything you will accomplish in 2016.
Today I want to go one step
further.
You see a lot of people think that the more knowledge they have (the more skills they develop) the more successful they will be. That is only true up to a point. It all depends on the skills you are acquiring.
And one of the most important skills you can develop is
awareness. But most people either don't know that or struggle to understand what awareness is.
Here's a simple explanation. The higher your awareness, the less controlled you are by habit. You're more conscious, meaning your beliefs and the thoughts they generate are no longer in control of you, your thinking, your behaviours and, consequently, your
results.
As Christian Simpson puts it: “There are an infinite number of levels of awareness (or consciousness), [each of which] describes the typical behaviour of someone at each elevated level, from animalistic awareness, where people live in a "fight or flight" state completely controlled by conditions and circumstances, all the way up to mastery, where, an individual is creating the results
they desire in life at will - no longer controlled by habit. Along the way, between these two "states" of being, is the level of discipline.”
Discipline is where a person gives themselves a command and follows it, regardless of the opinions of others, or what existing conditions or circumstances dictate is possible.
As Jim Rohn put it so well: "Everyone must choose one of two pains; the pain of discipline or the pain of regret".
There are two essential components to discipline - frequency and regularity. This is why successful people have a disciplined approach to personal growth, lifelong learning and
self-improvement.
Discipline is essential to success, and it isn't as difficult as people make out.
Yes, of course, a person has to really desire the outcome enough to make it happen and expect it to, but discipline really boils down to two things: frequency and
regularity.
Do something enough times on a regular basis for long enough and whatever it is you're doing it becomes habitual. It's really a matter of reprogramming ourselves. And it doesn't take as long as most people think.
For example, my business partner, Sarah, and I have a regular
weekly phone call at 9.30am every Monday. We call it our ‘accountability call’. And it’s strategic. What will each of us do in the next seven days to move our businesses forward? We promise. We commit. We have the discipline to follow through.
So there you have it.
2016 is the year of focus
and the key words are awareness, consistency, and discipline.
To your success
Noel Guilford