I have been thinking a lot about discipline lately. Everyone knows you can’t succeed without it, yet few people seem to possess it.

My friend, Andy Andrews asks this question:

Can you make yourself do something you don’t want to do in order to get a result you really want?

Recently, I met with a leader who was in the process of losing heart. I have seen the look in his eyes a hundred times before. (I had seen it in my own mirror on more than one occasion.)

My friend was under attack. He had just discovered that one of his board members was campaigning to unseat him. Worse, one of his children had just been diagnosed with a chronic disease. As a result of these issues, he was struggling with the typical symptoms of stress—insomnia, indigestion, and back pain.

A month ago I was on the radio with Dave Ramsey. And I was terrified.

Not because of him. He’s an incredibly kind interviewer, warm and funny and gregarious in person. It wasn’t the subject matter that had me scared. We were talking about my new book Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job. I love to talk about that. So why was I so sweaty, nervous and awkward during the interview?

A few nights ago, I sat down with the intention to write a blog post. I had been mulling a specific idea over for several days. I thought it was a slam dunk. I should be done in 30 minutes, I thought, 45 minutes—max.

Not so much.