Top 10 Fitness Commandments #4: Desire and Discipline

I continue discussing the top 10 fitness commandments today with a short discussion of desire and discipline. Desire is a strong feeling of wanting while discipline is the ability to work in a controlled manner. I see desire and discipline as the two sides of the same coin. On the one side, desire depicts our emotions, our ideas and thoughts, and our ability to let our minds imagine. One the other side, discipline is our ability to display logic, focus, and our ability to execute the task at hand. So, it is one thing to desire something but with that comes the ability to execute day in and day out until the goal(s) is(are) accomplished. To some degree, they feed off each other. We can’t have one without the other. To desire something and not work for it is just an idea, but to work without any idea of what you are working toward is inefficient use of energy. We need to have the ability to dream and think about a future that we see fit however we also need the ability to put that dreaming into a clear focus and begin to execute if we plan on actually seeing something through.

When considering our goals, we typically visualize what we want and that helps improve our desire for the end goal. The desire is the emotional side of the journey. This is where we can let your minds wander and mentally create what it will and thus we create an image of a life we see possible. The other half of that emotional side is the logical side. The side were even though we know that in order to achieve, we have to execute some form a discipline, daily. In simple terms, discipline is the willingness to do something that we may not want to do, but we do it anyway in order to achieve said goal.

Action Step:

Similar to visualization, think of something you would like to accomplish. Write out the steps to the goal to be accomplished. Once the goal is on paper, write out what you are really willing to do to make it happen? Now execute that. Are you willing to move? Are you willing to change friends? Are you willing to read more? Think of discipline as true execution!