Brian Tracy argues that self-discipline is the single most important quality for success and can be learned through repeated practice. He emphasizes long, focused effort on high-value tasks and introduces specific disciplines to develop: the discipline of goals (write clear, prioritized goals across life areas and list immediate actions) and the discipline of planning (invest time to plan for large returns). He presents a time-management "crowding out" principle (high-value tasks crowd out low-value activities) and gives practical instructions (write goals, prioritize, make action lists). The talk closes with viewer CTAs (comment, subscribe, free gift).
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Brian Tracy
November 27, 2019
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Hello, I'm Brian Tracy, and today I want to talk to you about one of the single best qualities that you can develop for success. Actually, it's the best quality and the most important quality. And without it, nothing is possible. The great secret of success is that there are no secrets of success. There are only timeless principles that have been proven effective throughout the centuries. There's one special quality that you can develop that will guarantee your greater success, accomplishment and happiness in life. Of a thousand principles for success developed over the ages, this one quality or practice will do more to assure that you accomplish wonderful things with your life than anything else. The quality is so important that if you don't develop it to a high degree, it's impossible for you to ever achieve what you are truly capable of achieving. The quality that I'm talking about is the quality of self discipline. It is a habit, a practice, a philosophy, and a way of living. All successful men and women are highly disciplined in the important work that they do. All unsuccessful men and women are undisciplined and unable to control their behaviors and their appetites. And when you develop the same levels of high personal discipline possessed by the most goal oriented, successful people in our society, you will very soon begin to achieve the same results that they do. It's no miracle. All great success in life is preceded by long sustained periods of focused effort on a single goal. The most important goal with the determination to stay with it until it is complete. Throughout history, we find that every man or woman who achieved anything lasting and worthwhile had engaged in long, often unappreciated hours, weeks, months and even years of concentrated, disciplined work in a particular direction. Fortunately, the quality of self discipline is something that you can learn by continuous practice over and over until you master it. Once you've mastered the ability to delay gratification, the ability to discipline yourself to keep your attention focused on the most important task in front of you. There is virtually no goal that you cannot accomplish and no task that you cannot complete. I have studied successful men and women for more than 40 years. And in the simplest of terms, successful men and women are those who work almost all the time on high value tasks. Unsuccessful men and women are those who waste their time by wasting the minutes and hours of each day on low value activities. You see, there is a crowding out principle in time and personal management. It simply says that if you spend all of your time on highly productive tasks, and by the end of the day you will have crowded out all the unproductive activities that might have distracted you from your real work and from what's really important. On the other hand, if you spend your time on low value activities, the reverse happens. Those low value activities will crowd out the time that you need to complete the tasks that can make all the difference in your life. And the key to this attitude toward time and personal management is always self discipline. There are several disciplines that you need to develop if you want to achieve your full potential. The first of these is the discipline of goals. This means that you sit down with a pad of paper, a pen, and ample time to think. You think through and then make a written list of all the things that you want to accomplish in the next 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years. You organize the list into the various areas of your life. Your career, your money, your family, your health, and the other parts that are important to you. Interestingly enough, if you can be clear about your goals and write them down, there's nothing that can stop you from achieving them. But if you're not clear, that means that you haven't written them down. There's nothing that can help you. You set priorities among your goals and rewrite your lists so that your most important goals are at the top. You then take a separate sheet of paper and you make a list of all the things that you can think of doing right now to move you toward the attainment of your most important goals. Fully 97% of adult Americans are trying to live their lives without clear, specific written goals. This is the same as setting off across an unknown country without a roadmap. You may get somewhere eventually, but it will take you much longer. And it's far more likely that you will get lost and waste an enormous amount of time than if you planned your trip carefully with a roadmap and full information about the future terrain before you start it out. The second discipline you need to develop for success is the discipline of planning. Many people think that they are too busy to plan or they don't give themselves enough time to plan. You will save 10 minutes in execution and getting the job done. For every minute that you invest in planning, you will get a 1000% return on your time investment. By taking the time to think through in advance what you are going to do in the hours and days ahead. Now I'd love to hear from you. So my question today is, is self discipline important to you? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action and take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about the power of self discipline. Subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends. Don't forget to click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.
