Last week we enjoyed Arts Week which culminated in a fantastic Shine on the Arts Night. There were so many performances spread throughout the facilities that it was impossible to see them all. I hope you were able to enjoy as many as you could.
Even though I couldn’t see them all, I guarantee that the best performances had one unpopular secret behind their success. Can you guess what it is? We are talking about the Arts so most people would guess that the secret would be a natural ear for music, an inherent grace for dance or an expressive face for drama. They would be wrong.
The unpopular secret behind success in the arts, academia or any area of life is not natural talent but self-discipline.
Self-discipline is a word that has gone out of favour in recent times but it is still the one deciding factor for any success or failure. The most gifted people in the world have only succeeded because they applied self-discipline to their art.
Our musicians played beautifully Thursday night because they were disciplined in attending music classes, practicing at home and doing so on a regular basis. Our dancers delighted us because they disciplined themselves to work in a team and practice, practice, practice. Our drama students applied discipline to learn their scripts and repeat their performances until they succeeded in pulling it together.
If any of our students want to continue in the performing arts after graduating, they will need to apply self-discipline in order to succeed. Students may join the arts because they love one aspect of it but passion is not going to see them through.
An e-article by Inc. discussed whether motivation is better than discipline. The article refers to the popular Hollywood tool in which a coach gives a motivational speech to his losing team and then they go out and win the game. Like most things Hollywood portrays, the truth is just the opposite. David Burke is a retired Top Gun elite fighter pilot who says, “In real life, when fear, fatigue, and doubt set in, no speech can provide the motivation you need to keep going. The only thing you and your team can rely on is discipline.”
“Discipline keeps you going when your curiosity, motivation, and excitement evaporate.” David Burke, Top Gun elite fighter pilot for 23 years.
David Burke is not alone in his opinion. Jim Rohn, a famous business philosopher says, “If we don’t make consistent self-discipline part of our daily lives, the results we seek will be sporadic and elusive.”
There is a place for motivation, passion and following your dreams; it is what you need to begin but it is self-discipline that will ensure you finish!
We don’t need modern-day self-help gurus to tell us how important discipline is. In Hebrews 12:11 it says, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
How do you make self-discipline part of your daily life? Well, that’s a topic for another blog. Stay tuned!
Mike Curtis, Principal