THE POWER OF SELF-DISCIPLINE FOR REMARKABLE SUCCESS IN LIFE

SELF-DISCIPLINE AND COURAGE

You need large amounts of self-discipline to deal courageously with all the fear inducing events of your life. This is probably why Churchill said, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”

The fact is that everyone is afraid-and usually of many things. This is normal and natural. Often, fear is necessary to preserve life, prevent injury, and guard against financial mistakes.

So if everyone is afraid, what is the difference between the brave person and the coward? The only difference is that the brave person disciplines himself to confront, deal with, and act in spite of the fear.In contrast, the coward allows himself to be dominated and controlled by the fear.

Someone once said that with regard to warfare, although it applies to any situation-“The difference between the hero and the coward is that the hero sticks in there five minutes longer.”

Fears Can Be Unlearned

Fortunately, all fears are learned; no one is born with fears. Fears can therefore be unlearned by practicing self-discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away.

The most common fears that we experience, which often sabotage all hope for success, are the fears of failure, poverty, and loss of money. These fears cause people to avoid risk of any kind and to reject opportunity when it is presented to them. They are so afraid of failure that they are almost paralyzed when it comes to taking any chances at all.

There are many other fears that interfere with our happiness. People fear the loss of love or the loss of their jobs and their financial security. People fear embarrassment or ridicule. People fear rejection and criticism of any kind. People fear the loss of respect or esteem of others. These and many other fears hold us back throughout life.

Fear Paralyzes Action

The most common reaction in a fear situation is the attitude of, “I can't!” This is the fear of failure and loss that stops us from taking action. It is experienced physically, starting in the solar plexus. When people are really afraid, their mouth and throat go dry, their heart starts pounding.Sometimes they breathe shallowly and their stomach churns. Often they feelI like getting up and running to the bathroom.

These are all physical manifestations of the inbibitive negative habit pattern, which we all experience from time to time. Whenever a person is in the grip of fear, he feels like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. This fear paralyzes action. It often shuts down the brain and causes the individual to revert to the “fght-or-flight” reaction. Fear is a terrible emotion that undermines our happiness and can hold us back throughout our lives.

Do the Opposite

Aristotle described courage as the “Golden Mean” between the extremes of cowardice and impetuousness.He taught that“to develop a quality that you lack, act as if you already had that quality in every situation where it is called for.” In modern terms, however, we say, “Fake it until you make it.”

You can actually change your behavior by affirming, visualizing, and acting as if you already have the quality you desire. By affirming, by repeating the words, “I can do it!” emphatically whenever you feel afraid for any reason, you can cancel the feeling of “I can't.”

Every time you repeat the words “I can do it!” with conviction, you override your fear and increase your confidence.By repeating this affirmation over and over again, you can eventually build your courage and confidence to

the point where you are unafraid.

Visualize Yourself as Unafraid

By visualizing yourself performing with confidence and competence in an area where you are fearful,your visual image will eventually be accepted by your subconscious mind as instructions for your performance. Your self-image, the way you see yourself and think about yourself, is eventually altered by feeding your mind these positive mental pictures of yourself performing at your best.

By using the “act as if” method, you walk, talk, and carry yourself exactly as you would if you were completely unafraid in a particular situation. You stand up straight, smile, move quickly and confidently, and in every respect act as if you already had the courage that you desire.

The Law of Reversibility says that “if you feel a certain way, you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling.” But if you act in a manner consistent with that feeling, even if you don't feel it, the Law of Reversibility will create the feeling that is consistent with your actions.

This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in success psychology. You develop the courage you desire by disci-plining yourself repeatedly to do the thing you fear until that fear eventually disappears-and it will.

Learn to Speak on Your Feet

In 1923, Toastmasters International was formed. Its express purpose was to take people who were terrified of public speaking and help them to become confident and competent when speaking on their feet in front of an audience.

According to The Book of Lists, 54 percent of adults rate the fear of public speaking ahead of the fear of death. But Toastmasters International had a solution.They created a system based on what psychologists call “systematic desensitization.”

Once a week, at a luncheon or dinner meeting, small groups of Toastmasters come together. Each person is required to stand up and give a short talk on a specified subject in front of a group of his peers. At the end of each talk, the speaker receives applause, positive input, and comments from the other members. At the end of the evening, each person is given a grade on his talk, even if it was only for thirty or sixty seconds.

After six months of attending Toastmaster's meetings, the individual will have stood on his feet and spoken twenty-six times, receiving positive applause and feedback each time. Because of this continuous positive reinforcement, his confidence increases dramatically. As a result of this process, countless Toastmasters have gone on to become excellent public speakers and prominent people in their businesses, organizations, and communities. Their fears of public speaking are gone forever.

Eliminate Two Fears at Once

Psychologists have found that certain fears are bundled together in the subconscious mind, like wires on the same circuit. If you can overcome your fears in one of these areas, you will also eliminate other fears on the same circuit.

The fear of rejection, or call reluctance, seems to be bundled together with the fear of public speaking.When you discipline yourself to join Toastmasters or take a Dale Carnegie course to learn to speak confidently on your feet, your fears of rejection disappear as well. Your level of self-confidence in all your interactions with others increases dramatically. Your whole life changes in a positive way.

Confront Your Fears

Your ability to confront, deal with, and act in spite of your fears is the key to happiness and success. One of the best exercises you can practice is to identify a person or situation in your life of which you are afraid and resolve to deal with that fear situation immediately. Do not allow it to make you unhappy for another minute. Resolve to confront the situation or person and put the fear behind you.

Move Toward the Fear

When you identify a fear and discipline yourself to move toward it, it grows smaller and more manageable. What's more, as your fears grow smaller, your confidence grows. Soon,your fears lose their control over you.

In contrast, when you back away from a fear-inducing situation or person, your fear grows larger and larger. Soon it dominates your thinking and feeling, preoccupies you during the day, and often keeps you awake at night.

Leaders Have Two

Types of Courage

In leadership,the most common quality is that of vision. Leaders have a clear vision of where they want to take their organizations. Leaders also have a clear vision of where they want to be sometime in the future in their per sonal lives.

The second most common quality of leaders is that of courage.Leaders have the courage to do whatever is necessary to fulfill their vision.They lead from the front and dare to go forward.

There are two types of courage that you need:

First, you need the courage to launch, to take action, to take a leap of faith. You need the courage to go “all in”without any guarantee of success and with a high possibility of failure, at least in the short term. The major fail-ing that holds most people back is that in spite of all their best intentions, they don't have the courage to take the first step.

The second type of courage that you need is called “courageous patience.” This is the ability to hang in there and continue working and fighting after you have gone all in and before you have yet seen any results or rewards. Many people can muster up the courage to take action toward a new goal, but when they see no immediate result they quickly lose heart and pull back to safety and security. They don't have staying power.

Deal With the Fear Directly

The only way to deal with a fear is to address it head-on. Remind yourself that “denial” is not a river in Egypt. The natural tendency of many people is to deny that they have a problem caused by fear of some kind. They're afraid of confronting it. In turn, it becomes a major source of stress, unhappiness, and psychosomatic illness.

Be willing to deal with the situation or person directly. As Shakespeare said, “Take arms against a sea of trou-bles, and in so doing, end them.”

The companion of fear is worry. Like twin sisters, fear and worry go around together. Mark Twain once wrote,

“I have worried about a lot of things in life, and most of

them never happened.”

It has been estimated that 99 percent of the things that you worry about never happen. And most of the things that do happen, happen so quickly that you didn't have time to worry about them in the first place.

The Disaster Report

Whenever you are worried about something, fill out a “Disaster Report” on the situation. This will destroy your fear and worry almost instantly. This is often called the “worry buster.” The Disaster Report has four parts:

·First, Define the Worry Situation Clearly. What exactly are you worried about? Very often, when you take the time to be completely clear about the worry situation,a way to resolve the situation becomes immediately evident.

Second,Identify the Worst Possible Thing That Could Possibly Happen if this worry situation were to take place. Would you lose your job? Would you lose your relationship? Would you lose your money? What is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Be clear about this. In many cases, you will see that should the worst occur, it would not ruin you. It might be inconvenient or uncomfortable, but you would eventually recover. You will find that it's probably not worth all the worry that you are devoting to it.

Third,Resolve to Accept the Worst Possible Outcome, should it occur. Say to yourself, “Well, if that happens, it won't kill me. I will find a way to get along.” Most of the stress of worry comes from denial, from not being willing to face the worst possible thing that could happen. But once you have resolved to accept the worst (should it

occur), all the worry and stress seem to disappear.

Fourth, Begin Immediately to Improve on the Worst. Take every step that you possibly can to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur. Take action immediately. Do something.Get on with it. Act quickly. Get so busy making sure that the worst thing does not happen that you have no time to worry.

The Real Antidote

In the final analysis, the only real cure for fear or worry is disciplined, purposeful action in the direction of your goals. Get so busy working on your goals or the solutions to your problems that you have no time to be afraid or to worry about anything.

When you practice the self-discipline of courage and force yourself to face any fear-inducing situation in your life,your self-esteem goes up, your self-respect increases, and your sense of personal pride grows. You eventually reach the point in life where you are not afraid of anytbing.

Once you have developed the courageto step out in faith, you must then develop the self-discipline of persistence,which we will talk about in the next chapter.