Here is the best way you can study self-discipline

Here is the best way you can study self-disciplineHere is the best way you can study self-disciplineThe best way is yur way.And you dont study self-discipline, you practice it.Its like swimming, you cannot learn it. You must get into the water and try to swim. Otherwise, you will never learn it.You must start some daily disciplines and keep doing them day after day after day. Thats how one becomes self-disciplined.However, you of course, should watch what others are doing and listen to their advice.Be a student, not a follower. Dont just go do what someone says. Take interest in what someone says, then debate it, ponder it and consider it from all angles. - Jim RohnJust dont follow them blindly. Draw your own conclusions.I will give you a handful of tips that worked for me. By any external metric, Im a self-disciplined man.For example, for the last 1532 days, every single day I did my short but insanely intensive (always to failure) morning workout. I never aimed to be self-discipli ned per se. It just happened.But I was much worse in the past, so I think I learned some self-discipline without my conscious effort on this specific trait.Change your personal philosophy about self-disciplineFor most people, self-discipline is a drudgery. Its something to abhor. Its hard.If you approach self-confidence with that attitude, its fricking hard to develop it.Self-discipline is not hard at all. The lack of self-discipline is hard. Take a look at the chart belowThe Slight Edge chart.95% of people choose the path of little to no self-discipline. They automatically choose the path to failure as well. I have some life experience. While failures are very enlightening, they are nothing pleasurable. Especially, the whole full-out life failure is not pleasurable at all.I experienced what self-discipline is, and the lack of it. I tell you, the self-disciplined life is so much better. For 33 years, I exercised self-discipline only on a whim or when my back was to the wall.Neglect vs. disciplineTake my finances, for example. For years, it was a source of misery for me, because I didnt exercise self-control and self-discipline in managing my money. I was able to save 23% of my salary a month, and then some major unexpected event occurred and I gelbkreuzgas it all. Buying an apartment, buying the first car, repairing the car after I hit a tree, purchasing the first house Each of those events put my balance back to zero or below.I was sick of it. Finally, I found two small disciplines that taught me to save paying myself first and tracking my every expense. This second discipline was particularly pesky. I had to buy a grocery item, take out the notepad and jot down what I bought and for how much. Every single time YikesMy savings ratio over the yearsHowever, 5 years down the road of practicing this discipline, I have the most money in the bank account Ive ever had. I can quit my job if I want and live comfortably for 10 months from my savings. I can buy a new ca r for cash. I can invest $1,700 into myself by joining the mastermind. Oh, wait a minute, Ive just done it the last monthInternalize delayed gratificationIf you lack self-discipline, you let neglect slip into each area of your life. Your health suffers, your relationships suffer, your finances are in shambles, and you blame God for all this (your spirituality suffers).Lack of self-discipline, in plain terms, is stupid. Self-discipline is smart. Do you want to be stupid?The stinky thinking about self-discipline comes from ignorance. When you are not disciplined, you know only the one part of the equation immediate gratification.Delayed gratification is so much better, but you dont have the relevant experience to realize that.If you say I realize, but, you dont really realize. You need internalized experience to understand what self-discipline can bring you.Nowadays, tracking my spending is not a nuisance its something Im looking forward to. I know the disciplines reward, and its so m uch better than neglect.ExtrapolateIf you dont know the reward yet, and you simply have no relevant experience to get to like self-discipline, leverage what you know. Extrapolate your current situation. This is what I had done with my finances. I had no idea what abundance meant, because I had never experienced it.But I knew exactly what financial struggles meant. So, I extrapolated my current situation 40 years into the future. I assumed that my current situation would last for the next few decades.Man, this was unbearable. The most optimistic scenario told that when I would be about to reach retirement age, I couldve paid off our small apartment and have an equivalent of $20,000 as the funds for the rest of my life.The realistic scenarios were much worse. I could envision our savings wiped out multiple times by some life drama and being an old bankrupt, one of those guys who need to take a McJob to survive at retirement.ImagineIf you have a rich imagination (I dont), you can imagi ne instead of extrapolate. Visualize and taste the fruits of self-discipline.What could you have achieved if you work hard every day? If you exercised every day? If you studied every day? How well your life would have looked? Would that be enough for you to put yourself together today to achieve a better future?Self-discipline is NOT an vorkaufsrechtIts not an option, of course, if you want anything worthwhile from life. I never aimed to be self-disciplined. I wanted several different outcomes in my life (more money, freedom, health, better relationships, etc.) and I knew I need relevant habits to achieve those things. My train of thought was you wont have a habit if you dont show up every day. You wont have results, if you dont have a habit.You do what you have to. If self-discipline is an option for you, it will remain an option forever. Fix your personal philosophy.Be ready to pay the priceYesterday, I ate too many cakes. They were delicious. Ill pay the price. Tomorrow, I will f ast the whole day.Self-discipline is always about the price.There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. - Jim RohnAnd the relevant reward.An immediate reward for lack of discipline is a fun day at the beach. A future reward of discipline is owning the beach. - Jim RohnYou cannot have the cake and eat the cake, but this is what we all have in mind when approaching any activity. Thats why people still spend millions on research on a weight loss pill.Can you imagine what a business such a pill would make? People could have eaten all the greasy and sweet stuff, take a pill and be thin. A wet dream of a marketer.But life doesnt work that way. If you want to eat a cake, you will pay the price in your self-image or at a gym. If you want to get better grades, earn more money or have better marriage, you need to pay the price as well.HabitsMy self-discipline has its root in my habits. I guess its the same for most other people.You see, our habits make us who we are. Its their fault if we are cowards or heroes, fat or thin, wise or dumb, persistent, or we drop a towel too quickly.Its not some mystical blabber. The etymology of the wordsays that.Sages since ancient times were saying that. And current scientific research concluded that changing ones habits is the most reliable way to change yourself and your life.Developing self-discipline via daily habits is so natural. If you have something to do every day, excuses and procrastination wont cut the mustard. You have to show up. Self-discipline stops to be an option and becomes a must.SummarySelf-discipline was necessary for me. I didnt ruminate about it. I didnt try to learn it. I exercised it every single day to get my habits done. I had to show up. There was no other way to get what I wanted.Accept that there is no other way. Ditch instant gratification. Embrace delayed gratification. Focus on doing daily habits.For every disciplined effort, there are multip le rewards. - Jim RohnMichal Stawicki isa coachand self-published author writing about how to expand beyond your limits so you can regain control over your life (based on my personal experience).Thisarticlefirst appeared on Medium.

Rapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling your team

Rapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling yur teamRapid growth can cause chaos. Heres how to create a strong plan for scaling your teamWhen starting our latest venture, my co-founders and I knew that we wanted to scale fast. But Im really grateful we all agreed to sit down and figure outhowwe were going to do that in advance.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreIf you dont plan ahead, youre going to bring on the wrong team members, upset your current customers,ruin your cash flow, and wind up in a worse position than when you started scaling.I learned that the hard way several years ago while trying to scale a supplement business. Our business ramped up in an instant, going from 100 orders a day to 10,000 a day. And initially, that seemed like an amazing accomplishment- until it all came crashing down because our ordnungsprinzip couldnt handle that v olume. Customers werent getting their orders on time, and the product wasnt in the right packaging. It was a mess.The silver lining was that I realized foresight is crucial for growing both quicklyandsustainably. Heres how to make aya your business can handle the boom you have in mindCreate a flexible plan for scalingYou need a roadmap of where youre going before you start gassing up the car.Your map needs to include the milestones that you want to achieve at reasonable intervals Heres when we hire a project manager. Heres when we expand our marketing efforts. But it should also be flexible enough to accommodate the unknown.Youll inevitably haveups and downs- situations you never expected.At ShipChain, for example, our team has a five-year plan for scaling. Weve also pivoted several times already and had to change our focus as we started getting feedback from customers. Sometimes, a goal that was on next years list needs to get done in the next three months- and vice versa.But we al ways have a workable plan in place that we adjust when necessary.If you dont know the route, find someone who doesOne of the best decisions our team made early on was hiring a tech lead before hiring any developers.She sat down and worked out a plan for scaling immediately, which included everything we needed to do to hit the milestones wed laid out for ourselves. Then, she hired the right specialists to help us reach those goals.If we hadnt hired her first, we probably would have wound up hiring a Python programmer, a back end developer, and a web developer all at once, just because we didnt know the best route to take.Entrepreneurstend to have the ready, fire, aim mentality. They realize they need to do more marketing, so they think, Okay, lets go get a bunch of marketers. But that kind of haphazard approach leads to chaotic, unsustainable growth.If you dont know exactly who you need to help you scale quickly, then your first step should be hiring someone who does.Make time to fin d a talented team that works well togetherFinding talented individuals isnt always difficult. The tough part is finding talented individuals who can workwelltogether.If you put together a massive team of highly-trained specialists, but theres no chemistry between them, youre going to have a problem. You need people who click with each other for true collaboration and an efficient work environment- two things you absolutely need to scale effectively.To check for the click, its a good idea for a candidate to meet some team members during the interview processIt gives you a chance to see how everyone will interact and whether or not that person will be a good fit for your company culture.Skills can always be taught. A mindset is very hard to change.Set up a strong training programYou cant scale unless you train all the new faces you bring on as you grow.It often takes weeks to get people into the flow of a new company and really understand their roles and their place on the team. So, m ake sure you have a program in place on day one for new hires to follow. Also, try to get them involved in activities and get-togethers outside of work to cut down on the amount of time they feel new.Youll need a plan for the people doing this training, as well. If you dont have a formal HR department, then the task is going to fall to current employees. Its asking a lot of people to train someone while still keeping up with their role, so make sure you figure out ahead of time how thats going to work.Have a strategy for sprintsRunning a high-growth company comes with a never-ending checklist. Sometimes, theres simply more work than can be handled in an eight-hour day.But you have to be careful about when and how you ask people to go the extra mile.People willburn outif you push them too hard for too long. Sometimes, you just need what developers call a sprint. Lets say somethinghasto be done by Friday, and its going to take 18-hour days for the next three days to make it happen. If thats what you have to do, thats what you have to do. But you also want to give people equivalent time off to balance that sprint. Give them a long weekend. Let them take Monday and Tuesday off if they just busted ass for 70 hours last week.You need to be strategic about when you step on the gas or your rapid growth may end up sputtering out as people start looking for other jobs.Scaling quickly can be exhilarating, but it has to be sustainable. If you havent spent time creating a strong foundation for growth, then you arentbuilding a business- youre building a house of cards.This article first appeared on Minutes.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

The 3 Most Common Mistakes People Make in Work Documents

The 3 Most Common Mistakes People Make in Work DocumentsThe 3 Most Common Mistakes People Make in Work DocumentsThe world of work requires excellent writing skills. However, many of todays professionals spaced out during their high school English teachers lessons regarding the art of diagramming a sentence or how to write an effective persuasive essay.Like it or not, how you convey yourself in writing can make or break your message and the impression others have of you. Here are some of the most common mistakes in business writing, including how people write their rsum and cover letter. Take note now, and be prepared to make up for those schwefelyperit lessons. 1. Inconsistent spacing. You most likely know someone (probably your boss) who can look at a document, and in less than a second announce Something is wrong with this. This person has been gifted with Inconsistency Spotting. This ability to notice and correct the extra space after a word or the errant use of two lines betwee n paragraphs can supercharge the impact of written work.The good news is that you dont have to be born with this power you just need to stop before you send a document and do the followingSelect Show/Hide Codes on your document so that you can see every space and return. In Word, it is the icon that looks like a backward P in your toolbar.Verify that you have handled like items in the document consistently. For example, intentionally have a space (or dont have a space) on each side of every dash used. In a rsum, dates are one of the most obvious dash spacing pitfalls with one entry of August 2012-June 2013 followed by July 2013 March 2014. Notice the difference? Neither one is right or wrong, but using both formats in one rsum shows a lack of attention to detail.Have a plan for how many lines or returns are between related sections of a document. For example, you may want to use one line (single-space) between each paragraph but two between sections in a contract.Verify alignment of text. If you aligned left in one area but accidentally selected justified (meaning lined up on both the left and right) in another, the spacing between characters will vary. Mixed alignment on one page can distract the reader.2. Fanciful fonts. A selective reader can spot a cut-and-paste document a mile away. Often, it will have excerpts from different documents, but the author has not gone back to verify that all text has the same font and point size. In todays crowd-sourcing world, business professionals often draw from multiple sources to create sales collateral, write informational letters and even write their rsums.However, it is critical that these items come together in one cohesive document. Make sure you verify that the fonts, point sizes and treatment of things like headers and titles are harmonious before hitting Send. 3. Sloppy spelling. I am sure we have all heard about the importance of spell checking. However, even when you andrang spell check, two issues can remai n. First, spell check may have changed your incorrect word to a similarly spelled word that has a different meaning. You need to reread your document for both spelling and message after spell check. Just a little change from of to if can dramatically alter the message.The second issue is that spell check does not do well with names of companies and people. If you mindlessly accept the recommendations of spell check, you may accidentally change Collegial Services, for example, to Collegiate Services and Robin Reshwan to Robin Reshawn. Trust me that no matter how great the content of your letter, you lost me when you messed up my name or my businesss name.In summary, there is a reason why so many job descriptions include Must be detail-oriented. With the ease of forwarded emails and attached documents, writing mistakes are not only detrimental with the first recipients, but the pain lives on each time your message is sent to someone else.Successful business correspondence requires tho ughtful planning and careful editing. The good news is that anyone can master the skills necessary to send a visually consistent document if they stop to assess before sending the message.