This past Sunday we kicked off a new teaching series at Anthem called Level Up (you can watch HERE).
To kick off this series I asked a question, "How many of you can think of an area of your life that you can be a bit more disciplined in?" Almost immediately every hand in the auditorium went up along with quite a few hand raise emoji's online.
Just so we are all on the same page, what is discipline exactly?
Discipline can be defined as choosing between what you want now & what you want the most.
It doesn't take long to think of an area of your life that you know you need to be more disciplined in does it? I sure know it doesn't in my life! The problem is, at least for me, I have so many things I want to work on it's hard to know exactly how & where to start.
I have found this helpful through the years in this idea of growing in my personal discipline:
PICK ONE NEW DISCIPLINE & WRITE IT DOWN
instead of trying to improve 37 things at once, try just picking one new discipline for the year and sticking with it and mastering it. Then next year keep doing that one and pick up another one and keep building.
My discipline for 2021 is I'm going to get back to the spiritual discipline of journaling. I had this discipline in my life, & I allowed it to fall off over the years. Last year my discipline was washing my car once a week. I believe you can tell a lot about somebody by what their car looks like when you get in it so I wanted to keep my car clean & organized. For you maybe one discipline is I will read the bible daily, or I will be on time, or I will write for 15 minutes a day, or you get the point...
Pick one new discipline, write it down, & keep it in front of you.
MAKE IT MEASURABLE
After you have picked one new discipline then make it measurable so you can hold yourself accountable. I recently read this somewhere that if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. I like that!
My new discipline is not just that I'm going to journal more. More is too broad of a term. My new discipline is I'm going to journal 5 days a week. Last year with my car it was I will wash my car every Monday. You get the point. Not just I want to do something more, but what exactly do you want to do.
SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE YOU TRUST
I've tried to make it a habit in my life to share what I'm working on with my wife and/or Crew (small group) at my church. It helps to know that someone is going to check up on me & ask how I'm doing what I said I was going to do. Find someone you trust & let them know what you are choosing to get more disciplined in so they can help hold you accountable.
So for all those who want to grow in discipline...what's your one new discipline for 2021?!