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So far on this blog I’ve been sharing a lot of tips and tricks to help people become Inspired Money Makers and make money doing what they love. Today, I want to share something with you that may change the course of your entire life, not just in the area of making money but in every area. It is a skill that you can develop that will make you a really powerful human being.

It’s not some secret law or philosophy that’s been buried for hundreds of years, nor is it some power only available to a select few. It is a power that each of us has the ability to develop, but which has also withered away for most of us in our comfort-driven lives.

Here it is:

“The ultimate power is that of a Self-disciplined Ego.”

I know it doesn’t sound sexy, but it is absolutely true. We all want to find our purpose in life and to be blessed with a life where we experience full abundance while doing what we love, but what does it really take to achieve that?

You may have read my eBook “The Passion Project” and you may have found your purpose in life. You may have seen the movie “The Secret” or read books on The Law of Attraction. You may have just come back from a motivational seminar or just finished reading your 500th personal development book. However, none of that matters if you live a life without Self-discipline and your Ego runs your life.

Lack of Self-discipline shows itself in many ways in our lives. Your lack of Self-Discipline may take the form of constant negative thinking, smoking, drinking, gambling, or constant overeating or the lack of exercise or the inability to stick to your word. It may be in the form of an unorganized living space, three-day old dishes in the sink or dirty clothes on the bedroom floor.

Listen, I’m not here to preach because I am just as guilty as anyone else of these types of things, which is why I have created a theme for myself for 2008. The theme is “Self-Discipline”. Essentially, I am going to dedicate this year to developing my personal Self-Discipline in life.

Why is Self-Discipline over the Ego Important?

Unless you are a perfect God being, we all have an Ego. It is a part of our humanity to have an Ego. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, except that the Ego was never meant to run our lives. When we live our lives from Ego, we experience a lot of fear, and negative consequences in life.

Have you ever told yourself that you would do something, like for example going on a diet where you no longer tolerate drinking pop, coffee, tea or anything else with sugar in it? You simply want to stick to drinking water. What happens? Everything is going well until one day you’re offered a nice cold pop and even though you KNOW that it is not what you want to do, a part of you thinks “Why SHOULDN’T I have this? It’s just ONE pop. I deserve it!” and so you give in, drink the pop and now your whole diet falls apart.

That part of you that sabotages your success IS your Ego. It’s your number one enemy to becoming a conscious and truly powerful and positive human being. If you learn how to TAME the Ego inside you, you will become an unstoppable force for good and becoming an Inspired Money Maker will become a trivial task.

How to Develop Self-Discipline over the Ego

I have found that the surest and simplest way of developing Self-Discipline over the Ego is done by first making a few distinctions in your thinking.

Distinction #1 – “Cuz I said so!”

The Ego is a tricky beast. It knows exactly how to play your weaknesses. For example, I have been studying nutrition for years now and I’ve embarked on several diets and exercise programs over the last two years to try to get my body back in shape. The challenge has always been that whenever I setup a new program and got going on it, my Ego cames in and brakes it.

The Ego is so clever. Let me share an example from my last diet, where I wanted to ensure that I stay healthy into my late years and that I don’t develop the common degenerative diseases that plague our modern society. My Ego started playing games on me. It knew that it couldn’t convince me that I should go back to eating crappy foods, so it tried a different approach. I started to find websites and books relating to spiritual development and how the real story is that it doesn’t really matter what you eat, as long as you believe what you’re eating is good for you. Meaning, if you could get yourself to believe that Coca-Cola is good for you, then it wouldn’t matter if you were drinking that or water.

So, I started digging deeper into this and it got me distracted from my overall goal of eating healthy just long enough for me to fall off my diet. I know this may sound silly but essentially, the trick my Ego pulled on me was to convince me that eating healthy wasn’t the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal was to work on my beliefs about being healthy, and to realize that as long as I believe what I’m eating is healthy then it doesn’t matter what I eat.

It might make absolutely no sense to you why I would give up my diet for that reason. The thing is that I didn’t see it at the time as giving up the diet, but rather just taking a break until I research this new theory further. That’s all my Ego was looking for. A “short break” just “for now”. Our Ego’s scan and constantly look for weaknesses in our armor. They always look for ways to “logically” convince us to give up on our dreams, our goals and our desires and to return to “comfort”.

The distinction we must learn here is the phrase “Cuz I said so!”. What does this mean?

Well, essentially it’s basically the concept that once you set a goal and you tell yourself that you’re going to do something, you no longer respond to your Ego’s questions of “Why are we doing this?” with an explanation. When the Ego asks “Why are we on this diet again?” or “Who are we trying to impress?” or “What makes you think you can run this business?” or “How do you even know this is the healthiest diet?” or whatever other lame excuse our Ego comes up, we no longer give it power by answering. The only answer we respond with is “Cuz I said so.”

You want to train your Ego to do what you tell it to do, even if what you ask of it is completely pointless. For example, you may want to try this exercise which I learned from Stuart Wilde. Go into your backyard and find yourself 7 stones. Take those stones and put them on one side of your yard. Then, when you wake up in the morning, get dressed, go outside (rain or shine) and walk over to the little pile of 7 stones and grab the first stone. Take that stone and walk it over to the other side of your yard. Once you walk it over there, put the stone down and walk back to where the other 6 stones lay. Pickup the second stone and walk it over to the other side as well. Do this with the rest of the stones. Once you finish walking them there, take the stones and walk them back to the original spot one by one as well. Once you’re finished, go inside and continue on with your day. Do this for 7 days in a row.

Why? “Cuz you said so.”

Do you see how just reading that exercise wants to make your Ego scream “What’s the point!? It’s a waste of time!?” The Ego doesn’t want to carry the stones back and forth because it’s pointless. There is no reward at the end. However, there is a reward, it’s just not a reward given to your Ego. It’s a reward given to your True Self which just gained a bit more Self-discipline over the Ego.

Do you see the distinction here? You need to stop answering to the Ego when it asks you questions. If you set a goal to run every day for 7 days straight, then do it. Don’t let the Ego ask questions. Just tell it to shut up and tell it “Cuz I said so!”. End of story. No negotiating. This is how you develop power over it.

If you try giving it reasons and trying to plead with it to agree with you, it will make your head spin with 10,000 excuses as to why you shouldn’t be doing what you truly want to be doing. The Ego wants to maintain eternal status-quo. It does NOT like change. It does NOT like any form of temporary discomfort. If you listen to IT, you will never become an Inspired Money Maker. You must gain power over it.

Distinction #2 – Set A Goal You Have 100% Control Over to Start

To begin your process of developing your Self-Discipline over your Ego, the best thing to do is to find an area of your life that you would like to make some positive changes which you have total control over.

For example, one of my goals this year may be to grow the popularity of this blog. However, that is not a good goal to use to develop my Self-Discipline as I don’t have 100% control over it. I can write blog entries, I can publish a blog, but I really have no direct control over how popular people find it or how many people come to visit.

A better goal might be to discipline myself to write a certain number of blog entries per week or per day for example. Even if my Internet cuts out I can always write the blog entry in MS Word and upload it later. Even if my computer dies, I can always write the blog entry on a piece of paper. Even if I don’t have paper and a pen because aliens break into my house and steal my computer and all the paper and pens in my house, I can still write a short blog entry in my head. I have a lot more control over that than something like “Become the #1 Blog” where others are involved.

This is why I would recommend that you pick an area of your life that you would like to improve where you have pretty much 100% control over what happens. Once you pick that area, set a goal and start working on it immediately. Start with small steps and work your way up, but don’t allow the Ego to come in and ruin them. Trust me, it will try. Again and again it will come up with excuses. Stick to your guns. Don’t let IT win. Remember our mantra – “Cuz I said so!”

For me personally, I picked my health and fitness as my area of improvement to start with this year. As of January 1st of this year I launched www.HealthyFitGuy.com , which is a blog where I will keep track of my journey to develop and follow a healthy diet for myself, get my body back in shape, and finish all my nutritionist study courses and get my diploma.

I have full control over what I put in my mouth. Therefore I can discipline myself to eat whatever I choose to be a healthy diet for me for however long I choose. The same goes for exercise. I can always find ways to exercise on a daily basis. Will my Ego come up with “legitimate” excuses to try to stop me? You betchya. That’s what it’s all about. It’s me vs. Ego. It will try and try again, and I will discipline it. Even if it finds a moment of weakness, I will regroup and start again.

This is how you develop Self-Discipline over the Ego. You pick something you can control and then you control it. Ego will try to stop you, and you have to overcome that. The beauty is that once you master you own Ego, you become unstoppable in all the areas of life. Imagine what your business would look like if you had iron will power and an unstoppable self-discipline? Think in terms of having the self-discipline of someone like a US Marine. What could you do with your life? Starting to see the possibilities?

How to Get Started

Even if you’re not ready to pick something huge for you to discipline yourself on, start with something small. Wake up every morning and do 5 minutes of stretching EVERY DAY before even getting out of bed, no matter what. Or wake up every morning and do 1 pushup for 60 days straight. What’s the point? There is no point. You’re not going to get into shape doing 1 pushup, but you WILL get your Ego into shape.

You may choose not to start with physical discipline either. Perhaps you might want to start with working on your mental Self-Discipline. For example, every night while brushing your teeth you might decide to repeat an affirmation like “I am now becoming and Inspired Money Maker” in your mind. It takes no additional time out of your day, but it gets your mental discipline working.

Maybe you’d like to develop your spiritual discipline by meditating every day as another option. It really doesn’t matter what you choose as your first Self-Discipline project. Start small and work your way up, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised just how much Self-Discipline you can develop with some simple, daily, consistent effort.

I’m really excited to see where this year takes me. I’ve set the theme of “Self-Discipline” for myself this year and I can totally see that it will have a huge impact on my life. I would encourage you to consider taking on this challenge in your life as well. Imagine if you could just improve your Self-Discipline by 1% every day. Even without taking into account compound interest, you would be 360% more disciplined by the end of the year. Imagine what you could accomplish with that!