Last evening I was listening to an interview with Jim Rohn, and of all of the golden comments he made, one stood out above them all. He said:

You always have just two choices in life – discipline or regret. Jim Rohn.

This makes a LOT of sense.

• You choose to discipline yourself and pursue your why.
• You understand that this will mean a lot of hard work and daily training. But your discovery of your why (your dreams and your passion in life) is fresh when you first make this choice. So everything is still exciting.
• You have decided to push through to achieving your dreams, and you understand that there is a cost. But that is fine – your emotions are high.

These choices you made are DAILY choices.
How easy it would be if we could make such choices when we are feeling great, and then somehow “automatically” our minds and our bodies would cooperate every day, no matter what the circumstances.

But you and I know that this is not the case.
I understand why the apostle Paul declared “I die daily.” He was saying, I make a fresh choice EVERY DAY to pursue my goals, to pay the cost (of disciplining myself and when necessary of making sacrifices).

In other words:

I choose every day to follow my decisions – not my emotions.

Decisions are not made in our emotions. They are made with our wills. Then our emotions follow. They have to, as long as our decisions are firm.

The moment you succumb to your emotions and let them rule, you are in trouble. I am sure you have discovered that at some point in your life right?

Even if you choose to take a break from your daily training program just for a day or so – guess what happens? You know right? It is so much harder to return to your routine, and then it is so much easier to give up.

Why regret? Because without the discipline to focus, train and work towards your dreams, you will not achieve them and then you will live to regret it.

I had never thought about this before, not in this way – (to coin one of Jim Rohn’s expressions). Had you?

Life is full of choices – some of them are conscious and others are made by default. The key is to be aware of what we are choosing.

What do you choose today?
My choice is to serve the Lord and the dreams He put in my heart.