Once you decide you want something in life, the next question you must ask yourself is, what are you willing to give up. If you are going to school, you must give up something to make room for classes and study time. If you are saving for something, you must give up what you were spending your money on, to make provision for the savings. Even if you plan to make more money, you must apply more time or effort, which in turn means that you must give something up. You have probably heard the saying, “no pain/no gain. I prefer to think of it as no loss/no gain. I think you can gain a lot in life without pain, but not without loss. All loss is not painful. If you want something bad enough you will gladly lose sleep and pleasures to get it.
I look at gain as a change in appetite. If you want to get in good physical shape, you can do so by painlessly adding five steps to a walking or running routine every day for a year. At the end of the first year you will be walking or running roughly a mile a day. At the end of the fifth year you will be walking or running roughly five miles a day. While there may be little pain involved, the time you added for exercise may result in less time for sleep or less time spent somewhere else.
Being disciplined for success not only involves a change in how we use our time, but it also requires a change in the direction of our effort and energy. What used to have my time, effort, and energy has now found a new focus, direction, and destination. Discipline to gain follows discipline to lose.