HOW IMPORTANT IS SELF-DISCIPLINE?

If you were to share about a character who influenced and inspired you to live a disciplined life, who would you think of first?

Let me take a guess: A beauty queen, an athlete, a presenter, or a friend/acquaintance in your life?

Who will be the most inspiring?
Can you think of anyone? I will give you 10 seconds to think about it. 😊

Why did I ask that?
It is because, after many years of continuously practicing to live mindfully, and deeply, while observing everything that comes in life, I realized that deep down in each of us, there will be a role model that we look up to and dream to be like him or her.

Someone you truly admire or are always attracted to his or her lifestyle or habits. Maybe, you will not stop at admiration or love, but will soon tend to want to be like them, or to become another version of that person, at the same time, own a successful, enjoyable life similar to theirs.

I am also not an exception. In addition to the teachers, benefactors, or messengers who appear in my journey of experiencing life, I also often explore and watch other inspirational people around the world. While doing so, I learned a great lesson, that is: Talent is not guaranteed to lead you straight to success, yet to be successful you need to promote that talent with discipline.

In today’s article, I would like to share with you one of the most inspirational examples of being disciplined to gain success, an example that I truly love.

That is the writer Haruki Murakami – who is known as the “Zen Master” in literary culture, the author of many best-selling books in Japan and all around the world. His works have been translated into more than 50 languages globally, with the most well-known literary being the book called “Norwegian Forest”.

Moreover, do you know that he only started writing when he was 29 years old when being just an ordinary businessman? Initially starting from a passion for baseball, he began to think about writing to share his knowledge about this sport. Since then, he has been engaged in writing for more than 40 years until now.

However, what impressed me most was not his enormous heritage of artworks nor his illustrious reputation, but his steely discipline for writing. The main factor that brought back such good “results” to him after many years as a writer.

Most people think of writing as an emotional art, which means great writings in life can only be published when there are real flows of emotions. However, Haruki had turned writing into an exercise for his brain and hands with the habit of writing 4000 words a day. He began his journey of writing all of his novels with a rule of only being able to stop after writing 400 words on paper, a minimum of 10 pages every day.

Haruki wakes up at 4 a.m., works continuously for about 5-6 hours, runs for 10 kilometers, swims for 1500 meters, or sometimes finishes a combination of both. He goes to bed at 9 p.m. and regularly follows the same schedule every day. All this routine is boringly repetitive – but the results are not boring at all! Haruki is one of the living examples of when combining talent and self-discipline, you can get to anywhere you want.

You may or may not have known this outstanding character, but I believe that you will be somewhat impressed by the perseverance, effort, and persistent discipline of a “semi-professional” when he first started.

Moreover, do you see that success requires talent, but without discipline, Haruki certainly would not have great titles such as the literary “Zen Master” or a famous translator/author? By writing 4000 words a day, he has produced such deep and heart-fluttering novels.

How about you? Do you dream of becoming the best version of yourself? Additionally, over the years, what have you done to bring those dreams closer to yourself?

Have you set a goal?
Have you set deadlines for that dream/goal?
You have put in 100% effort to make your dreams come true.
However..!
Then what is next? Are you still just you, with an older age, thicker wrinkles, weight the same, living in the same environment forever, and the income has never exceeded the threshold…?

I believe that the efforts you put in are real, you have also tried with 100% of your effort. Nonetheless, do you know why it is still not successful?

You are right: incompetence in self-discipline!

In other words, you only try when you have enough motivation. You only start madly rushing to study, and focus on working when that day, you learned something new, saw someone’s success, and realized that your parents’ lives are becoming harder… Nevertheless, that rush only lasted like fevers with the motivation burning at the peak of 40 degrees then gradually subsided, cooled, and finally, returned to the normal temperature as usual!

What I said was right, do you agree?

Dear friend, there is no success that we do not have to pay a price for. However, the costs of effort and discipline will always be less than the cost of regret for the rest of your life.

You do not need to put in 100% of your efforts for only today, but rather just 1% of it regularly every day!

Spending 10 minutes a day exercising and stretching regularly for 365 days will be much better than exercising 90 minutes for only one day!

Increasing the number of times you perform good habits will help you soon forget bad habits, which is better than making a long list of good habits to do, but only doing it for a few days.

Instead of writing down too many dream goals, write down commitments for each goal to yourself and try to finish them one by one.

I, to become an inspirational Coach like today, have also gone through rigorous discipline every day, in a lot of things. Therefore, the lessons of perseverance and principles will always be lessons that I would force myself to be committed to experiencing more often!

Dear friend, I know the journey of achieving your dreams will not be easy, but with perseverance and discipline, you will soon create magnificent breakthroughs for yourself.

If it is easy for you to ditch your principles, it is also easy to ditch your responsibilities. Once you have stopped being responsible for yourself, you will easily let go and lose motivation in life. Your life will just gradually drift by, not knowing where to go next, and will soon be decided by others.

That is because excellent people are not born with discipline, but with discipline, they become excellent.

Try your best!

Much love,
Truly Inspired