Discipline, an Essential for Successful Endings

By Chima ‘Cinkeay’ Nkiru

Discipline is a fundamental element in obtaining goals, dreams and desires. “Being disciplined means being very structured,” (Adriana Girdler).

Why talk about discipline?

A lot of us have found ourselves at a particular place in life due to choices we made, the ones made for us or by mistake. A saying goes that whatever you find to do, do it well, and wherever you find yourself leave an impact. For one to get far in life, one has to have dreams, priorities, a set pace to follow and discipline. Not just discipline which can be from parents, guardians, friends, in the way of advice, scolding and sometimes punishment. Self discipline is personal, it’s you (self), it’s the voice of you speaking to you, cautioning you and no one would be best to change you except you.

Discipline in a chosen profession or course of study is the only thing after God that would make one excel in that field. The dictionary defines discipline as, “The training of people to obey rules or code of behavior, it could also be called controlled behavior”. As students, our top priority is studying, but far beyond or before that, there is obedience to the institution where one is schooling, compliance to rules and regulation, attendance to lectures, obedience to everything pertaining to the course of study etc.

 Let us get to the crux of the matter; as an Agricultural Technology student, first thing would be to fall in love and stay in love with the course, or else as a course mate would say, “u don barsh!”. No one, I mean no sane person jokes about with something he/she is in love with. The issue will be taken as serious as a heart attack. You learn to take crap from so many people because you love something they do not understand. 

It is said that whoever watches the sky will not plant, because he will definitely find something that would put a damper on his plans. For example, we (Yabatech, Agric tech students) are all carrying out various entrepreneurial projects. The group planting water melon is our case study. Let us get to the purposed end of their project, which will be DOH i.e Day of Harvesting. If other students get to be privy to this DOH, they would go, “Ohh, ah, these water melons are fine, they are fresh”, (another course mate swag talk), “Can I have some? How did you do it?” No one would know that the land had to be cleared, which I might add is strenuous, back braking, hand bending, brow sweating labour (I coined that word, mind you). Then there is making of seed beds, I wonder if there is a bigger word for weakening and tiresome other than strenuous?

Well you get my drift, now the beds are in total, twenty two, those bed also have to be manured, and wet regularly in preparation for planting. The seeds are planted, now there is continuous watering, lest I forget, weeding too, stubborn carpet grass if I may say so myself. I am even tired of listing all the stages and processes involved. But it goes without saying; a lot of work was put into making the DOH possible. All this would not happen without discipline. 

Discipline is the foundation of every successful venture. To borrow from Adrianna Girdler, four elements needed to ensure discipline in the business environment, I guess for now school is our business; are:

1.       Purpose: Be clear with where you want to go and the outcome you want.

2.       Plan: Write down the plan of how to get there.

3.       Mini rewards: Give yourself for good work and be a good self motivator.

4.       Trust: You must trust your purpose and plan.

Discipline sets apart those who just dream and those who dream and do. The bible which is my number one source of motivation says in Ecclesiastes, “The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” No one would know what troubles or travails you have, you are going through. But every one will have an opinion  about the end product, so be prayerful, persistent, disciplined and never give up, the sky is just the starting point and stepping stone to greatness.