How many times have you been excited about this or that, planned all about how you were going to make it happen, went through the first few steps and even got a few other people fired up about it, only to eventually “lose interest” and come up with a reason why it was now too hard or no longer worth your time.

Many of us never even make it that far.. We have some great concept in our minds and all is well. Then suddenly, we somehow realize that there is going to be work and sacrifice involved and just as quickly as the idea entered our minds, its gone.

This has happened to me more times than I can count. It seems to be the curse of the entrepreneur.. One great idea comes up after the next, with no apparent end in sight. We know we have what it takes to make it happen and we know that it’ll be worth our time and effort. We get started, things are great.. and then they die. Maybe some other idea comes along.. maybe there’s something so much better the first idea wasn’t even worth our time.

One of the strengths of an entrepreneur is the ability to be flexible and to move from one project to the next with relative ease, to see potential all around us and to pursue.

..It can also be one of our greatest weaknesses

Its far to easy to rationalize “moving on” and before long it can become a habit. We stick to something while the going is good and as soon as an obstacle comes up, we move on to the next thing. For some of you, this isn’t the case. There are people out there I’ve met who can stick to things like you couldn’t believe. They stick to something and see it through, even when things aren’t going their way. Some people would say their wasting their time, yet you’d be surprised. When you stick to something and see it through, it can pay off big time.

Know what their secret is? Yeah.. bunch of cheaters, reading my post title.. *smiles*..

The Secret is Discipline.

I’ve written a lot about time management in the past and I’ve touched a bit on discipline here and there, yet I think I missed a lot of its true importance. All the best tricks in the world, all the most valuable secrets of managing this or improving that, aren’t worth anything if you don’t have the discipline to start and stick to learning them till you’ve made them your own.

Ever tried learning a new language? Its hard!

You breeze through those first few words. You’re having a great time. You show off to your friends, throwing words and numbers out all around, and you feel awesome. Then, its the second day. “Hmm.. I don’t really feel like working on it today.. Tomorrow will work!”.. Tomorrow comes and you spend a little bit of time, but it just doesn’t seem as fun. This goes on for about a week and then, like magic, this whole notion of learning a language is gone.

For many of us, its not quite that bad, yet you get the idea.

How about excersise? “I’m going to start running at 5 every morning for the next 3 months!”.. Ha.. Yeah, that’s a fun one. I actually have kept that up for several months in a row and let me tell you, it gets MUCH easier after those first few weeks. Eventually it becomes habit.. it becomes a part of you. But until then..

..You have to work for it!

Discipline isn’t easy. It means you end up doing things that you DON’T enjoy. You may have to force yourself awake at 5 in the morning after only 6 hours of sleep and boyy do you wanna sleep in. Yet you know, if you give in now its not long before its over. You have to keep at it.

The path towards becoming a successful entrepreneur is a lot like making yourself get up and run every morning.

There will be the times things just aren’t going right and you don’t feel a BIT like working on your business. “Brainstorming? Ha.. what’s that.. Networking? Going out and meeting people? Doing research? Building a team? My gosh.. I don’t feel like bothering with all that right now. Its summer time! I’ll get to it later.. after all, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me!”..

I haven’t figured out a really good way to teach my discipline.. other than “just do it”. Yup.. even when you feel like you’ve been hit with a proverbial brick, sometimes you’ve just gotta get your lazy butt out of bed and make yourself run. You’ll feel great afterwards.. maybe not during, and maybe not the next day (if you’ve fallen out of practice ;).. but you will :).

Alright, I’m off to bed ‘cuz I’ve got a BIG day tomorrow before I take off to go visit my mom. The baby’s coming ANY day now! I’m really excited! :)

Goodnight World!

-Jonathan Wold