Spades Trump

When I was a kid, the thing I wished for most was to be talented. No. Not just talented. I wanted to be special. I wanted to stand out from the crowd. I wanted to change the world with something I could do. And I believed I could…if only I had enough talent.

That longing leads almost all of us to sports, art, and academia, in search of our place to belong. And when we find it, life is beautiful. When you’re young and talented, doors fly open, opportunity abounds and success chases you down. Your confidence develops. Your self worth swells and soon enough, you define yourself by your gifting and abilities. The thing no one tells you is the day you walk the stage and take your diploma, the game changes.

Talent doesn’t matter that much in the real world. It’s a prerequisite to being average. It may open some doors, but it won’t keep them open for long. In the real world, there’s something that’s far more important. Wanna know what trumps talent every time?

Discipline.

I know, I know. It’s an ugly word! Even typing it makes me feel like I’ve got a bill to pay. If we’re honest, we’ll all admit we should “be more disciplined”. But it turns out that hard work is, well…hard. Easier things are easier and usually more fun. So we put off the hard stuff for another day. And we busy ourselves with things we can argue are important, in an effort to avoid what we should actually be doing.

I was talking about this with my friend, David, just this morning. I got a good laugh when he said, “My college dorm room was never cleaner than the night before an exam. Suddenly, a clean work space became a very high priority. How could I possibly study when things were so messy?”

Guilty. In a thousand ways.

Like you, I lead a busy life; I can find an excuse when I need one. I can justify my bad choices and procrastination if I want to. But the deeper I get into life, the more I see and feel the price I pay to avoid the important things before me. More and more, I’m coming to realize that discipline isn’t an enemy out to shame us. It’s a friend with a key.

Maybe we were wrong. Maybe it’s not your talent that sets you apart and opens the door to your future. Maybe it’s your willingness and resolve to face the hard work, again and again – to get busy, not just with doing stuff, but with doing the stuff that moves you forward in your most important dreams and goals.

Yes, there are seasons when we legitimately don’t know what to do. But too often, too many of us set up camp there when we were meant to just pass through. In time, we accept our excuses as truth and trade our energy for apathy. Eventually, we give up and settle in – far short of our potential, far less happy and fulfilled than we could be. And when we do, we tell ourselves we just didn’t have the talent, or the skill, or the knowledge to move forward.

But what if you don’t need any more talent to change your life?

What if you don’t lack direction?

What if you already have everything you need?

If you want to be special,

If you want to stand out from the crowd,

And change the world with something you can do,

You can. All you need is enough…

Discipline.

This Post Has 16 Comments

  1. Mike

    Hmmm… When I read the intro – I guessed “persistence” (also commonly referred to in the literature as ‘grit’). But on thinking about it some, I would say that persistence is a trait that is built on Discipline… without discipline you can’t have ‘persistence’… Thanks for broadening my thinking on this!

    1. Chance

      Yes, there were several places I was drawn to take this one. I consider doing 3 Ds, (Drive, Discipline, Determination) But to me, it all hinges on and comes back to discipline and I wanted to keep my word count down. Persistence is key, though, as you well know. Good insight. :)

  2. Cat

    Sooooo true…And just so terribly difficult “sometimes” to just accept and work from there, hand in hand with discipline…especially when having had no need of using discipline for a long long time, even at University, having ease in quite a lot of stuff, but just not in discipline :-)

    Discipline is actually at the moment the one and only I am fighting with at the moment, and eventually, become friends with :-)

    Thank you so much for your blog!

    1. Chance

      I think you’ve got some company with this struggle. ;) Thanks for reading, Cat!

  3. Amma

    I must admit that discipline has always been my biggest problem. I have 5 unfinished novels to prove my lack of focus and discipline. It’s just that as much as i want to stay disciplined and finish them something always seems to be holding me back. Thanks for another uplifting read.

    1. Chance

      Amma, I hear you. You said, “something always sems to be holding me back”. Any idea what it is?

      1. Amma

        I wish I knew, Chance. Perhaps fear disguising itself as excuses, delay, it’s not yet good enough, nobody will want to read this…the list goes on and one, butI’m working on it – and discipline is exactly what I need at this time.

        1. Chance

          Me too, my friend. :)

  4. Thomas Redmond

    You are right in what you say on Discipline. What trumps Discipline is’ Persistence. No Army can defeat it.

    1. Chance

      Yes sir. If I’d had more available words, that’s some of where I would have taken this post. So thanks for speaking up. :)

  5. Anna-Emily

    This is the post everyone needs to read because I guess we all are guilty of what you described here. To discipline yourself is one of the hardest things to do… the most important one too. I find it helpful to make to do lists with all the things I tend to procrastinate. At the end of the list I write some funny things I’ll do with myself if these tasks are left undone. :) It works most of the time. Thank you, Chance, for reminding us all that the discipline is the key if you want to make a difference in this life.

    1. Chance

      I like the idea of being silly with it. Making it all less serious would lighten the load. :)

  6. Karina Allen

    Chance, I am all convicted early in this morning! Thanks! Really, thanks! Discipline is funny in my life. I am really disciplined in some areas & not in other areas. Is that normal? Idk. I want discipline to cover all aspects of my life. I think the areas that I am not disciplined in are those areas that I don’t think that I am talented enough or good enough or skilled enough in. I think a bit of fear holds me back from being disciplined. It is that whole “what if I fail?” or “what if I succeed?” My mind, it’s an interesting place. Haha!

    1. Chance

      YES, Karina. You just gave voice to something that’s true of all of us. It’s a perfect little trap because if you look at the things where you’re focused, no one could ever tell you that you lack discipline. I’m with you…I want it in all the important aspects of life – most especially the ones I avoid.

  7. Melanie Ward

    So true!!! Fits so well for me and what I was thinking about just yesterday! I stay pretty busy with my cake decorating business, just sitting here and wait for the orders to come in, but I want more. I want to be busier. I want to be challenged more. I want to be THE person everyone goes to for their cakes. You’re right… I have the talent… After reading your blog, I realize I’m lacking discipline. The talent was the easy part… Thanks for the motivation!

    1. Chance

      And you CAN be!!! Why NOT you?! My Dad used to say, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing all the way”. If you’re gonna be in the cake business, why not go ahead and do it all the way? (Finger pointed at me as well.) Why would spend our time and invest our lives in doing something “most of the way”. I mean a hobby – okay. But if it’s important enough to us that we’d make it our life’s work, why not do the work we need to do to compete at the highest level we can? Why settle?

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