I touched on your foundation and the true cost of bad habits in Stay Poor and its importance on your growth. Today we will discuss how self discipline is 90% of the equation and how without it, not much can be accomplished. Think about discipline as it pertains to money first, as it is the easiest and clearest concept to understand.
Many strive to always make more money, it seems to be a common theme in society, and a common theme in general that all want to pursue money as their goal. Despite having covered over a dozen times that money should never be a goal but rather a reward, human nature will always drive us to seek more of it to obtain the luxuries we desire.
Now lets look at this from a different angle, if you make $2000 a month and spend $600 on debt, then you are left with $1400. Now if you make $4000 a month but have $2000 in debt as you make more money and buy all those things you dream of always you are technically in a worst place than you were before, but at least have a nicer car. Ultimately its actual much worst as you are more in debt and your net worth is much smaller despite you ability to bring more in. Now if you made $4000 but kept your debt at $600, you would be in a much better place.
This is where discipline towards life comes in as it is ultimately in your hands to choose to sacrifice the smaller items in life you don’t need immediately for the greater returns. A simple example of this is when you suddenly have an unexpected expense come up and magically find money or find creative ways to come up with the money to make basic needs work. That’s your brain indirectly putting that event as a priority and making all other irrelevant items in the back. If you learn to actually do that without being at stake then you are never placed in such a situation where you have to beg to survive. Being proactive in understanding how to grow, not how to spend ultimately makes you much more efficient at everything you do.
This same concept can be applied to everything else you do in life like your health, going out with friends, and much more. Being able to put limits on what you should or shouldn’t do because you understand its impact on your life helps, and prevents you from having those unexpected expenses. Just like maintenance on your car, being preventive and understanding what needs to be done gives you the ultimate ability to grow in life. So before going out and buying all the things you don’t need or spending money at the bars… rethink what your ultimate goal is and how committed you really are to it.
