Self Discipline is the Key to a Successful Life

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April 30, 2013

Amanda Harrison

English 113B

Self Discipline is the Key to a Successful Life

Have you ever asked yourself what you have achieved to accomplish success in the past year? I believe that happiness exists when someone achieve one of their goals because the results of achieving the goal will satisfy them. What is success? According to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: Story of Success indicates that success is something that you earn after you accomplish a goal (Gladewell 4-5).Furthermore, success is not winning or losing, but it is all about how courageous you can be in order to reach your goals. However, not everyone puts in a lot of effort in their work to achieve their dreams because they lack self-discipline or they do not set their goals appropriately. It is widely believed that people become successful once they are able to utilize their abilities by putting in a lot of effort. For those who do not utilize their abilities, it is usually very difficult to succeed. This is because success only results after hard work. Without hard work, success might not be the sought results. For instance, a student who works hard day and night will be successful in his/her studies. On the other hand, a student who is lazy and careless will most likely fail or do poorly in school. In the video “Why Are Some More People More Successful?” Brain Trace, businessman and author quotes a popular actress and a famous writer, Jane Fonda saying, “No pain, no gain.” (Tracy).This demonstrates if you do not put a lot of effort in the tasks you undertake; you should not expect to achieve great results. In other words, you would not become successful. The concept of success is slightly different from one person to another; however, all these concepts converge in the desire of self-satisfaction. Regardless of the ambitions that an individual has, self-discipline skill is required in order to complete achievement of success. Although some people use their families’ reputation in their respective society to succeed, success to me is to graduate from college and serve the community; by being self-disciplined a healthier and happier life will be achieved.

Self-discipline is one of the main factors of achieving success for example, graduating from college. Self-discipline could be defined as an “ability that make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not” says Elbert Hubbard, American philosopher and author (Tracy). Self-discipline is important in distinguishing failure from success. For example, I work out at the gym five times in the week, whether I feel it or not, liked or not in order to achieve my goal and success of being physically fit. Self-discipline is mandatory and it needs to be acquired for one to achieve goals and in addition, for one to become more successful in life. Self-discipline involves some type of effort because it requires a strong will to continue achieving the plan of goals. In addition, it is the key for a happier and healthier life because it helps to increase the determination of a person and in addition, when this is done, self-discipline will become stronger in the individual A survey done by University of Scranton indicates that 8% of the people who never succeed on their resolution each year did not have self-discipline (New Years Resolution Statistics). This demonstrates that these people did not use self-discipline to achieve their goals in order to be successful. On the same note, the same survey clarifies that 8% of the people have infrequent success. Infrequent success can be defined as people achieve success from time to time. In other words, some people have unstable rate of achieving success. This illustrates that these people did not only relied on luck, but they also did not use a crucial ability that if they used it to achieve their goals they would accomplish everything they dream of, which is self-disciplined.

Additionally, graduating from college then serving the community can be a great success because they can change the community to a different shape and secure their lives. There are some people used the self-disciplined to graduate from college and serve the community resulted in a great and happy life such as: Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Brian Tracy. Despite the fact that Steve Jobs did not complete his college education, he used the material that he learned from the classes he took before he dropped out from college to build the first Macintosh. Steve started his life in difficult circumstances. For example, he left his biological mother to live with new parents. Many years later, after he became a grown young man he did not have a house to sleep in, so he had to sleep on floor in a friend’s room. In addition, he slept hungry most of the time because he did not have any money to spend. Later on, he became more mature and he taught himself to acquire self-discipline and he used it to become the CEO of Apple Company and a successful person (Jobs). This example demonstrate that if you used self-discipline to graduate from college then serve the community, you will receive magnificent results like secure and happier life.

In my own case, I have been able to achieve success in the past. The achievement of this success has been through self-discipline and hard work. I have been able to maintain a high level of self-discipline in the educational activities that I have been engaging in. For example, each and every day I wake up very early in the morning to prepare for the lessons that I would undertake during the day. In other words, before attending any lessons or lectures, I always make sure that I have gained some concepts that are going to be taught. The course outline given in electrical engineering has been of great importance in helping me to achieve this level of self discipline. In addition, to self discipline, hard work has also been important in assisting me to achieve success. Every day I usually set aside some time, which I use to go through the notes given in class. I also reflect on the lectures and try to apply the concepts learnt from electrical engineering class. By doing this, I have been able to achieve two goals in the past. The first goal achieved is that I have been able to attain my academic targets. Even though electrical engineering is a difficult course, I have been able to attain my academic targets. The second goal I have achieved is that I have acquired vital knowledge that has been important in helping me to understand the concepts. In the Outliers, Ted Friedman, was suffering from financial crisis because he did not have any job and he had to pay his college tuition. He forced himself to acquire self-discipline because he determined to achieve his goals. His main goal was to graduate from university while having a degree in Law. As a result of his effort and self-disciplined, he earned a Lawyer degree. This clarifies that….

Through my past success, I will use it to achieve success in the present. I believe my self-discipline and hard work is very important in achieving success in the present which is to pass my examinations and in addition, gain requisite knowledge that is important in excelling in the field of electrical engineering. My bid to pass in the examinations will be facilitated by the knowledge that I have acquired through extensive reading and hard work. In order to achieve my success in the present, I also seek the services of a mentor, who is a successful electrical engineer. Through the mentorship of the electrical engineer, I am able to know the important things that one ought to know in order to excel in the field of electrical engineering. Therefore, I will be able to graduate from college with not only good academic qualifications but also with an idea of the most important things that an electrical engineer ought to know in order to excel in the field of electrical engineering. A better example of a man lived his almost his life poor and frustrated is Brian Tracy. Tracy had to work extremely hard when he was at age of 10 because is parents did not have money to spend on him. He worked daily in washing cars to save money to educate himself. He read numerous of economic and self-discipline books. As a result, he became a very successful businessman and he excelled his job (Tracy). This illustrates that….

My present success will be an important factor in determining my success in the future. My success on the future will highly depend on the behaviors and cultures that I learn to adopt. After completing and graduating from college convincingly, I will take another path of success. I will have accomplished educational success and now I will be after more success in my practice as an electrical engineer. My success as an electrical engineer will be to offer my knowledge and skills to help the society and in addition, to help the field of engineering to develop further. An example of a brilliant man, Bill Gates who took advantage of his present to develop his future to secure his life and serve his society. As described in Outliers, Bill Gates was suffering in his educational period because he wanted to be an expert in programming computers. Therefore, he had to work extremely hard day and night to be successful. He created his own self-discipline and it made him invent Microsoft system, which led him to a successful and secure life that serves the community (49-52). This demonstrates that…

I admit that in some cases, “success” can be reaches with out self-disciplined and hard work. An example of a person who used his family’s reputation and wealth to acquire success is Waleed Bin Talal, a prince of the Saudi royal family who is also a renowned businessman. It is important to note that, despite the financial success that Waleed Bin Talal earned in the past decades; his success was not made by his own effort but rather, he relied on his family’s reputation and wealth to achieve his success. This type of “success” by Waleed Bin Talal is not the desirable type of success that an individual should talk about. Using family’s reputation may lead to a luxurious, secured, and happier life. However, “Board of Directors” indicates that Waleed Bin Talal believes that he used his family reputation to become very successful in his life. I disagree because that is a fake success because he did not use the magnificent ability, which is self-discipline to achieve a goal; instead he relied on other sources to become a successful businessman like his respective royal family reputation to earn fame and wealth. I argue that success will only exist if self-discipline used in our characters because it will help me to graduate from college, and then serve the community. Graduating from college and serving the communities will result my life happier, secured, and successful.

In conclusion, the achievement of success by an individual brings joy and happiness to the individual. However, the path to achieve success is made up of many challenges and many difficult situations that a person can go through. However, through self-discipline, a person can be able to achieve his or her goals. When self-discipline, Canfield, American motivational speaker and author says it is important to consider the abilities that one possesses so that one can be able to set achievable goal (Canfield 34). This would enable a person to avoid unnecessary frustrations. On my part, I have been able to use my abilities in the field of electrical engineering to set achievable goals. Over the years, I have been able to achieve success through passing my examinations and gaining requisite knowledge required in performing tasks in the field of electrical engineering. I have been able to achieve this through effort and self-discipline. I soon hope to achieve other successes such as completing college and later using my knowledge and skills to serve the community.

Works Cited

“Board of Directors.” Www.kingdom.com. Kingdom Holdings Company. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.

Canfield, Jack. The Success Principles: How to get from Where You Are to Where You Want To Be. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers, 2009. Print.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print.

Kinkade, Shawn. “The Bridge between Goals and Accomplishments? | Aspire.” Aspire The

Bridge between Goals and Accomplishments Comments. Aspire.com. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.

“New Years Resolution Statistics.” Statistic Brain RSS. Statisticbrain.com, 13 Dec. 2012. Web.

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Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. Perf. Steve Jobs. YouTube. YouTube, 7 Mar.

2008. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.

Why Are Some More People More Successful? Perf. Brian Tracy. YouTube. Youtube, 19 Jan.

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