Sacrifice and Discipline

Sacrifice and discipline... two words that make many people want to run. For most people, there is nothing positive about sacrifice or discipline, after all, who wants to give anything up or deny themselves? As human beings we have an innate tendency to seek out pleasure and avoid pain, add to that the fact that we live in a culture that continually tells us we "deserve" everything from SUVs and Big Screen TV's to being thin and having beautiful skin. If you believe what you watch, you could easily be led to believe that the best thing you can do for yourself is satisfy every urge, desire or want you ever have. The fact is, when it comes to being successful in life, nothing could be further from the truth. Your success is dependent, at least in part, to your ability to postpone gratification, or in other words, your willingness to sacrifice and discipline yourself.

As children our parents, if they were good ones, disciplined us when we needed it. Discipline doesn't necessarily mean punishment (although that is what many people associate it with) it really just means that a parent does what they have to do to keep their child(ren) headed on the right path. Sacrifice works much the same way... parents sacrifice many things that they might 'want' to do, in order to achieve a greater good for their child(ren).

As adults, the responsibilities of our parents fall on us. We are called to sacrifice for, and discipline, ourselves. Unfortunately, many people fall into the trap of buying into the messages of pop culture telling them: "you deserve it", "reward yourself", "you're worth it". This entitled ideology destroys the potential of many people. I would suggest that the "entitlement ideology" that is so pervasive in North America is the root cause of the credit card crisis and maybe even the obesity epidemic.

When believe "I deserve it" even when they don't, they spend money they don't have. When people thing they should "reward themselves" even if they haven't done anything to warrant a reward, they eat more than they should. What successful people do that is different, is they think longer term. They realize that there is nothing particularly wrong with thinking "I deserve it" if you've worked really hard and actually do deserve it. They understand that rewarding yourself is fine, if you've done something worthy of being rewarded. But they also understand how to think LONG term. They are able to postpone short-term small gratification in order to get longer term larger gratification.

One of the best examples of this is a now famous Stanford study of children on short-term gratification that has come to be known as the "marshmallow study". Psychologists took a group of 4 year olds and offered them one marshmallow right now, or two marshmallow's if they waited until later. The two groups were then followed for many years...those who were able to postpone gratification and get two marshmallow's later, were found to be far more successful than those who ate one marshmallow right away (read more about the study: http://www.sybervision.com/Discipline/marshmallow.htm)

As someone who has now trained for, and run, several long distance running events, I've learned that it takes a great deal of sacrifice and discipline to train several days a week for months in order to get ready for an event. It means sacrificing some late nights out with friends and it means disciplining myself to get out of bed early in the morning on the weekend to get a run in. However, what I have also learned is that the long-term reward of finishing a marathon, is much more gratifying that the short-term reward of staying in bed or going out for drinks. The same applies to whatever your goals and dreams are. If the goal is big enough, any and all sacrifices will be worth it.

So this week I encourage you to look at whether there are some sacrifices you need to make in order to reach that next level of success. In what areas of your life do you need to be more disciplined?