Discipline is the biggest differentiator for success for many reasons and I am going to break it down as to how and why you should be focused on discipline if you want to be successful and/or more successful.

The online definitions of discipline are as follows:

Dictionary

Data from Oxford Languages

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dis·ci·pline

[ˈdisəplən]

noun

1. the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience:”a lack of proper parental and school discipline”Similar:controlregulationdirectionorderauthorityrule
2. a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education:”sociology is a fairly new discipline”Similar:subjectareaspecialityspecialtyfield (of study)

verb

1. train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience:”many parents have been afraid to discipline their children”Similar:traindrillteachschoolcoacheducateregiment

So, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of how discipline is going to make you successful and/or more successful. The discipline that we are talking about is really a combination of the two definitions above, but without the punishment. The only punishment you will receive is that you will be less successful if you are not disciplined.

The reason I am successful in my life is because I have become extremely disciplined in basically everything I do. I am a little OCD and I have many quirks and I might even be a little bit autistic, but I honestly see these as my superpowers, even though they can be debilitating at times, they mostly help me. I tend to hyperfocus on things, and I will go full into them like an addict, and I am calm and patient, but yet I am also full throttle on the ball. I know that sounds paradoxical or oxymoronically absurd, but I will explain in a bit.

I have talked in previous posts about the basics of my day, but today I am going to break down the real details of the discipline that I use to fit so much into my day by chunking/blocking and prioritizing. The first thing I do when I wake up without an alarm after getting out of bed is I usually go to the bathroom, then I start my cup of coffee in my cheap Walmart single cup coffee brewer which I bought for less than $20. I then turn on the lamp in my living room/office and I sit on the couch, and I start reading a book (currently reading “Start Late, Finish Rich” by David Bach) for about 30 minutes to an hour which is usually 10-20 pages per morning give or take.

Once I have read, I am usually fully awake, and I am turning on YouTube for more learning but using a different medium. I don’t just get on YouTube for entertainment, I get on there to learn and to hear different perspectives on the things that I am trying to do and become better at. If you would like a list of my favorite YouTube channels that really help with success and mindset I will list them below at the end of this post.

While I am listening to the podcast via YouTube, I am usually doing what I am doing right now, and I am focusing on my business by writing a blog post or creating thumbnails or pictures for social media. I’m paying attention to the podcast, but truly it’s more just background noise and stuff that I am picking up on a subconscious level. I don’t always write a post every day because I am always waiting on the ideas to develop in my mind for a while before I just start spewing out words that have very little value and meaning for people’s lives. I want to add value to my audiences lives with everything I do.

Everything I have talked about to this point is a discipline that I have implemented into my life on a daily basis even on the weekends and truly even when my girlfriend and I go out of town. The first part of my day before work is for me, I am trying to better myself and become more disciplined. In all actuality, I had almost no discipline as a child, from physical to mental discipline, it is something that I had to teach myself. Anyone can become disciplined in a fairly short amount of time, but it definitely takes repetition.

Let’s get into discipline at work, because this is what is going to really help you to have better efficiency and productivity at work and can be translated to every part of your life. I generally work my primary job from 12pm CST to between 9-11pm depending on the needs of the day. For a little bit of context, I am a Quality Control Technician at a bottled water manufacturing company. The main focus of my role is to test the water from each product we are bottling every single hour during a production run. I also have many other responsibilities that I have to manage throughout my day that I have to mix in to the parts that are fixed and basically mandatory. This takes a lot of discipline especially after two of the lines go home around 5pm.

Breaking it all down a little bit further, we run 3 lines of products which includes a line where we run 3-, 4-, and 5-gallon bottles of water, we run one line that produces 1-gallon bottles of water, and we have another line that runs 8, 12, and 16.9 oz bottles of water. I also, have to take samples of the water that we are producing in our large tanks before it gets mixed into the drinking water that our customers are used to and love. I also have to run microbiological tests on products when we switch water types and/or when we switch between products or caps or bottles. There are also a lot of other things that I have been given responsibility over because I have shown great discipline in getting things accomplished.

I won’t go into every detail of my workday, because that’s not what this is about this is about discipline being the greatest or biggest differentiator to success. Suffices to say that if I didn’t have solid discipline, I wouldn’t have the success in my role that I have had. I want you to think of discipline as a mental muscle that you can develop and grow over time. Let’s look at this through some metaphors so that it will resonate and sink in just a little bit more.

The reason really successful athletes are successful is because they understand that it takes an unshakeable amount of discipline in their craft to be the best. The elite athletes that everyone talks about are the ones that are disciplined, and they are in the gym or on the practice field before everyone else and they don’t leave until everyone else has left. They also have extreme amounts of discipline in their personal lives, and they don’t spend a lot of time partying or doing things that are going to help them improve in their craft. One of the best examples of this that I can think of is Tom Brady vs Johnny Manziel. Tom Brady didn’t have the rawest talent, but he worked his ass off and he practiced the way that he wanted to play. On the flipside, Johnny Manziel had all the raw talent that an athlete could ask for, but he didn’t have the discipline to become the NFL Legend that he could have become, and that Tom Brady did become.

Now for the actual metaphor. A wide receiver in football has to have the discipline to keep his eyes on the ball all the way until the ball is secured in his or her hands and if they don’t have that discipline to do this and they start to look ahead to where they are going to run before they get the ball or if they are focused on the defensive player that is about to hit them then they probably won’t secure the ball and actually make the catch. The same applies to baseball and basketball if the player takes their eye off the ball before they catch it and they are focused on their next move then their lack of discipline is going to cause them to potentially drop the ball and the play they were envisioning in their mind will never happen. For instance, the outfielder has an easy pop-fly that they can catch, but mentally they are already thinking about throwing the ball to get the next person out before they have caught it and they miss the ball altogether and miss the opportunity. Keeping your eye on the prize is the discipline to creating success.

If you want your day to be more successful and your life to be more successful create a plan and stick to it that is discipline. Block and/or chunk your time through proper prioritization. For instance, first hour of the day is reading, next two hours is listening to podcast and hopefully writing a great post, next hour is getting ready for work, next 9-10 hours work, last few hours decompress and get ready for bed. I also have a routine which has become a discipline while I am brushing my teeth which is to stand in front of my affirmations to become a millionaire and I read through these three full times while I brush my teeth. The final disciplines that I am using personally to end up wealthy and successful later in my life are A. at the moment I am contributing 7% of my gross income to my 401K which I am about to increase to 15%, B. I am becoming more focused on delayed gratification which is a lot harder than it sounds considering I used to be an extreme impulse buyer, and C. I am working for my friend every Saturday for a little bit of extra income.

If you become a little more disciplined it is going to start to make a huge difference in your and your success is going to start compounding and you will find that you are getting a lot more out of your day and life. Thank you for reading this post and allow yourself to be more disciplined because it is the great differentiator for wildly successful people.

As always, get out there and start planting those seeds that are going to bear great fruits of success through discipline.