From Inspiration to discipline

As we seek counsel and mentorship from others, we’re usually inspired during the process of taking in new information because it helps us to recognize solutions to our problems. We begin to view ourselves from a fresh perspective. Inspiration is a necessary component for our development that helps to stir our hearts and put a little fire in our bellies in order to spark movement. However, getting inspired is the easiest part of the process. Inspiration can get you started, but it won’t keep you planted throughout your journey. After a dose of inspiration, you’ll have to exert painstaking effort by doing the necessary work to achieve your goals. Embracing your purpose doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you don’t take the steps to bring it to fruition. You can read all the books and listen to all of the inspirational messages that your heart desires, but at some point inspiration has to convert to discipline.
   
Discipline is when you force yourself to put in the work and take the needed action to do those things you don’t like to attain what you want. Inspiration gets you started, but discipline keeps you committed to the journey. It helps you to follow through and finish what you started. If you want success bad enough, you will be compelled to push past the threshold of pain in establishing and practicing personal discipline. As Jim Rohn once stated, "Suffer the pain of discipline now or suffer the pain of regret later."
 
Create new daily patterns in your life that will lead you to success, which is always beyond that threshold of pain. Success in anything is available to those that are willing to endure the journey of the good, the bad and the ugly. When you hit that wall of pain, you have one of three choices to make. You can either turn to your vices (e.g., food, internet) to relieve the pain, subsequently delaying life-changing outcomes. You could quit and live with regret and the consequences of your choices. Or you can decide to saddle up with determination to persevere, until you actualize the desires of your heart.

An excerpt from Alice's new book "Designed To Bloom: How To Create a Life of Peace, Purpose and Productivity."