There are few people one would think to turn to in regard to advice on discipline other than the founder of dailydiscipline.com, Brian Kight. 

Related Content: Leadership Journey 11 - Discipline is the Shortcut

Kight, once again joining the Coach and Coordinator podcast, discussed the idea that discipline is the shortcut to your goals. Much like Kight’s other lessons and ideas he’s shared with listeners of the podcast, the principle can be applied to nearly any of your personal goals, not just in football. 

“Pick whatever future goal you have,” starts Kight. “Whether that’s wins or performance or a closer relationship or a better culture or a more aligned group of parents … Here’s the question – What is the most reliable and fastest way to get it? The answer is through discipline. How do we know that? Because every other path takes longer, but people don’t understand that. They don’t think that way.”

Kight then details further what a lack of discipline breeds. “Every lapse in discipline is going to make that road harder,” he adds. “We’ll do work, take a bunch of time off because we lack the discipline or get really inconsistent beyond some of the flexibility that we can get away with. Now, we put in two months of work at a very average and undisciplined approach, and we have taken a process that could have taken eight months, [but] we wasted the first two and now it’s going to take a minimum of 14 months because we’ve slid back a little bit.”

Elaborating on the word “shortcut” is an essential piece here Kight clarifies. “I think people sometimes bring a negative connotation to shortcut,” he comments. “I think a lot of times people think that shortcut is a skip. What I mean [by] shortcut is I’m talking about the fastest. I’m talking about comparatives … This is just how I’m wired. Other people aren’t wired this way, and they’ll think or see this differently and that’s great, that’s awesome for them. I don’t want something to take a week when it could take a day.” 

Kight doesn’t come to these conclusions without looking at the world first and recognizing places where he and the general population can improve. “You hear all the time, ‘We live in this instant gratification society,’ and all I hear particularly from adults is [them aiming] this criticism at young people and adults,” observes Kight. “When reality is adults really ought to aim it at themselves … Let’s just put everybody in, let’s put us all in the same boat. Everybody wants stuff fast because we live in the fast world now.”

Kight’s frame of thinking then becomes clear. “So, I’m trying to make sure we’re helping people respond to this by saying, ‘Okay, if we want it fast, then let’s take a step back and let’s look at what is the fastest way to get what we want?’ rather than criticize it.”

In the words of Kight himself, “Embrace the chase. Do the work.”