Be Disciplined, Not Lazy

Dr. Ron Jenson - Author of "Make a Life, Not just a Living".

Be Disciplined, Not Lazy, We begin to make things happen when we become disciplined. We don't accomplish anything in this life without self-discipline. Richard Shelley Taylor, in his book "The Disciplined Life", defines self-discipline this way: "The ability to regulate conduct by principle and judgment rather than impulse, desire, high pressure, or social custom." You see, discipline is the ability to consciously control your circumstances. It is the ability to control your life - to put first things first.

Now here's a question for you. Are there habits in your life that were acceptable when you were a child but aren't acceptable now? Are you still struggling with giving in to impulse?

Everyone struggles with one or more of three areas: pride, sensualism, and greed. Pride, which has its place, is unhealthy when it is stimulated by self-absorption. Sensualism is being preoccupied with sensual fulfillment - food, sex, sound, thrill-seeking. (Many commercials and advertisements today are geared toward sensualism.) Greed involves people just wanting more for more's sake, or being covetous, that is, wanting what belongs to someone else. This creates a generation of people who live on plastic. They are preoccupied with their credit cards and can't stop spending.

I can relate to pride, sensualism, and greed. Yet my major point of struggle is in the area of the senses. Whether the struggle involves not wanting to exercise or wanting to eat too much or watching too much TV, it all centers on sensual gratification.

Consider your own life: What do you really desire? What makes you salivate the quickest? For me it's donuts. I like donuts. There was a place near my home in Philadelphia called the Donuttery. Whenever I go within a mile of the Donuttery, I visualized a hot cinnamon roll with butter cascading down the sides. I could smell it. I could see it. I could taste it. And like Pavlov's dog, I started to salivate and even froth just thinking about that cinnamon rol. In a very real sense, I was looking for a sensual gratification - and the words of Richard Shelley Taylor burned in my gut: "Self-discipline is basically the ability to subordinate."

If you're going to become a person who makes things happen - if you really want to be a difference-maker - then you need to become disciplined. You need to put a coach, a governor over your thoughts and actions. You need to become patterned in your life.