Comments on: Why I Gave Up Desserts To Become a Better Entrepreneur

By: Ashish Jain

Ashish Jain — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:41:54 +0000

I agree with your approach sir although controlling something that directly affects your work would have more immediate results.
“Normally, the only time when people consciously test their will power is when they need it. But if you apply it only when the task is difficult and you need all the help you can get, it will not be surprising if you fail often.” ~Alan Lakein
This quote by Mr. Lakein was an eye-opener. By the way, I’m doing a similar experiment. I am avoiding juices and milk shakes for 1 month(I love them). It has been 10 days so far. Good luck to all those who actually try to discipline themselves.

By: Aldon

Aldon — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:43:36 +0000

I agree with you, discipline is of utmost importance in achieving your goals as an entrepreneur. This might help, the Young Entrepreneur Society and I went to http://www.YoungEntrepreneurSociety.com, many useful info within.

By: Anthony Kuhn

Anthony Kuhn — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:19:53 +0000

Rob:

Knowing one’s self and building self-discipline are both pursuits that will spill over into all portions of life, and I’m glad to hear you are having success with your “No Dessert” promise. Sometimes it is the hardest thing to keep, those self-made promises. I’m looking forward to a follow-up post on Day 366 to see if you suddenly gain a craving for desserts! I cross-posted on your piece to http://blog.innovators-network.org The Innovators Network is a non-profit dedicated to bringing technology to startups, small businesses, non-profits, venture capitalists and intellectual property experts. Please visit us and help grown our community!

Best wishes for continued success,

Anthony Kuhn
Innovators Network

By: amit

amit — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:42:59 +0000

A lesson there for me and many like me who need to realize their potential by being more disciplined.

By: Steve Rucinski

Steve Rucinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:57:27 +0000

Great post! I had a similar set of experiences about 5 years ago when I left big business to start my own.

So many things were unstructured, especially my choice of time usage. So I set a goal to run a marathon, not having been a runner I had to learn the discipline it takes to put in the miles, do the work, the mental focus to meet that goal. (3 marathons later)

Marathoning is all about mental focus and the benefits were directly translatable to my work efforts. Like you I physically felt better as well and the stamina needed to get a business functioning is not disimilar to the same stamina needed to finish a marathon.

My family thought I was nuts but anyway.

By: Anil

Anil — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:10:52 +0000

spelling: should be ‘dessert’.

By: Tenders

Tenders — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:16:48 +0000

I’ve been practicing self-discipline with something now for three weeks. It’s work related and just comes down to the daily tasks that have to be done, but that I hate doing. I now do them first thing. What I initially did was change my daily task list to include these 5 items, so that I’d visually have to tick them off. They were at the top of the list too, so no trying to avoid them for the day like I’d been doing. What I’ve found now though is that I’m now doing them BEFORE I even read my task list and it feels great to get them out of the way.

I also agree that communication these days leads to an increased level of distraction. Mobile phones mean that calls can’t be held by the receptionist, instant messengers mean people know when you’re online and will often just want to chat. My next stage is to devote 2 hours each and every day to ‘no contact’ time – switch everything off and try to concentrate on one specific task. Hopefully I’ll manage it!

By: Latarsha

Latarsha — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:52:56 +0000

I must agree…a instrumental part of success is having the discipline required to sit down and make the plan and then work the plan…step-by-step.

You’ll find that those who have sustained success had to use a lot of self-discipline to get them there.

Thanks for your inspirational post.

By: Anil

Anil — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:56:36 +0000

So should I have not clicked the link to read this post?

It was thought provoking for me – self-discipline and focus is tough for me also.

We should all find our desserts – they may be mental, physical, or even spiritual.

-
Anil

By: Jay

Jay — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:07:40 +0000

Ah, this hits close to home, and overlaps with what I am going to write along with a link I have about programming. I gave up using IM years ago for the reason you describe, and I am about ready to change around how I deal with e-mail, along the lines of some of the excellent time management advice that can be found in posts at Web Worker Daily. Some of which I meant to point to when I hosted CotC last, but completely forgot.

I’m surprisingly good at the kind of restraint that you’re practicing, but for me it would have to be something like not reading every e-mail the second it arrives, no matter what else I am or should be doing at the time.