The Importance of Discipline in Life

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you’ll never know whether it is going to be forward, backward, or sideways.

Just try to imagine your life when everyone/thing around you breaks away from their discipline. The earth refusing to rotate or revolve, the sun refusing to rise or set, the sweeper refusing to sweep, doctors refusing to heal or, your heart refusing to beat! What would become of your life? Would it be possible to differentiate it from hell?

Discipline is that thread which binds the beads of life into a perfect chain. If the thread breaks, the chain breaks. The essence of the chain is lost. That’s the power of discipline that we often fail to understand.

Discipline is not only about doing what you’re supposed to do, but doing it in time, and doing it regularly. A day goes when you work like a maniac and then comes a day when you sleep like anything. However, balanced approach calls for sleeping and working simultaneously and aptly, so that you don’t regret either of them. Discipline in work helps shooing away procrastination and incorporates punctuality. These habits are praised everywhere.

Heard the lines, “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man, healthy, wealthy and wise?” But did you apply it to your life? Hell no! You can’t get up early (or as soon as your alarm bell goes) because you didn’t sleep early. Well, how would you when you had loads of work piled up? That’s because you broke the chain.

Many of you may argue that self-discipline binds you, however, you crave for freedom. But, it doesn’t. Rather, it is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from the expectations and demands of the others, freedom from weakness, fear and doubt. It allows you to feel inner strength. It makes you a master of (by freeing you from) your emotions and anxieties.

All those people who have achieved success in any field, have got it owing to their quality of discipline. It’s the routine that makes them practice, practice and practice and toil hard and harder that brings out the best of them. They did it when they were down. They did it when no one believed that they could. They did it regularly and mastered it!