Discipline at the Core

My daughter is 5 years old now, but I remember well the days a few months after her birth. I was determined to lose the remaining 30 pounds I’d gained during pregnancy (62 pounds total) — and I was ready to get it off!

It mattered not that I’d spent half the night awake with my baby. I dragged myself out of bed each morning at 5:30 a.m., blurry-eyed but intent on making it to my 6 a.m. workout before heading off to my 8-to-5 daily grind. Day in and day out, I stuck with that killer schedule until I’d lost those annoying 30 pounds! Getting to that threshold was excruciating; crossing it was exhilarating!

We all overcome challenges in our life, so you too have experienced the agony of overcoming and the joy of having overcome. However, if you’re like I once was, you still believe that there are challenges in you life that you are helpless to overcome.

Discipline at the core
I’m here to tell you that you can overcome any challenge—if you develop discipline at the core. Discipline at the core is the sum total of the character and behavior patterns you develop by doing what’s necessary to achieve a goal while every fiber of your being is begging you to stop, and your “excuse factory” is working overtime to help you justify quitting.

You take the first step toward developing discipline at the core when you recognize that you—and you alone—are primarily responsible for overcoming the challenges in your life. You take the second step when you stop telling yourself that you can’t, and start telling yourself that you can.

For example, many Americans want to lose weight. With the public spotlight on our nation’s obesity epidemic, especially among children, we’re seeing more and more programs being created to counter it.

But are more programs the only answer to this problem?

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If you want to see the change, be the change.” If you want to weigh less, you must recognize that you’re the only person who can make it happen. But you must also change the way you think.

Retraining our essence
Who we are—what I call our essence—is defined by what we think. Our thoughts shape our will and our actions.

For example, you can recognize that you’re the only person who can make your weight loss happen. But if deep down you think that you lack the willpower, character, and resolve to lose weight, you won’t. In fact, you’ll probably end up sad, depressed, exhausted, prey to a host of chronic diseases—and gaining more weight.

Part of developing discipline at the core is training your essence to believe that there’s more than a possibility that you can overcome a challenge and achieve the results you desire. You don’t do that by endlessly replaying those mental tapes of your failures. You do it by playing new tapes—thoughts and behaviors—that say Yes, you can!

Let’s stick with the weight issue. What will happen if a size-16 woman stops telling herself that she's a fat, disgusting slug who doesn’t deserve to look good and starts telling herself how great she looks in that black dress she's been drolling over for the past year?

Her essence will begin to be retrained to believe that there’s more than a possibility that she can overcome the challenges that stand between her and that dress. She’ll start practicing the behaviors necessary to make that possibility a reality. She may seek out highly trained professionals to assist her. Look forward to rising early to exercise. Even enjoy planning and cooking healthy meals for herself and her family. Before she knows it—black dress, here she comes!

You may scoff at this technique if you wish. But it’s the way I managed to pass the bar exam after law school, lose weight, and it’s the way that many of my clients have overcome challenges—such as morbid obesity—that they once considered insurmountable. In the process, wonderful new aspects of their character have emerged to make a positive impact on their friends and family.

And so I ask: Are you ready to develop discipline at your core?