Self Discipline - The Power Of Sacrifice

In the last email we looked at bringing to awareness, the habits what you would want to escape from, the value this would create in your life and what this would free you to do. 

To summarise: 

1. The Escape - You need to be very clear on the habits you wish to escape from and why. You also need to note the thinking and emotions that bind you to them. 
2. The Value - The need for change has to be clear and given massive value and how relinquishing these self defeating habits would transform your life and those around you. Without attaching huge value, there is no chance of lasting change. 
3. The Vision - There has to be a clear vision of the man behind the habits to change. Not in terms of a becoming, a grasping at something that currently does not exist but a revealing of the real man behind the habits that is already there. 

This leads us onto the sacrifice. Once again, sacrifice can have negative connotations but its original meaning is in the context of giving something up for a higher purpose. A restoration of something that has become hidden. 

This higher purpose sounds almost religious but the reference to a higher purpose simply mans to lift oneself beyond where you are and accept the responsibility to live at the highest potential you can. 

This often reveals a unique vocation or the man needed to pursue an already clear, chosen pathway. 

 Let’s pause a moment. 

We haven’t even entered the forge of discipline yet. All we’ve done is create a picture, an understanding and located the parts of us to sacrifice and the habits these parts of us communicate through. 

This is an action all by itself even though nothing has happened in our environment. 

It is an inner preparedness that means the difference between self discipline and self sabotage. 

Mostly we see people jump straight into the forge of discipline unprepared and in doing so, jump straight back out soon afterwards. 

They hadn’t understood the sacrifice and were completely unprepared. 

Frederick Nietzsche once wrote: 

“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame;

how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?” 

The sacrifice is the offering over of self defeating habits and the personalities that drive you to indulge them, over to the higher power that you yourself are. 

These parts of you don’t go without resistance but time spent in the forge of self discipline means they are directly faced and relinquished. 

Next - Into the forge we go.