Most people think success comes from good luck or enormous talent, but many successful people achieve their accomplishments in a simpler way: through self-discipline. No Excuses! shows you how you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life, including your personal goals, business and money goals, and overall happiness.

Each of the 21 chapters in this book shows you how to be more disciplined in one aspect of your life, with end-of-chapter exercises to help you apply the "no excuses" approach to your own life. With these guidelines, you can learn how to be more successful in everything you do--instead of wistfully envying others you think are just "luckier" than you. A little self-discipline goes a long way…so stop making excuses and read this book! 

Humble Beginnings
One quality that most philosophers, teachers, and experts agree on is the importance of self-discipline. Discipline is what you must have to resist the lure of excuses.  It is the key to a great life and, without it, no lasting success is possible. You can achieve almost any goal you set for yourself if you have the discipline to pay the price, to do what you need to do, and to never give up.

Who Should Read This Book?
This book is written for ambitious, determined men and women who want to achieve everything that is possible for them in life. It is written for people who are ‘hungry’ to do more, to have more, and to be more than they ever have been before. The most important insight of all with regard to success is that to achieve greatly, you must become a different person. It is not the material things you accomplish or acquire that matter so much as it is the quality of the person you must become to accomplish well above the average. The development of self-discipline is the high road that makes everything possible for you.

The Reason for Success
The most important success principle of all was stated by Elbert Hubbard, one of the most prolific writers in American history, at the beginning of the twentieth century. He said, “Self-discipline is the ability to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you and makes everything else possible. With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education, and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.

Your Two Worst Enemies
Just as self-discipline is the key to success, the lack of self-discipline is the major cause of failure, frustration, under-achievement, and unhappiness in life. It causes us to make excuses and sell ourselves short. The two biggest enemies of success, happiness and personal fulfillment, are first the Path of Least Resistance, and second, the Expediency Factor. The Path of Least Resistance is what causes people to take the easy way out in almost every situation. The Expediency Factor says, “People invariably seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want, right now, with little or no concern for the long-term consequences of their behaviors.” In other words, most people do what is expedient, what is fun and easy rather than what is necessary for success.

Think Long Term
The most important single attribute of people who achieved great success in life was “long time perspective.” The most successful people are long-term thinkers. They look into the future as far as they can to determine the kind of people they want to become and the goals they want to achieve. They then come back to the present and determine the things that they will have to do – or not do – to achieve their desired futures.

The Common Denominator of Success
The common denominator of success is that ‘successful people’ make a habit of doing the things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do. It turned out that the things that successful people don’t like to do are the same things that failures don’t like to do either. But successful people do them anyway because they know that this is the price they have to pay if they want to enjoy greater success and rewards in the future.

The Habit of Self-Discipline
To develop the habit of self-discipline, you first make a firm decision about how you will behave in a particular area of activity. You then refuse to allow exceptions until the habit of self-discipline in that area is firmly established. Each time you slip, as you will, you resolve once again to keep practicing self-discipline until it becomes easier for you to behave in a disciplined way than to behave in an undisciplined way.

The Big Payoff
There is a direct relationship between self-discipline and self-esteem:

• The more you practice self-mastery and self-control, the more you like and value yourself;
• The more you discipline yourself, the greater is your sense of self-respect and personal pride;
• The more you practice self-discipline; the better is your self-image. You see yourself and think about yourself in a more positive way. You feel happier and more powerful as a person.

Self-discipline is the key to self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. The development of self-discipline is your guarantee that you will eventually overcome all your obstacles and create a wonderful life for yourself.

I subscribe to the idea that things get better when we get better. Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of Visa advocated investing the biggest portion of your time (at least 40%) to managing yourself. That means investing in the development of YOU. No Excuses! is an investment that should be made by everyone who wants to achieve a little more in life.       

No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline by Brian Tracy

As the famed crystal ball dropped at midnight in New York City’s Times Square, millions of people celebrated the closing of one door and the opening of another. For many, January 1st is synonymous with resolutions and goals, and why wouldn’t it be? January 1st marks the start of something new – a fresh beginning. A new day. A new opportunity. It’s the first day of hope and the first day of new aspirations. It’s the first step of a new journey. But I must caution you, one of these is destined to fail.

Just before the door to 2013 closed forever, I spent some time reflecting on the year that was as well as the year that will be. Naturally, like many of you, I started thinking about the changes I wanted to make. I also thought about the goals I wanted to set for myself, which led me to think about resolutions – specifically, my disdain for them.

On paper, a resolution is a key ingredient to success. By definition, a resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something. However, in practice, a resolution can be a futile attempt at change. Harsh words, yes. But proven nonetheless.

According to Statistic Brain, more than 60% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions, but only 8% are successful in achieving them. However, with that said, people who make resolutions are 10x more likely to attain their goals than those who don’t even try. I, myself, have consistently fallen into the 92% bucket of people who fail to achieve their New Year’s Resolution. Why is that?

First, the resolutions I’ve set in the past were not well thought out and were too aggressive for me to follow through on long term. Also, none of my resolutions included an action plan on HOW I was going to achieve them. And lastly, I had a terrible attitude about them.

Tips for setting goals:

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Pace yourself. The accomplishment of a goal should be considered a marathon rather than a sprint. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was the accomplishment of your goal.

Stay positive. The only thing you control is your attitude. If you want lose weight, think about it from the perspective of ‘achieving your ideal weight’ rather than ‘losing ten pounds’. The idea of losing carries a negative connotation whereas achieving is uplifting. Start your day with a positive affirmation and return to it anytime your mind starts to wander.

Write down and share your goals with others. A goal you have not written down is only a dream. Setting a goal requires an action plan and writing the goal down is the first action. Over time I’ve found that I am more committed to my goals once I’ve shared them with someone. Sharing your goals with someone you trust will make you accountable. Have you shared your goals with someone you trust?

By setting goals, you are deciding what is important to you. So as we walk through the door to 2014 remember this: Set. Commit. Follow Through.

Happy New Year!

To learn more about setting goals, check out this article from my friends at Mind Tools.

Kekich's Credo #2:
"Cherish time, your most valuable resource. You can never make up the time you lose. It's the most important value for any productive happy individual and is the only limitation to all accomplishments. To waste time is to waste your life. The most important choices you'll ever make are how you use your time."


My take: This gentle reminder packs a HUGE punch. Time IS our most valuable resource and no matter what we do, we can't get it back. So if you're wasting it, it's time to do something about it and make a change.

This hit home for me on Christmas morning as Tracy, Ava and I were opening gifts and I thought, I wonder how many more Christmases we get as a family? Hopefully we have dozens more, but there's no way of knowing.

Many people are great at managing their time - juggling the balls of life - whereas others need help. My friends at MindTools have a section dedicated to the practice of improving your time management skills that is filled with excellent tips. Click here to learn how to achieve more and be more effective and see what happens.

A good friend of mine once told me, "things get done when you do them." If this post hits home then I challenge you to do something about it and take the first step.