Hard work is misunderstood these days. It’s like two 4-letter words strung together.
But the worst 4-letter work really is “can’t”.
Without hard work  you can’t reach the goals you need to feel great.
Nothing but great effort can produce great feelings of great accomplishment.

What outlines the work you find hard are the things that challenge you.

How many have you disrespected things that where just handed to you, no matter how valuable you knew they were? How many times has someone told you “I wish I could do that” and you felt nothing about it?  It’s part of the human condition, we simply don’t respect things that don’t take hard work to accomplish.

Most often through great challenges come great results. When you develop the discipline of hard work you gain the ability to go farther then people who continually reach only for what’s easiest.

Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world, but without daily hard work to maintain his abilities, he would only be fast – not the fastest. Imagine what Usain’s ability would be if he watched T.V. For 4 hours a day eating Big Mac’s?

We only know Nelson Mandela as the visionary he is because of the hard work to employs to make his voice unify so many people’s ideals. Enduring 27 years in prison for his cause and not giving up is very hard work and demonstrates his self discipline to act.

Two completely different goals, both accomplished with the self discipline for hard work. It’s universal, and will create results no matter what industry or skill it’s focused in. Long term results follow strong efforts.

One problem with achieving the successes you desire is learning to accept the challenges that feel painful or uncomfortable to endure. The turning point comes when you are able to embrace and even enjoy the challenges of hard work.

Hard work builds a successful character.

If you want strong muscles, you work them hard, and even learn to enjoy the pain of “one more rep”.  When you want your life to be as strong and dominating as a body builder, you have to apply the strong principles of hard work to your life.

Do you want to feel more confidant?
Feel more successful?
Feel a greater sense of accomplishment?
Accept what’s holding you back and work hard to remove that barrier.
That’s it. Just do it.

Think about all the projects around you that have been left undone, probably because the work has been harder then you wanted to push yourself.
Select one of those projects right now and go do it – now.
Seriously … After you complete it you’ll feel proud of yourself. Giving in you more confidence to do more. It’s called building  momentum.

Go..! Do it now.

Willpower… the substance generally lacking within all people depressed or otherwise unhappy.

It’s not something that can be replace by some gimmick fast acting miracle sold on some infomercial at 2am or in the discount bin at your local Walmart. Thought simple minds hoping there is a solution without effort continue to line the coffers of 2-bit solicitors, it’s just not there. Feeding on a lack of will power to make a quick buck and knowing this audience is too lazy to complain that just got scammed, these sales continue to thrive. (play the lottery lately?)

What is Will Power?

Willpower is defined as the ability to exert one’s desires over one’s actions and manifests itself as determination, resolution and persistence. It’s the inner strength to make the decision, that takes the action, and embraces the inevitability of obstacles regardless of the of difficulties bound to appear.

Did I mention it’s fleeting?

When your poised to start a race and your there at the starting blocks, your pumped up and ready to give it – that’ your will power getting you start. It’s what will give you the power to go from a dead stop to full speed in the shortest span of time.

When you first have what you believe is a great idea, it feels easy to take actions that progress this thought into reality. But soon your original desire to produce the results will be fade. This is normal and needs to be anticipated for successful results.

Driving down the highway in first gear will surely blow your engine fast, but without first gear it’s difficult to start moving.

That initial effort will be the toughest, it will consume the most amount of energy, and will therefore will be unsustainable.  If you continue to consume that much energy you will burn out, fizzle up, and fall away. You need to strategically plan so that once you get moving, you can use the power of your will as momentum to continue that pace with less energy.

Plans are the nutrients of willpower.

It doesn’t take much to be effective, it can take a long to to create, and not very hard to get them together.
BUT
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

If that angers you, just ask yourself what do you wish did better. Then ask yourself how well you planned before you took action.

When you truly want to achieve something you need to look beyond the tasks at hand and see the overall bigger picture, and value the end result more then you dislike the obstacles between your current position and the target goal. Then, with that full image in your mind you need to find what will have the greatest impact with the smallest amount of effort.

Some Examples to get you started.

If you want to lose weigh, remove the junk food from the house and replace it healthier snacks you can still enjoy. If you say there are no snacks you can enjoy, research some online. Print out healthier recipes and place them in the kitchen.

If you want to exercise more, move your couch and put a StairMaster or even just a floor mat in your favorite viewing location, and break your remote control. Or better yet, give away the TV and go for a walk. Watch the neighbors and listen to nature.

If you want to spend more time with the family, plan activities around time that you usually waste (like watching T.V.)

If you want to earn more money, buy some educational material and place some in the bathroom, some in the bedroom. Learn to enjoy reading – plan on it. Get some mp3 and load up your iPod, you can listen to them while going for that walk to lose weight.

Whatever you want to accomplish, use your will power to alter the environment that is creating the problem. Then live within the new environment with the expectation to accomplish the goal you set forth.

If you don’t know where you are, how are you going to get where you need?

Randomly guessing your current situation can lead you in exactly the wrong direction, with the added feature of being sure you are right. This inevitably leads to being in a worst position that when you started, and possibly dragging your believers to the same demise.

Accurately assessing what you are capable of is truly the first step to self-improvement.

This allows for proper structured improvement, setting the growth challenges close enough so it’s an obtainable stretch, and not so difficult that you give up before succeeding.

Of course, anything you don’t really want will get poor effort and hence, poor results (or none at all).

We humans are dynamic creatures, and there are are several area’s that can be improved.

How diligent are you to being productive while working? Do you eat for health or just because it’s there? When faced with a confrontation do you remain calm and rational, or blow your lid spouting nonsense?

If the last few years you have eaten 2 big-mac’s everyday for lunch, it’s probably unrealistic to believe you can instantly change that to a salad and health shake tomorrow and each day following. But you could make that change for 1 day the first week, 2 days the the next week, and so on – or even make it one Big-mac, hold the fries, and snake on a protein drink later in the day, until you can remove the garbage food from your diet altogether.

You must make your goals realistically obtainable to be successful, and you have to know you starting position before you can set a achievable targets.

What seems to be the biggest barrier for personal self growth is denying the reality you live. Setting goals that are too far out of reach will cause frustration, and goals that don’t require effort will fail too yield improvements. When unrealistic goals are set people will find something to blame, either themselves, or believe the task is impossible for them.

I believe nothing is impossible, but the proper “baby steps” must be employed for most people to work through to the end.

Little accomplishments along the path go a long way to to keep you motivated to continue.
Many people call this building momentum.

For the greatest improvement I suggest you identify your personal weakest area, seriously and accurately assess where you truly stand, accept that as your truth, then set an obtainable progression to your goal.

So What’s this done for me?

Personally, I have seen tremendous benefits from pursuing the path of self-discipline.

When I was in my 20′s, I had the ignorantly common diagnosis of being pi-polar. Doctors provided me with many medications and handed me prescriptions with a smile. I was given several months off work and even asked if I want to go on long term disability to live on “the system” for life.

Sure I was depressed, but it wasn’t a medical condition, it was psychological positioning. I didn’t like my life, I didn’t know what was wrong, nor did I know the right path. Some drug companies and doctors drug-pushers made some money by pretending to help me. This was just a band-aid solution, and not even a good one at that. My depression was caused because I knew I was being fed lies about how life worked. This mental state was caused by not knowing what these lies were, trying to live them anyway, and not having anyone around me who was willing (or able?) to teach better.

So after getting board playing 16 hours a day of Sid Meier’s Civilization (I wasn’t working remember), I realized I was in the position of “no mad” – one man with nothing but a dream. I consciously decided if I could use this well made and realistic script of life (in the game) to conquer the world, I could do this in real life to. …And so my journey began.
Initially this meant tackling a lot of difficult challenges, but I overcame them and grew a lot stronger in a short period of time. I continue everyday to become a better and more valuable contribution to society.

If I just waited for my life to happen, and relied on my (well intentioned) family and corrupt doctors, I’d probably still be a drugged up zombie – or dead. Now, nothing about my life is an accident – for better or worse, everything was planned. But the more recent days are filled with hope and prosperity because I know that the ‘failures’ I achieve are just accelerated learning curves.

It pays off in the end…

None of my successes happened overnight, nor did they just fall out of the sky.
I had to leave friends I cared about but were poisoning my thoughts,
Fight with myself regularly for the conviction that doing nothing was far more painful,
And conjure up some sort of (realistic) arrogance in my head that I really was worthy of lofty goals.

It has not been easy, but it has been worth it. Everyday is a new adventure that I look forward to.

So I ask, What are you worth inside and what do you want to share or accomplish in this lifetime?

It will not be easy, but it will be worth it. The first step is to openly accept where you are right now, whether you feel good about it or not. Surrender yourself to what you have to work with — maybe it isn’t fair, but it is what it is. And you won’t get any stronger until you accept where you are right now.

To borrow some words of Mohand Ghandi – “There is doing and not doing. There is no such thing as trying.”

Grab a pen and paper (for this, it’s better then the computer, trust me please) and start writing out what you want to accomplish. Beside each item list what’s standing in the way of that dream.
Then Do what you need to get past those obstacles and Do Your Dream!

No one else but you can take massive action to achieve anything meaningful.

There are many different philosophies about how one would achieve success…

There is the 5 Pillars of self discipline,
The 12 Pillars of Success,
7 habits of highly successful people…

These are great.
And really, they are all the same things with a different viewing angle.

Personally, I like the 5 Pillars of Self-discipline model.
The reason for that is simple… If you can make yourself do what you want to do,
You can position yourself to accomplish anything you want.
Really.

Getting A WHIP to use...

If you make an acronym out of the 5 pillars of self discipline, you get “a whip”

1. Acceptance
2. Will Power
3. Hard Work
4. Industry
5. Persistence

Finding your whip then getting your whip can be difficult for many people.
The journey has pained several people in history.
BUT
Using your whip is the most difficult thing – It’s the action step.
You have probably been told many things that you agree would help you life,
But taking action on these idea’s is what separates the successful from the mediocre,
The delighted from the depressed, and the ignorant from the enlightened.

How Much Do You Want What You Want?

If your interest in personal improvement and  personal growth stops at knowing what’s right, but you never take the action to make things happen,  you will never be the person you dream of.
Achieving your personal dreams will only happen when these principles are followed (knowingly or otherwise) with decisive and dedicated action.

Are you dedicated to achieving your dreams?

I hope this mini series will assist you greatly in finding your weak spots, patching up the holes, painting over the surface with integrity, and reusing everything you possess to achieve more then you ever thought possible.

Dreams DO come true… but rarely by accident.