Discipline Is Everything—Jim Rohn’s Message That Changed Millions Motivational Speech
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Success is something you attract by the person you become.

Success is not something you pursue, chase, run after. Success is something you develop, something you become, you attract success. So the whole key to unlock all the treasures, whether it's economic treasures or spiritual treasures, financial, social, personal, every way you can possibly think of is by your own personal development. Then he added one more, which is so important and it's probably worth the price of the seminar.

Here it is. What you become is much more valuable than what you get. What you become is much more valuable than what you get. The major question to ask on the job is not what am I getting here? The major question to ask on the job is what am I becoming here? Not what am I getting, what am I becoming? So it's very important what you become because what you become attracts. If you become cynical, you attract cynicism. What you become attracts.

So this whole subject of personal development was so vitally important to me. It changed my life. I was a millionaire by age 31, and that was just the economic part of it. It took me six years from age 25 to age 30. It was unbelievable. Remember, be a student, not a follower. And here's what you must always do. Design your own personal life. I'm very happy for people to take notes in my seminar, but I'm also just as happy if somebody says, hey, this is not for me. Tear up all these notes and throw them away. That's just as valid for me.

Right. Remember, be no one's disciple. Chart your own course. Make what you do the product of your own conclusion. What I'm saying here is be your own person. You don't have to be a model of someone else. You don't have to do it like anybody else. Right. Do it like yourself. Buy what you want to buy. Listen to what you want to listen to. Make changes if you want to make changes and don't make changes.

It's your life, I'm telling you. Don't let anybody persuade you any different. Success is not a stereotype. Success is not a Ferrari. Success is not an automobile. It's not a house. It's not a place. It's not money in the bank. It's not a million dollars. That's not success. Success is the continual unfolding of the design of your own life and pulling it off. That's what success is. The continual unfolding of the design of your own personal life and pulling it off in whatever degree you wish. That is success.

Successful in doing whatever you want to do that makes sense to you, for you, your family, your responsibilities. Take on responsibilities or refuse responsibilities. That's strictly all up to you. Let me tell you what I think messes up the mind the most. Doing less than you can. It causes all kinds of psychic damage.

Being less than you can be, trying less than you can try somehow damages your mind, your self-image. Here's what I've discovered. The minute you turn the cycle around and start motivating yourself, you'll see immediate rewards. Maybe not monetary ones, not yet. But it's how you feel about yourself that's of the greatest value. Discover all you can do. See how much you can earn.

How much you can share, how much you can start, how much you can finish, how far you can reach and how far you can extend your influence. Some people out there would have us believe that positive affirmation is more important than activity. Instead of doing something constructive to change their lives, they would have us repeating slogans and canned affirmations like "Every day and in every way, I'm getting better and better."

Well, improving our lives doesn't just happen with wishful thinking. Getting better and better only happens with the discipline of doing better and better. Discipline is the requirement for progress. And affirmations without discipline are, in all reality, delusions. Affirmations can be effective as long as you remember two very important rules. Number one, you should never allow affirmation to replace action.

Feeling better is no substitute for doing better. And number two, whatever you choose to affirm must be the truth. If the truth happens to be that you're broke, the best affirmation would be to simply say, "I'm broke."

Face it, accept it, be responsible for it and change it. By admitting that you're broke, by saying it out loud, you'll probably be disgusted enough to start thinking about how to change the situation. Anyone saying I'm broke with any conviction will most likely be motivated to take action. Confronting harsh realities has an incredible effect. Confronting the truth and then disciplining yourself. Instead of failing to take responsibility,

inevitably leads to positive change. Reality is always the best beginning. You see, within reality lies the possibility to create your own personal miracle. And the power of faith starts with reality. If you can bring yourself to state the truth about a situation, then as the saying goes, the truth will set you free. Here's another old saying, "Faith isn't faith unless it's all you're holding on to."

If your life and your circumstances have resulted in a situation that is ugly, call it ugly. If you've lost it all, admit that you've lost it all. Be responsible for it. And if faith is all you've got left, use it. Create your own personal miracle. Once you understand and accept the truth, the promise of the future is freed from the shackles of deception.

Once you accept the truth, the promise of the future will pull you forward. For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. That's one of life's great arrangements. In fact, it's an extension of that biblical law that says that if you sow well, you will reap well. Here's a unique part of the law of sowing and reaping. Not only does it suggest that we'll all reap what we've sown,

It also suggests that we'll reap much more. Life is full of laws that both govern and explain behaviors. But this may well be the major law we need to understand. For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. What a concept! If you render unique service, your reward will be multiplied.

If you're fair and honest and patient with others, your reward will be multiplied. If you give more than you expect to receive, your reward is more than you expect. But remember, the key word here, as you might well imagine, is discipline. Everything of value requires care, attention, and discipline. Children require discipline. They must have a structure built for them.

They must have boundaries to work within so they feel secure and comfortable to explore and grow. They must learn to recognize what's right and what's wrong, what's acceptable behavior and what's not acceptable. Children require constant and consistent discipline. Otherwise, they'll be confused as to how they're supposed to behave. Likewise, our thoughts require discipline.

We must consistently determine our inner boundaries and our codes of conduct or our thoughts will be confused. And if our thoughts are confused, we will become hopelessly lost in the maze of life. Confused thoughts produce confused results. Remember the law.

For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. Learn the discipline of writing a card or a letter to a friend. Learn the discipline of paying your bills on time. Arriving to appointments on time or using your time more effectively. Learn the discipline of paying attention or paying your taxes or paying yourself. Learn the discipline of having regular meetings with your associates or your spouse or your child.

or your parent. Learn the discipline of learning all you can learn, of teaching all you can teach, of reading all you can read. For each discipline, multiple rewards. For each book, new knowledge. For each success, new ambition. For each challenge, new understanding. For each failure, new determination. Life is like that. Even the bad experiences of life provide their own special contribution.

But a word of caution here for those who neglect the need for care and attention to life's disciplines. Everything has its price. Everything affects everything else. Neglect discipline and there will be a price to pay. All things of value can be taken for granted with the passing of time. That's what we call the law of familiarity. Without the discipline of paying constant daily attention,

We take things for granted. Be serious. Life's not a practice session. If you're often inclined to toss your clothes onto the chair rather than hang them in the closet, be careful. It could suggest a lack of discipline. And remember, a lack of discipline in the small areas of life can cost you heavily in the more important areas of life. You cannot clean up your company until you learn the discipline of cleaning your own garage.

Think about your life at this moment.

What areas need attention right now? Perhaps you've had a disagreement with someone you love or someone who loves you and your anger won't allow you to speak to that person. Wouldn't this be an ideal time to examine your need for a new discipline? Perhaps you're on the brink of giving up or starting over or starting out.

And the only missing ingredient to your incredible success story in the future is a new and self-imposed discipline that will make you try harder and work more intensely than you ever thought you could. The most valuable form of discipline is the one that you impose upon yourself. Don't wait for things to deteriorate so drastically that someone else must impose discipline into your life.

Wouldn't that be tragic? How could you possibly explain the fact that someone else thought more of you than you thought of yourself? That they forced you to get up early and get out into the marketplace when you could have been content to let success go to someone else who cared more about themselves?

Your life, my life, the life of each one of us is going to serve as either a warning or an example. A warning of the consequences of neglect, self-pity, lack of direction and ambition.

or an example of talent put to use of discipline self-imposed and of objectives clearly perceived and intensely pursued. Engaging in genuine discipline requires that you develop the ability to take action. You don't need to be hasty if it isn't required, but you don't want to lose much time. Let's say you would like to build your library. If that is a strong desire for you, what you've got to do is get the first book, then get the second book.

Take action as soon as possible, before the feeling passes and before the idea dims. If you don't, here's what happens. You fall prey to the law of diminishing intent. We intend to take action when the idea strikes us. We intend to do something when the emotion is high. But if we don't translate that intention into action fairly soon, the urgency starts to diminish. And a month from now, the passion is cold.

A year from now, it can't be found. So take action. Set up a discipline when the emotions are high and the idea is strong, clear and powerful. If somebody talks about good health and you're motivated by it, you need to get a book on nutrition. Get the book before the idea passes, before the emotion gets cold. Begin the process. Fall on the floor and do some push-ups.

You've got to take action. Otherwise, the wisdom is wasted. The emotion soon passes unless you apply it to a disciplined activity. Discipline enables you to capture the emotion and the wisdom and translate them into action. The key is to increase your motivation by quickly setting up the disciplines. By doing so, you've start a whole new life process. Here's the greatest value of discipline: self-worth.

also known as self-esteem. Many people who are teaching self-esteem these days don't connect it to discipline. But once we sense the least lack of discipline within ourselves, it starts to erode our psyche. One of the greatest temptations is to just ease up a little bit. Instead of doing your best, you allow yourself to do just a little less than your best. Sure enough, you've started in the slightest way to decrease your sense of self-worth.

There's a problem with even a little bit of neglect. Neglect starts as an infection. If you don't take care of it, it becomes a disease and one neglect leads to another. Worst of all, when neglect starts, it diminishes our self-worth. Once this has happened, how can you regain your self-respect? All you have to do is start with the smallest discipline that corresponds to your own philosophy.

Make the commitment. I will discipline myself to achieve my goals so in the years ahead, I can celebrate my successes. This episode is brought to you by Indeed.

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