The next day after that famous episode of Seinfeld I went to lunch at a busy food court in a downtown mall. Standing in line I heard several people laughing over the show. It was that impactful. I never foresaw the day its central question would appear to me as the central question regarding success.
The show’s specific example is not what I mean. The singular self indulgence that the cast members wagered they could resist is only one of the many self indulgences that tempt all of us daily. Alcohol, drugs, food, television, and I think I would add watching professional sports to this short list of examples of other indulgences and distractions to which most of us succumb.
To be master of your domain is to assert will power, to make choices that lead to what you want. Which means we have to talk about what you want, what we want.
We can want two things at the same time. We can want to be in better physical condition and we can want to eat like a king. One of these things leads to a long active life, one leads to a host of ailments. One is a short term indulgence the other a healthy lifestyle. One is delicious right now, one is not. It is something else. Something successful people seem to appreciate more than the majority.
They are masters of their domain and hold most of the wealth on our planet. The self disciplined are the successful few. They are able to say no to a host of indulgences and distractions every day while most of us give in to being part of the most overweight, drugged and distracted civilization in history.
The standard recipe for success starts with clarity about what you want. You have to want it more than the next beer, the next cupcake, the next episode, the next game, the next hit, the next whatever. You have to want it bad enough to fuel your self-discipline. To make yourself strong enough to resist choices that don’t lead to what you want.
Too much beer and pizza, as much as I love them, lead to a fat miserable life. Daily exercise, as much as I resist it, leads to a long healthy life. We’ve achieved a pinnacle in which our success delivers the ability to indulge ourselves to ruin. To succeed today you need more clarity and more self-discipline. It appears about 3% of our populations has the right mixture naturally.
The rest of us have to work to learn the skills of clarity of goals and the self-discipline to make the moment to moment choices that lead to them. We have to become masters of our own domain.
I choose to believe that I can learn to be more self-disciplined, that I can learn to set and work toward clear goals.
To that end I’ve started doing research on how to develop more self-discipline. Below are some of the online resources I’ve found to help myself.
http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/will-power-how-to-improve-your-personal-self-discipline
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/self-discipline/
copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio
