Discipline is a pretty important thing when trying to succeed in one’s personal, professional, or even spiritual endeavors.

I’ll be honest though, I’m the last person who really should be talking about anything remotely related to discipline since I severely lack it in many areas of my life (ask my wife, and she’ll give you the deets).

But one of the areas where I’ve managed to maintain some sense and form of discipline is in blogging, but it hasn’t been easy. Take for example this morning: I woke up and the last thing I wanted to do was post something, almost as much as I didn’t want to read the Scriptures for my devotional time.

But you’ve gotta do it. And it’s worth it, right?

I’ve discovered there are four parts to the mix that have helped me take the small steps toward becoming disciplined:

1. Practice -  I simply practice it. I could provide some fairly prescriptive ideas for you probably already know what they are. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it can help guide you to what works best for your own personal schedule and blogging rhythm.
2. Experience – By simply doing it I’ve gained experience and learned a lot about how the art of blogging works. I think I could argue that over time you gain experience that equals some form of consistency; it’s taught me a lot.
3. Failure -  By doing stupid things I’ve learned to correct them. Discipline is never perfect the first time, in fact, it’s much more of a process than I had ever thought it would be.
4. Advice – Take a lot of advice from those that apparently do it a lot better and who have been doing it longer. This typically requires a bit of humility, which I can sorely lack at times.

What would you include? What ingredient is missing from your “mix?”

[Image from Santos]