"The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others." - Tyron Edwards

While searching for article ideas I came across an interesting post at The Path to Abundance where Benjamin states "Freedom is being able to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it."

Until we are able to control our behavior to do "what we need to do" so we can then "do what we want to do" we are held captive by bad habits.

Parents tend to think of discipline as something they need to do with their children. When was the last time you thought of "discipline" as something you could use to improve your performance?

In business discipline is making healthy choices and developing good habits.

Operating a business requires numerous decisions throughout the day. These decisions often require making a choice between this or that. Choosing is easy, making a choice that is "healthy" for the business may require a bit more thought or at least a great question. "So, what would be the healthy thing to do?"

Asking this question puts the interests of the business ahead of your own. Making the decision to include the impact on the "health of the business" will free you from the tyranny of conflict. You really can't go wrong putting the health of the business ahead of your own, you just have to wait a bit longer for your reward.

We are creatures of habit. We react to many things that happen throughout the day automatically, out of habit. We have bad habits and good habits. Good habits are something we make a conscious choice or decision whereas bad habits develop over time until they become so ingrained in our behavior that we do not even notice anymore or as I like to say we are on automatic pilot.

The best way I know to make sure that I remain conscious as much as possible throughout the day is to choose to "Make it a great day!" My buddy Phil write a book about it titled Make It Great! which shows 10 ways to Make It Great!

When you make a quality decision to make today better than yesterday you free yourself from the snare of mediocrity and have begun to discipline yourself and can rest knowing that you did not fall into mediocrity but made a choice to "Make It Great!"