Luck and work

“Care and diligence bring luck.” – Thomas Fuller

Sometimes, you have to make your own luck. It’s not always the case, and it doesn’t always come easy, but if you work hard at doing the right things and treating people the right way, good things often come to you.

If you feel like you’re unlucky, that just means you have to work harder and focus on the positives around you. The world isn’t out to get you. It just is what it is. It’s not going out of its way to hurt or help you. You have to work as hard as you can, controlling what you can, and let everything else fall into place.

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Samuel Goldwyn

Discipline equals freedom

Jocko Willink (former Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander) says, “Discipline equals freedom.” It seems counterintuitive, but if you think about it, it’s really not. Discipline will bring you success, which will give you freedom from the rat race of life. It’s the great separator between you and most other people. If you are able to be disciplined, you are able to do the hard things when you don’t want to. Most people will choose the easy route, but not you.

Because of your discipline, you are able to get up early, to challenge your mind, to get a good workout in, to cook healthy meals, to save more money, to be a better parent, to be a better employee/employer. Because of your discipline, you can set a goal and achieve it. You can accomplish so much more when you are disciplined, which will actually free your future self (as opposed to making decisions in the present day that ultimately enslaves your future self to working a job you don’t like for a paycheck).

Are you disciplined? You can be if you want to be. But you have to remain focused. You have to believe in yourself and you have change what you tell yourself. If you say that you’re not disciplined, you won’t be. Identify yourself as someone who does hard things and you will become that person.