In my last post on the subject of discipline, my main focus was on the role of discipline in the achievement of success in the pursuit of physical fitness. This post will focus on the part discipline plays in the attainment of success in academic pursuits and in other areas of life.
Being educated to the level of a Master's degree and having achieved good grades in almost every subject I have taken, I can say without any iota of doubt that I have a very thorough understanding of the relationship between discipline and academic success. I know what it feels like to truly hate a subject- mathematics for most people, further mathematics for me- and never want to pick up a textbook on that subject and read it. I have been there, and on the occasions that I failed to pick up the further mathematics textbook and do some practice, and I paid dearly with low scores in tests taken on the subject. It took a great deal of desire to want to be good at further mathematics, a great deal of effort (hard work) and determination to attain the level of discipline needed to pick up my further mathematics textbooks and do some studying even when I did not have any assignment on the subject to submit in a week or two or any imminent tests. This eventually paid off as I passed the further mathematics examination which I sat during my secondary school leaving examinations.
It is important to note that it took discipline to sit down study subjects which I found easy, such as Chemistry, Biology, English, ordinary Mathematics, Economics and Geography. It took a whole lot of discipline as- naturally- I felt immensely confident in my ability to pass whatever tests were set on them regardless of whether I read or not.
As an undergraduate studying Chemical Engineering, the courses I had very little love for- if any- were Thermodynamics and Structural Chemistry. It took long afternoons of studying all by myself - in absolute solitude- in corners in the library where I would not be distracted and long nights of studying in my room- 80% of the time by candle light due to the poor power supply situation in Nigeria- to become good at these subjects and do well in tests on them. It was discipline that enabled me remain on the path to attaining a solid understanding of these courses. I believe I have said enough on the correlation between discipline and academic success. Let's move on to another one of life's endeavours.
Anyone who writes for a living or as a hobby would understand and agree with me that it takes a HERCULEAN amount of discipline to pick up the pen or the keyboard and begin a new piece or story or continue one that is already in progress. Regardless of how great the desire to write a writer has, or how much talent he or she has, it is often the case that he or she lacks the discipline to put pen to paper of fingers to keyboard. This is true for most writers I know, for some strange reason, myself included. Even after almost a score of short stories , a novel and a half and some poetry written, I still struggle occasionally to start a new piece or continue one in progress. I still struggle to put pen to paper and just get on with the task of creating a piece.And this has nothing to do with writer's block or a dearth of ideas, for those who have these in mind. Knowing how great my desire to write is, knowing how gifted I am at writing (at the risk of immodesty) and finally, being an individual who is always brimful and bursting with ideas, I can rightly adduce discipline issues as the major reason- other than time constraints as writing is not all I do- why I do not write as often as I should, or want to.
Just as discipline determines the level of success achieved by writers, so does it determine the degree of success achieved in any other venture, be it sports, entertainment or whatever else.
In conclusion, let me state that the level of success we attain in whatever endeavour we turn our minds to is directly proportional to how well we can discipline ourselves to achieve the objective(s) of that endeavour. People often say that your attitude determines your altitude. This is true. However it is also true that the level of discipline you possess determines your attitude. So DISCIPLINE YOURSELF FOR SUCCESS SAKE!
