One day, I looked in the mirror and finally admitted that I didn’t have the discipline I needed to reach the next stage of my journey as an entrepreneur. This was holding back my personal growth and development which in turn held back my business.
That was a truth that hurt and I hid it for a long while.
I wrestled for 10 years, all year round. I competed at the national level representing Team New Jersey. I learned what it takes to break through to new stages of life.
But that was years ago and I somehow got soft.
I needed to change that.
I picked up a book called “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins. If you don’t know him, he’s a super badass who has done the impossible over and over. He’s the essence of personal growth and development.
He said, “If you have any mental toughness, any fraction of self-discipline; the ability to not want to do it, but still do it; if you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is greatness.”
The ability to do what you need to do even when you don’t feel like doing it.
The emotional mind is very powerful. It can easily hold back your own personal growth and development.
It’s the biological side of us that makes us “feel”.
It’s 5am, the alarm goes off and you no longer “feel” like getting up.
But the day before, you decided it had to happen because you needed that extra time in the day. Perfect logical sense. But emotions can easily break logic when we don’t have discipline. Bye Bye, personal growth and development.
One Key to Personal Growth and Development
The difference between living the life we truly want to live and the life that we are willing to put up with can easily boil down to discipline.
Are there other factors, yes, of course, but without discipline, you got nothing.
James Clear wrote the book Atomic Habits. Great read if you haven’t read it yet. He said:
“When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations. Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.”
He talks about habits and how to start with the least amount of friction so you can create new flows in your life and not bail out on them because they are too much.
A simple example is a daily planner I share with all the entrepreneurs in my Brand Accelerator.
I made this for myself for 2 reasons and it’s created a huge shift in my results.
Reason #1
There were too many mornings where I sat down at 5am with my coffee to start working and I would either feel like I wasn’t sure what I wanted to work and just start picking away at things, or I just hammered away at stuff I thought was needed. At the end of the day, I crossed a lot off my “to-do” list and felt like I got a lot done.
But then I would look back at the month or year and realize that all the tasks I didn’t add up to real progress. I just did a bunch of shit and painfully learned what not to do.
Reason #2
Two, it’s a simple one-page document that makes it easy to use each morning as a non-negotiable part of my routine. It forces me to work on things that actually matter.
Since using this, my business’s monthly revenue has quadrupled. No exaggeration. But my business revenue would not grow without the personal growth and development I was able to achieve through this process.
If you just sit down and start working you can either feel lost and unsure or you just do things that you like but don’t really matter to the critical path of your business. I see this happen to business owners ALL the time.
I know for a fact that some of you reading this will say, “not me Adam, I always know exactly what I need to do.”
Trust me I said that too. It doesn’t work, not if you’re going to build a real business.
The reality is that success in business and life is a pragmatic formula based on Universal Laws. It’s not just theory and philosophy.
Add up 2 + 2 and you always get 4. It’s a mathematical law.
When you do things a certain way, you WILL get certain results. I talk about this more in this free 30-minute training video I made recently.
Discipline is part of that equation because it drives personal growth and development which drives business growth.
Don’t justify your emotional responses. Don’t make excuses.
I have found through my own experience and others, nothing can ever improve in your life if you are not willing to be brutally honest about where you are now and why. That’s where personal growth and development starts, with the honest truth about yourself.
No matter what you want to do in your life, there is a price you have to pay to get there.
That’s not just money. It’s sacrifice, early mornings, late nights, travel, learning new skills, and doing things you aren’t comfortable with.
Without discipline, you’re inner voice and subconscious influence will rule you like a puppet master. You won’t achieve personal growth and development and your business won’t thrive because of it.
With discipline and self-awareness, you can break through to new versions of yourself which will open the door for your business to thrive.