Tag Archives: discipline

“Making Myself Behave”


When I wake up in the mornings, time is already moving, in fact it was moving all night long. The only thing that I can do is to get up and move with it. You hear a lot of talk about managing time, and not to look down on the topic, I just want to talk about it in a different light. Time management seminars, classes and practices are very beneficial. How many people would come to a “Me Management Seminar” or “Me Management Class?” In reality, at the end of the day (or beginning hopefully) we are not really managing time as much as we are managing ourselves.

I have never actually seen time stand still, although there may have been times when it felt like it was standing still. I have seen clocks stand still, but only because the batteries were dead. In fact we have a clock in our kitchen that just stands still, it never moves. But even with a clock standing still or a person standing still, time keeps on moving. If time never stops them maybe, just maybe, our concern is not about managing time, but about managing ourselves. That challenge is one that sometimes becomes a difficult task.

You only get 24 hours in one day until that day is gone. Time is your greatest resource; it may be the only resource that you cannot get more of. Being a great manager of yourself will help you to become a more productive person allowing you to eliminate the excuse that “you didn’t have time,” because you will focus on the more important things first. You will also learn to make time work by making yourself accountable to plan before you get started.

Here are my thoughts on managing YOU:

  1. You must plan ahead, knowing what you are going to do with YOU in the time that is given.
    1. Managing YOU is telling YOU where you will spend your time before the hours arrive.
  2. You have to be disciplined to make sure that YOU do what you planned.
    1. Remember that time is going to pass whether YOU use it or not, so you have to be disciplined to use time correctly instead of wondering why nothing got done.
  3. Know and plan that everything will not work in the timing that was planned.
    1. Not planning for this will get you discouraged and off your plan quickly.
  4. Keep a log of where YOU spent your time.
    1. We are creatures of habits, but you cannot change what you do not measure.
    2. A log of your time will tell YOU what you with the time that you spent

What are your ideas concerning “You Management?”

What do you take away from this?

What do you have to add to it?

Keep Going


Keep Going

I would agree that sometimes it is hard to get started, but once you do get started you have to face the second challenge. The challenge of continually making progress after the initial enthusiasm has worn off.

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You have to admit, that we sometimes get excited about that new thing we have started. Whether it is the book we wanted to write, the blog we wanted to write; or there could be a dozen different things that someone like you has finally got started on.

 

Unfortunately, there comes a time when you lose the feelings that came with starting and you have to reach down inside and find a new strength to continue to make progress.

 

Now, I am not saying that is will always be easy, because we have already stated that there are times of let-down, when you do not feel the initial encouragement. However, it is possible to take your project beyond the initial stage.

 

Below is a list of the few things that I think of when I need a little encouragement to keep making progress:

  1. Examine, revisit why you are doing this in the first place. (Now I realize that asking this question may cause you to lay some things aside and not do them anymore, but it will also allow you to focus on the good reasons why you started your new venture.)
  2. Remember that old saying, “Rome was not built in a day.” It will take some time to get where you want to go.
  3. Keep going even when you do not feel like it.
  4. Make a plan, and inside that plan make checkpoints where you can measure to see that you are making progress, no matter how small it might be.
  5. Keep going even when you do not feel like it.

 

And I finish with these two statements by John Maxwell:

  1. When you do what you know to do, you eventually feel motivated.
  2. Motivation is not the cause of action; motivation is the byproduct of action.

 

Now let me ask you a question; Do you feel like you do a good job following through, or do you struggle to finish too. What things do you do to get your discipline to keep going?