There are nine disciplines you can develop that will improve every area of your life. It turns out that every exercise of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline at the same time, just as every weakness in self-discipline weakens you in other disciplines as well.

1. The Discipline of Clear Thinking
a) Take time to think though the critical issues and problems in your life. Put aside long, unbroken chunks of time, thirty, sixty and then ninety minutes.

b) Sit quietly for 30-60 minutes to think. Practice solitude on a regular basis. “Go into the silence.” Paras note: In other words “f-ing meditate!”

c) Whenever you practice solitude for more than thirty minutes, you activate your super conscious mind and trigger your intuition. You get it right from the “still, small, silent voice within.”

d) To think better, take a pad of paper and write down every detail of the problem situation you are facing. Sometimes, the right thing to do immerges as you write down the details.

e) Aristotle once said that wisdom (The ability to make good decisions) is a combination of experience plus reflection. The more time that you take to think about your experiences, the more vital lessons you will gain from them.

f) Go for a walk or exercise for 30-60 minutes. Very often when you are exercising, you will get insights or ideas that help you to think better and make better decisions.

g) Talk your situation over with someone else who you like and trust, and who is not emotionally involved. Very often, a different perspective can totally change your viewpoint.

h) Always ask, “What are my assumptions?” What is it that you are assuming to be true about the situation?

i) What if your assumptions were wrong? What if you were preceded on the basis of false information?

2. The discipline of daily Goal-Setting
a) Start by asking, “What do I really want to do with my life?” Ask this question over and over again until you get a clear answer.

b) Imagine that you had ten million dollars cash, but only ten years to live. What would you immediately do differently in your life?

c) Imagine that you have no limitations. That you could wave a magic wand and have all the time and money, all the education and experience, all the contacts you needed to achieve any goal. What would you do then?

d) Buy a spiral notebook and write in it every day. Begin by writing out ten goals in the present, positive and personal tense. Begin each goal with the word “I” followed by an action verb. For example, you could write, “I earn $xx,xxx by December 31, 2007.”

e) Every day before you start off, rewrite your top ten goals in the present tense, as though you had already achieved them and you were reporting on this success to someone else. Rewrite your goals without looking back to the previous page. Rewrite them from memory. Watch how they grow, develop and change over time as you rewrite them each day. Many people have said that the discipline of daily goal setting has transformed their life and far faster than they had even imagined.

3. The discipline of Daily Time Management
a) Begin by making a list of everything that you have to do. The best time to write your daily list is the night before so that your subconscious can work on it while you sleep.

b) Organize the list by priority before starting work.

c) Practice the 80/20 rule, which says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities. What are they?

d) Use the ABCDE method to set priorities. This is based on considering the consequences of doing or not doing a particular task.
A = Must do – serious consequences for non-completion
B = Should do – mild consequences for non-completion
C = Nice to do – no consequences for non-completion
D = Delegate – everything possible
E = Eliminate – everything you can to free up more time

e) Organize your list by A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on.

f) Start on your A-1 task first thing in the morning.

g) Discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on your A-1 task until it is 100% complete.

h) The discipline of good time management spreads to all your other disciplines. It has immediate payoff in improved results, and long term payoff in terms of the quality of your life work.

4. The Discipline of Courage
a) The biggest obstacle to success in life is fear of failure, expressed in the feeling that, “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”

b) Courage is a habit, developed by practicing courage whenever it is required.

c) As Emerson said, “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”

d) Make a habit of confronting your fears rather than avoiding them. When you confront the fear and move toward it, especially if it is another person or people or situation, the fear gets smaller and you become braver.

e) Repeat the words to cancel fear, “I can do it!” over and over, to build up your courage and confidence.

f) Identify one fear in your life and then discipline yourself to deal with it, to confront it, to do whatever it involves, as quickly as you possibly can. The payoff for identifying a fear and confronting it is tremendous, it gives you the courage and confidence to go through your life and deal with every fear-inducing situation.

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5. The Discipline of Excellent Health Habits
a) Design and imagine your ideal body. What would your body look like if it was perfect in your own estimation? This is your goal.

b) The key to health and life can be summarized in five words, “Eat less and exercise more.”

c) Develop the discipline of exercising every day, even if all you do is go for a walk. Exercise is best done in the morning, immediately after you get up, before you have time to think about it.

d) Eliminate the three white poisons: flour, sugar and salt.

e) Eat more salads and lighter foods; eat before 6pm and eat half portions.

f) Get regular medical and dental check-ups.

g) Use the Michael Jordon method: “Just do it!”

6. The Discipline of Regular Saving and Investing
The key is for you to save 10%, 15% and even 20% of your income throughout your life.
a) Because you are probably in debt already, begin by saving 1% of your income and discipline yourself to live on the other 99% until this becomes a habit.

b) Increase the amount of monthly savings to 2%, 3% and eventually 10% and 15%. Discipline yourself to live on the balance.

c) Rewire your thinking from “I enjoy spending” to “I enjoy saving.”

d) Delay; defer major purchases for 30 days.

e) Investigate before you invest. Two thirds of investment success comes from avoiding mistakes. Invest as much time in studying the investment as you invested to earn the money in the first place.

f) Pay cash for as many things as possible. Get rid of your credit cards. When you pay cash, the amount you are spending is far more visible and painful.

g) “If you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you.” (W. Clement Stone)

7. The Discipline of Hard Work
a) The average work week in America is 32 hours. The key is for you to save 10%, 15% and even 20% of your income throughout your life.

b) The average person wastes 50% of the workday in idle chit-chatting with co-workers, extended coffee breaks and luncheons, personal business, reading the newspaper and surfing the internet.

c) Rule: Work all the time you work!

d) Start one hour earlier, and immediately get to work.

e) Work harder, through your lunch hour, all day long; don’t waste time.

f) Work one hour later; be the last to leave. Use this time to wrap up all your work and plan your next day. Three extra hours of work will translate into 6-8 hours of productivity.

g) Ask; what is the most valuable use of my time right now? Whatever your answer, work on that every hour of every day.

h) If you get distracted, or interrupted, repeat over and over, “Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!”

8. The Discipline of Continuous Learning

“To earn more you must learn more.”

Jim Rowan: “Work at least as hard on yourself as you do on your work.”

a) Read in your field 30-60 each day. This will translate into one book per week, 50 books per year.

b) Listen to CD’s in your car as you drive from place to place. This will amount to 500-1000 hours per year.

c) Attend seminars and take courses given by experts in your field. One idea from one course can save you years of hard work.

d) The average income in America increases at 3% per annum. With compound interest, the average person doubles their income every 22 years.

e) With the additional knowledge and skill you can apply to get better results, you increase your income at 10%, 15% and even 25% per year.
• 10% per annum increase means that you double your income in 7.2 years.
• 25% increase per annum means that you double your income in 2 years and 8 months.

f) Work on yourself as if your future depends on it, because it does.

9. The Discipline of Persistence
The greatest test of self-discipline is when you persist in the face of adversity, and you drive yourself forward to complete your tasks 100%, no matter how you feel.

Courage has two parts:
– The first part is the courage to begin, to start, to launch forward with no guarantees of success.
– The second part is the courage to endure, to persist, when you feel discouraged and want to quit.

a) Your persistence is the measure of your belief in yourself, and in what you are doing.

b) The more you believe in the goodness and rightness of what you are doing, the more you will persist.

c) The more you persist, the more you will tend to believe in yourself and what you are doing. The principles are reversible!

d) Persistence is actually self-discipline in action.

e) Self-discipline leads to self-esteem, a greater sense of personal power, which leads to greater persistence, which leads to even greater self-discipline in an upward spiral.

f) “Persistence is to the character of man or woman as carbon is to steel.” (Napoleon Hill)

g) You actually make yourself into a better, stronger person by persisting when you feel like quitting.