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Disagreeing With Brian Tracy: Self-Discipline Is Not The Most Important Success Principle

Guest post by: Dr. Paul Lanthois

Article Overview: In his book The Power of Discipline,Brian Tracy talks about self-discipline being the most important success principle. He went on to define self discipline by quoting Thomas Huxley, who said, "Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." But should we just cast aside how we feel about certain actions in business? After all business does affect the lives of all people and their families. Is self-discipline a recipe for capitalism without a conscience? I advocate putting feeling and emotions back into business.It encourages a sense of purpose and meaning back into business. If you chase success without emotion you will never find it because the pursuit of success is about obtaining a feeling of being successful. Success is essentially an emotion.

Disagreeing With Brian Tracy: Self-Discipline Is Not The Most Important Success Principle

I recently read a segment from Brian Tracy's book, The Power of Discipline. As the title of his book suggests, he believes that the most important success principle is self-discipline. He went on to define self discipline by quoting Thomas Huxley, who said, "Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." I am a big fan of Brian Tracy and was fortunate enough to meet him at a National Speakers Association function in Brisbane last year. I normally agree with most of his points but on this occasion I don't.

Ibelieve that success comes from self-discipline with heart. Many of you may think that it is just semantics but to me there is a big difference. Self-discipline without heart is defined by Thomas Huxley's comment as, "doing what you should do, when you should do it,whether you feel like it or not" encourages us to pay scant attention to our feelings and emotions.

The problem is if you ignore your emotions and feelings, you risk ignoring health warning signs and symptoms from your body placing you at risk of burnout or serious illness. Secondly, your emotions and feelings also give you feedback from your heart and intuition. Ignore your heart and intuition at your peril.

When I say that you should listen to your heart, I don't mean to get all New Age on you. When you listen to your heart you pay attention to heart-based emotions like peace, love, contentment and happiness. Listening to your heart or putting your heart into your business means that you should make business decisions and take action when you are feeling heart- based emotions like happiness and contentment. Taking action when you are feeling negative emotions like anger, frustration, fatigue or stress will be ineffective at best or at worst could lead to major damage to your business, health and relationships.

Where I believe self-discipline with heart comes into it is that regardless of the events and circumstances going on around you have the self-discipline to interpret the situation in a way that brings you a heart-based emotion. In other words, be self-disciplined to interpret the situation in a way that feels good for you and take action or make decisions based upon that interpretation. If how you are interpreting a situation brings you an emotion that you don't like then I believe that it is your heart/ soul/ instinct telling you that it is an incorrect interpretation of events.

I believe that our heart/soul/instincts give us feedback in the form of emotion to guide us to a more effective and rewarding career and life. Making decisions and taking action while ignoring your emotion limits us to just using our brain. Our brain can only process a small percentage of all the data that we come across. I believe that our heart can process it all.

And a recent study that followed 268 Harvard graduates over a 70 year period showed that self-discipline was not the strongest predictor of career success. In fact, by far the strongest factor for a successful and rewarding career was the maintenance of personal relationships especially with your family - conclusive proof that heart-based emotions are the key to success.

But self- discipline does play an important role. To achieve success you need to show self-discipline in following your heart. Emotions like anger, frustration, aggression, anxiety and stress require little self-discipline. Being peaceful, calm, loving and happy regardless of the circumstances does require tremendous self-discipline but practice being this way and success will be inevitable.

You could re-define self-discipline with heartas"doing what you should do, when you should do it, and feel happy to do it, regardless of the circumstances."

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Article Tags: Brian Tracy, capitalism, conscience, emotion, heart, self discipline, success



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