Most of us need strong and relentless help in the discipline department. You know, the clock radio, the trainer at the gym, and gentle reminders about bad habits from our significant other. In many of these matters we have an easy choice, but right now there are unavoidable forces at work in the marketplace that are imposing discipline on us whether we welcome it or not.

Whether you are a business owner, CEO or elected official, limits that challenge how we think and what we do are becoming real and undeniable. Gasoline at $5 per gallon imposes a discipline for many people on where they go, how much income can be used for discretionary spending and where this year’s vacation might be. If we are speaking truth, we really knew that SUVs were a bad idea years ago as soon as we read the E.PA. Mileage sticker or followed one of the behemoths on a crowded freeway. But like a drunken sailor on shore leave, we embraced them without considering consequences and the car companies smiled gratefully for the fat profit margins they brought. Now we are learning that just like the threat of hanging, spending 50 cents per mile in fuel sparks some newly disciplined thinking!

For CEOs who accepted Wall Streets opinion of them as the only valid report card in their business lives, they’ve now seen just how fickle and fleeting that relationship can be. Some of them took the job with their eyes focused primarily on the potential giant severance payment due them on the inevitable day they would be rolled out of the place by a panicked board of directors. So many awful CEO choices and outraged shareholders have begun to bring some discipline and responsibility to the boards of public companies. Of course the ultimate discipline of business is to survive by making money consistently and that usually doesn’t need a gaggle of investment bankers or the quarterly opinions of Wall Street.

Politicians are a special breed that practices the systematic avoidance of discipline except when it comes to holding out their hands for donations with great frequency. Look at their situation. They enjoy two of the ultimate perks that would go on most American’s wish lists. You see, many office holders receive a pension and health insurance for life whether they ennoble and lift their constituents or wind up facing an indictment. Since many have special abilities to shift blame and burden to others, a daily dose of discipline isn’t in their medicine cabinets! As they’d say in my old inner city neighborhood, “that is a good job.” Not for many decades have we seen leadership that reminds the citizenry that discipline is necessary in all parts of our civic life if we want to maintain strength and independence.

Here I’m borrowing a thought from the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi;  “What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we are. That will depend on previous years of self-discipline.” Like you I struggle many days with my to-do lists and having to prioritize various tasks. Each day there seems to be a veritable circus of challenges to test our resolve, direction and concentration, many of them scary. These days on a scale of 0-10 the American psyche seems to hovering at about 6 but yearning for something higher. There never seems to be a shortage of people to remind us of the problems while what we are really yearning for are solutions and leadership. Our individual and collective ability to bring discipline to our businesses and lives has never been more important.