Achieving Excellence: How Desire, Dedication, and Discipline Shape Success

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger

Training for anything requires the Three D's of Goal Setting. It all starts with Desire, the want or wish for something. Desire plays a compelling role as the fuel that stimulates all our actions directly and indirectly toward a goal. Broken down, Desire can be goals we want and goals we need. When these two cross paths, the smallest of flames turns into an inferno, burning up everything around us. Visualize losing electricity at your home, and it's cold outside. The good news is we have four walls and a roof to protect us from the elements. Take it a step further, and let's say we are in the middle of nowhere, freezing in the elements. Suddenly, our wants and wishes just crossed over with a necessity, which fires us up to work harder for a solution that will solve our frigid problem. Anytime we can get our want or wish to cross paths at an intersection or, even better, align parallel, traveling the same direction, we will have enough fuel to push through any barrier and climb any mountain to reach our goal.

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." Henry Ford

Much like a high-performance race car, we have all this fuel to go somewhere but need direction. Without a controlled and mapped-out course, we could easily get distracted and zig-zag over the track, hitting everything on and off our path. Dedication gives us direction and keeps us on target because it takes us from a state of action and evolves us into a state of being. When everything we need to do to reach our goal becomes a process of not just what we do but who we are, we become a high-velocity arrow on a straight path to the bullseye. Dedication requires we set aside specific days and times to devote our attention mentally, physically, and spiritually toward our Desire. It starts as a conscious action that we must guard our schedule from all distractions, eventually opening up to a habit we unconsciously do regularly. 

"True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline." Mortimer J. Adler

We all juggle and even wage war between two states of mind. There is a responsible adult voice in our head that tells us what we should or shouldn't do and an impulsive child voice that craves instant gratification. What we search for often enough isn't an overnight development. It requires dedicated time to reach even the shortest of distances. We can train hard for 20 minutes, but that's an average gauge of an individual's mile when considering distance and time. Since we are discussing reaching a goal, we aren't interested in being average. We want excellence, which requires far more exhaustive and repetitive time. Anything worth our attention should guarantee us some challenging pain points along the way, which will strain our focus and motivation during this process. It is during these moments that we require discipline more than any activity. It's a mindset that improves all skills and helps us reach even the highest peaks. In our darkest moments, it will help us stay on the path, even on the most extended expeditions. 

"Plan your work, work your plan." 

Aligning the Three D's or Goal Setting, Desire, Dedication, and Discipline will balance our schedule and checkbook and offer us solutions to every problem we encounter. Why are we doing this? Look back at our Desire. Can't figure out why we aren't getting the results we want? Dedicate more time. What should we do when we aren't motivated? Stay Disciplined. Like laundry every week, it's simple, not always easy: rinse and repeat, with one foot in front of the other, consistently moving forward. 

If you need help setting or reaching your goals, let our team here at Martial Way Legacy help you.

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Guro Larry, Sonja, Lauren & Tori St. Clair
Martial Way Legacy
"A Compass to the Preservation of Bruce Lee’s Philosophy and Legacy"
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