Jesse Owens says, “We all have dreams, but in order to make these dreams into reality it takes an awful lot of determination, self-discipline and effort.”

It requires the same determination, self-discipline and effort to keep New Year’s Resolutions and to follow through on goals as it does to be successful.

Let’s understand the meaning of each of these words:

Determination
The power and habit of firm decision making directed toward a particular goal and end result

Discipline
A commitment to yourself to do what you have to do even when you don’t want to do it

Effort
Amount of total work completed to reach a particular end result

Success
Achieving worthwhile goals

Goals are resolutions and are what motivates us. Resolutions, like goals, are our desires. Without goals or resolutions, there is no reason to act and no motivation to take any daily actions or go the extra mile.

There are two key factors in making a successful resolution. Firstly, a person must have confidence that he or she can make a change in their behavior and secondly, they must be committed (discipline) to making that change.

Behavior is the manner in which you conduct yourself. It is the way you act, function or react in any given situation. As you will learn, appropriate behavior provides opportunities to target your efforts. Opportunities come from setting goals and I encourage written S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

What do you want for your life, your career or your business? Who determines this for you and who can make it happen? What are the daily behaviors that you must apply to live the life of your dreams or to make your career or business a success?

It is the positive, implemented daily behaviors that will make a significant difference in your level of success. Once you identify the most advantageous behaviors and beneficial periods, remain in that zone and watch your time management skills and results improve dramatically.

Behavior, like attitude, begins with you. What you do for a living is your choice but there is a reason you made that choice which goes far beyond making money. Of course money has something to do with the choices you make but it is not the money that gets you out of bed in the morning. It is what you want to do with the money that keeps you motivated. It is the realization of your dreams and those dreams can be realized by setting goals, by taking the time to organize, to plan and to put your plan into action.

You must choose a goal, decide what you want to do, plan it out and discipline yourself to make it happen. Work on this discipline from the inside out and not the outside in. I’ve seen people overcome stuttering; grow from poverty to wealth and from no self-confidence to great confidence in themselves.

You may ask how this is possible. These individuals determined what they wanted for their lives and created a plan. Their plan had concise action steps and with determination they monitored and measured their progress. They literally disciplined themselves to achieve their goals.

One of my greatest lessons while working in sales is the discovery that we are constantly setting sales’ targets and objectives and being measured alongside them. This is a good practice and keeps us focused on our sales’ targets. Why not apply these same goal setting and monitoring strategies in our personal lives. Consequently, we can stay focused on our dreams and end up where we want to be.

Today, in most organizations, management devotes enormous energy to setting work objectives and conducting performance reviews for individual employees. Corporations go through this time-consuming and costly exercise to ensure the most favorable results for their firm.

In professions such as sales, considerable time is spent questioning, listening, discovering and understanding the needs of clients in order to provide a recommended solution or action plan.

In contrast, how much time and energy do you expend discovering your own needs and desires and then consciously setting objectives; developing action plans with measurable performance standards; and finally reviewing your own performance?

By engaging in such an exercise, you will be doing something about your life. You will be going to work on yourself, for yourself. This is where the real behavior has to start.

I refer you to “Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future“. The exercises in Discipline 5, 6, 7 and 8 will help you to discover your dreams, organize them into a sense of priority and help you determine if you are prepared to pay the price (effort) to make those dreams a reality.

When you believe in your resolutions (dreams), nothing but self-imposed limitations will stop you from achieving them. Your first step is to define your resolutions as goals. A goal is a specific and measurable result that must be achieved within specified time, resource and cost constraints.

A goal is an end, a result and not just a task to be performed. It describes the condition we want to achieve.

Our goals guide our actions and help us plan at work and at home. When we focus on our goals (resolutions), our present is determined by our future…not our past. Keep in mind that your resolutions (goals) are an extension of your values.

Finally, you need to measure and monitor your progress on an ongoing basis. Without some form of monitoring you will not be able to recognize your progress and reward yourself accordingly.

This is where Discipline 11 evolves with the Monthly Monitor Chart. It helps keep you on track and makes discipline a habit by recognizing appropriate behavior. Remember, any behavior that gets recognized or rewarded, gets repeated.

If you don’t already have the book Disciplined for Life, You Are the Author of Your Future; I suggest you download the first three chapters free at www.DisciplinedForLife.com.

Next, don’t just read the book, do all the exercises in it as they come up. The uniqueness of this book and supporting audio and video programs is the fact it is all about you. By writing down the answers to the questions in the book, you are beginning to crystallize your dreams and take control of your life. You own the answers, no one else does. Those answers will help you develop the discipline to manage your time while you find yourself and become a leader committed to your purpose.

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