Each Terrific Tuesday throughout the month of October, this blog will explore the idea of raising the bar, of getting better at something. Previously this month, this space has been used to look at raising the bar as an entrepreneur, raising the bar with continuing education and raising the bar in relationships at home and work. Next week, the final Terrific Tuesday article in October will be on raising the bar with performance at work. This week is all about raising the bar on discipline at home and work.
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Recently I had a coaching session with personal coach, ChaChana Simpson of Your Stellar Star. It was indeed an enlightening experience. I spoke with her for an hour long session and we talked about what I wanted from my life at home and work as well as what was keeping me from getting what I wanted. To sum up the hour in one quick sound bite, the answer was discipline. I needed to raise the bar on discipline.
As anyone who reads this blog quickly discovers, I am a wife and mother of four children. All four of my children have been assigned household chores commensurate with their age and ability. However, I had a habit of letting them get away with not doing the chores and then getting angry at the end of the night when the chores were not done and I had to do them myself before going to bed. Similarly, at work, I had a client that called at ridiculous hours, made unfair demands and as a final straw, refused to pay a small invoice I sent.
All these things are issues of discipline. It was not my children or my ridiculous client that needed discipline, but me, the real issues was with me. The party that needed to step up and use appropriate discipline was me. My children were getting away with not doing their chores and I was suffering because as a result. I had a choice to make. I could either start using discipline at home, or I could continue doing the chores for my children. By the way, discipline is good for children and helps them become adults with a sense of pride and responsibility.
With my unreasonable client, after receiving yet another crazy email I had a choice to either tell off the client as was so richly deserved or show discipline and talk to the client without losing the business. The client's ridiculous email was full of lies, fantasy and an airbrushing of history to use President Obama's recent debate line. I was forced to get disciplined and send a response detailing how unreasonable the client was and how much I did not appreciate the way the client was acting. It took discipline to send out the response. It took discipline to respond to ridiculous personal attacks with a cold hard recitation of facts instead of returning the personal attacks. But I put on the big girl panties and exercised discipline.
Recently I attended the PowerUp Weekend in Washington, D. C.. It was an amazing day of talking, networking and learning from Powerful women in a variety of walks of life. One of the big take aways from the day was, " Life is about you making choices, no matter what happens, it is about your choice." In my world, at this time it is my choice to raise the bar on discipline at home and at work. Keep in mind the fact that discipline at home and work will make your life better, more organized and improve the quality of your life at home and at work. Appropriate discipline is a gift for your family and your workplace. Almost everyone loves to receive gifts, so give the gift of discipline.
It is important for you to realize that choosing to raise the bar with discipline, instantly improves your outlook on life. Being disciplined, doing the right thing when you know you should, without excuse and without failure is discipline and it makes your world a better place. So he question for you this Terrific Tuesday is, how are you going to raise the bar on discipline?
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