Do you finish what you start?
Do you keep promises and commitments?
Do you live your life based on values, code of behaviour, and or principles?
Do you listen to other views, read the room, and act with empathy when it comes to exercising your power?
Personal discipline provides the foundation for success. When you are young, the long-term game is focusing on your studies or identified talent such that you become the best. Before you attain 18 years, you must invest in your brains by reading a lot and learning by doing through keeping your hands busy with chores, however mundane they may appear. You need to have good, trained hands – hands that know what to do when faced with a challenge. The starting point is curiosity. Now is the time to be so good at whatever is thrown at you. Your talent and passion come naturally. You will find that you love doing certain things without being forced or reminded to do them (passion). And you are so good at somethings that are a pain for others to accomplish even half of your performance (talent).
By 18, you should have discovered these things. That is the essence of education, not training. If you go to school to be trained, you may complete the studies without ever discovering who you are and what you are good at. However, if you went to a good school, by the time you sit for your advanced certificate of education (A level), you should have discovered yourself.
Remember, you cannot cheat yourself to fitness, you must do the exercises or the road run. Equally, you cannot cheat your way to career success. You must wake up early, work, or study 365 days a year. And do your best. You will succeed.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2020. All rights reserved.
