discipline

The one success factor that I would not want to miss

Being successful is a decathlon.

You cannot pin success to one single factor.

It's much more the art, science and hustling of several factors that bring the success in the end.

BUT, there's one thing at the core of any success I see.

The more I learn, the clearer this factor becomes to me.

I have employed it many times, and it for sure has given me success.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am not so strong with this factor currently.

This might be the most dominant reason why my our worldly successes are meager, currently.

(Which is not such a big problem, as I can benefit from earlier successes.)

Anyway, here's the secret factor:

Pig-headed discipline

That's it.

What do I mean with pig-headed discipline?

I've learned the term from Chet Holmes.

He was a highly successful marketer and business owner.

In his book "The Ultimate Sales Machine" he repeatedly claims that using "pig-headed" discipline is necessary to get the desired results.

It "simply" means sticking to your plan, no matter what happens.

We could use synonyms like persistence, grit, relentlessness to explain the matter.

But pig-headed discipline fits even better because it refers to what I have to do.

I have to be DISCIPLINED.

Not only run-off-the-mill disciplined, but determined like a pig-head.

Just stupidly pushing further and further.

How does it help me?

IF I manage to be pig-headed disciplined, I can reap all the benefits that come with it.

Even though it's simple in theory, being pigheadedly disciplined it VERY HARD in practice.

That again makes it rare, and rarity is where value can be found.

Confidence: Having the ability to push forward, no matter what, adds a degree of confidence to all my endeavors.

This confidence is a value of its own. It pulls along other people, helps me to convince clients and business partners, and thus helps me to be more successful.

How do I use it?

Now, here comes a big caution to start off with:

Pig-headed discipline is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for our success!

That means, if I lay my ladder against the wrong wall and then climb it with pig-headed discipline, this will not help me in the least.

ONLY, if I lay my ladder against a promising, will pig-headed discipline help me.

So, like all powerful tools, we must use it wisely.

After I have ensured that my ladder lays against a promising wall, the next most important question is:

HOW DO I GET THIS DISCIPLINE in the first place?

Because that's the hard part.

Let me give you a simple framework to look at that question:

Think of a wall that you, or I have to compete to reach what we desire.

This wall represents all the difficulties and obstacles between us and our goal.

On the other hand, imagine you have a certain amount of energy.

This energy can be your motivation, experience, resources.

It represents your capability to climb the given wall.

Now there are walls of different heights and people of different energy.

Also, our energy and resources can change over time.

But, however, the constellation is.

My current energy level decides about the height of the wall I can climb.

Big wall, big energy. Small wall, smaller energy.

That's one reason why billionaires get so far. They develop an unusual degree of energy they put into one thing.

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