Principle #5: Devotion, Drive, Discipline, Dedication, Determination (5D)

5 Principles in Designing The Life That You Want

“I am not a lucky person, I put devotion, drive, discipline, dedication and determination to achieve the life design that I have set for myself”

Devotion

Devotion means love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause. What if success was simply when your life is fully engaged with God, completely trusting in Him for your every need? What if your level of success was only judged upon your ability to be free to be the YOU He created? 

He (God) cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is a friend of silence. See how nature, trees, flowers, grass grow in silence, look at the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move quietly … We need silence … to be able to touch souls. Only quietly alone, we can touch our souls and … touch God. “

When was the last time you felt connected with God? When you pray, do you actually pray or just say a prayer? Everyone should learn to be sensitive to God’s presence. We already know, that God is omnipresent and not limited by space and time? For He is the beginning and the end. Wherever you are, He can watch us, not from afar but from near.

The way God speaks or rebukes us in daily life is through silence, calm and even peace. Therefore, you must have a heart that is sensitive to His whispers and voices. Look at the example of successful people in this world, Jack Ma, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and others, they are all on average who have the time to be in a quiet state every day. In Indonesia, many tycoons who enter the list of the 10 richest people in Indonesia are those who always start their day with a silent ritual or usually in the form of meditation. They familiarize themselves to hear the sounds of the universe, the voice of God.

Once you are connected with God, the creator, your mind is easily connected with creation. As worshipers, you will easily connect yourself to nature, all living things and not live in them. Remember the previous discussion about your relationship with money? Monica and Oppa? That we are all connected in this universe? That at the level of quantum physics we turned out to be the same? We are just a form of vibrating energy? You will begin to respect all natural phenomena, dawn and dusk, night and stars. With this kind of connection, you tend to be protective of nature and all life. You will be more loving and compassionate, you will begin to imitate God’s attributes. You don’t need to struggle to get these qualities. Through the power of devotion, they become your natural part.

So, if you can understand the process of devotion and find your God, your life will move forward, from success to greater success.

Drive

Drive is your strategy in designing your life. A person with the drive has a clear life design and goals and puts forth effort to reach those goals. The drive to succeed is a strong indicator of persistence, sustained effort, and accomplishing what one sets out to do. Whether they set their own tasks or are given tasks by others, people in whom this drive is strong feel the need to succeed. Before you can attain your prime drive, you must first consider the different directions you can go in your life design. You really have three choices: stop completely and find a new line of work, continue at your current level, or strive to be the best person you can be.

  1. Stop completely from your current job and try to find a new job.
  2. Continuing with your current job or career
  3. Strive to be the best person you can according to your Purpose and Passion.

Drive is an inner quality that many people lack. It is drive that makes a person not accept the status quo. It is drive that makes someone to not want to be mediocre. Drive is a quality that few have. Many people are happily content with their position in life or within their company, which is just fine. Others see themselves with being able to attain higher goals than just being a spoke on the corporate bicycle wheel. It is this drive that brings people to make the quantum jump into being their own boss. It is easy to stay the course in your life, it is much harder to harness your drive and take the leap. Life is a journey and there are many journeys in one’s life. Getting married, losing weight, learning to play an instrument. These are all journeys that lead to a richer life. 

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination”
Jimmy Dean

Discipline

Discipline itself means doing things which we don’t feel like doing it. Discipline builds a person character, nature and his/ her personality. When we create our character through discipline, we will create our reality. Discipline will helps you stay focused on reaching your goals, gives you the gumption to stick with difficult tasks, and allows you to overcome obstacles and discomfort as you push yourself to new heights.

What exactly is self-discipline? It’s the ability to control your impulses, emotions, reactions and behaviors; it allows you to forego short-term gratification in favor of long-term satisfaction and gain. It’s saying “No” when you really want to say “Yes” It isn’t about leading a restrictive and boring life void of enjoyment. In fact, it’s next to impossible to be self-disciplined in all areas of your life. Rather than attempting to be disciplined in all you do, use it to focus on what’s most important.

According to Brian Tracy, disciplines is a habit, a practice, a philosophy and a way of living.  All successful men and women are highly disciplined in the important work that they do.  All unsuccessful men and women are undisciplined and unable to control their behaviors and their appetites.  And when you develop the same levels of high, personal discipline possessed by the most goal oriented successful people in our society, you will very soon begin to achieve the same results that they do.  All great success in life is preceded by long, sustained periods of focused effort on a single goal, the most important goal, with the determination to stay with it until it is complete.

Throughout history, we find that every man or woman who achieved anything lasting and worthwhile, had engaged in long, often unappreciated hours, weeks, months and even years of concentrated, disciplined work, in a particular direction.  Fortunately the quality of self discipline is something that you can learn by continuous practice, over and over, until you master it.  Once you have mastered the ability to delay gratification, the ability to discipline yourself to keep your attention focused on the most important task in front of you, there is virtually no goal that you cannot accomplish and no task that you cannot complete. Self discipline creates a habit. Habits can make you or break you. Self discipline creates a habit in your life that builds up only through discipline. Most people never remains disciplined in their lives because they are lazy. However, laziness is form of habit as well.

Successful people discipline themselves to work and stay consistent to it. And it becomes a habit. This is what attracts success in their lives. Self discipline is important to get things done. It can be anything, either you commit to read books or complete a task in a timeline. When you discipline yourself to finish every single thing, you form a personality around it. This habit makes you an achiever in your life. Self discipline is important for success. Because you build it in your personality, you will become powerful force of energy who breaks every single obstacles. Self discipline is the most important part of success. If you want to be successful in life, you need to have discipline.

Otherwise, you will be knocked out by the people who are disciplined. You have unlimited potential to reach greatest level in your life. All you need is self discipline. So why wasting time, go and start doing things that will take you closer to your own life design.

Dedication 

Once you’ve made your decision to design your own life, you must dedicate yourself to it. If your decision is to become a truly successful person, then this step, dedication, will determine whether you have prime motivation. Your decision to be your best and your dedication to your work will then become a top priority. Only by being completely dedicated to your direction and decision will you ensure that you have the prime motivation you will need to achieve your life design. In the end it takes full dedication and determination to be able to realize the life design that you have made. I work hard to achieve my life design that I have set for myself because I know that universal law says actions are the same as reactions, without action there will be no results, then take great action and immediately execute all your dreams and design in your life.

 “I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got.”
Walter Cronkite

Have you ever noticed that people who are not dedicated to anything don’t advance, never change and stay always the same while people dedicated to their work get transformed by success?

Success tends to change and transform people. In the early stages they still may be preoccupied with getting more for themselves, but as they become more successful they often discover that giving of themselves can be more thrilling than the getting. The idea of helping others succeed has been the key message of successful people for ages. The industrialist Andrew Carnegie once said: “No man becomes rich unless he enriches others” 

Inventor Thomas Edison once told a reporter, “My philosophy of life is work, bringing out the secrets of nature, and applying them for the happiness of man. I know of no better service to render during the short time we are in this world

Abraham Maslow suggested that each person has a hierarchy of needs that must be satisfied, ranging from basic needs like food and shelter to love and self-esteem and finally to self-actualization. As each need is satisfied, the next higher level in the hierarchy becomes the target of our ambitions. Maslow argued that healthy and successful people are able to satisfy the highest level needs and they become self-actualizers.

Maslow’s theory promises fulfillment but also brings a question into focus: “Is your glass half full or half empty?” You are the only one who can provide the answer. But behind that old question is a new question: “What if you were able to increase the size of the glass?” The idea was once suggested by Dr. Victor Frankl who said that “Human existence always points beyond itself. This I call self-transcendence — going beyond oneself” Dr. Frankl introduced the idea that we can become more than what we are now. We can transcend beyond our old selves — thus increasing the size of the glass — and our ultimate challenge is to fill the glass, and life, with meaning.

Determination

Determination or perseverance to work hard is the most important factor in turning your life design into reality. I define 5D as a combination of strong desires supported by determination and perseverance and an unyielding spirit to work hard until someone achieves his life design.

Most people give up when they are faced with the bitter reality they experienced when they tried to realize their life goals. They immediately throw away the ideals and goals of their lives and just give up on life. Only selected people will continue to try and face all obstacles until they succeed in achieving their goals.

Many people don’t know one of the principles of success, that is, if you don’t manage to get your goal, change your strategy or plan to achieve it, but never change the goal. This type of human who has dedication and determination will succeed in realizing their life design. They have persistent characters, aka not easy to give up in an effort to realize their life design. Humans who are not persistent and do not have dedication to their life purpose are one of the main causes of failure.

The starting point for all human achievements is a strong desire to achieve them. If your desire to succeed is not strong enough, then the results you get will also not be as expected. Between purpose and manifestation there is devotion, drive, discipline, determination, dedication and hard work. Working hard doesn’t mean you only do things that you like, work hard means you have to be willing to do things that you don’t like. If you are not willing to work hard to get what you want, then don’t complain when you can’t have it.


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