There are two things that can actively make money. Humans and invested money. But only one can do it while you sleep.

Building wealth is easy. The hard part is doing it consistently. Wealth takes discipline. It’s hard to go through the beginning and middle, without jumping prematurely to the end, without falling for the fool’s gold. Getting rich quick doesn’t work so well unless it’s Bitcoin and unless you were lucky with good timing.

What’s the difference between people who successfully make money through investing and those who don’t? Successful investors are disciplined and they consistently resist caving into the temptation to go in for easy money.

In the famous stock trading book, “Market Wizards, Lessons from the Greatest Traders,” Jack Schwager writes, “When I asked the Market Wizards what differentiated them from the majority of traders, the most common reply I got was ‘discipline.’”

Investing in any stock market is not always easy. There’s lots of volatility, ups, and downs when you least expect it. That’s why it’s not that easy to maintain discipline to not sell early or buy at too high of a price. Companies are as volatile as the world and the people in it, but if you’re patient and disciplined, you can be making $30k — $50k per year salary at a job, but after investing as little as $60/month consistently for 30 or 40 years, end up a millionaire.

I’ve read about and tried many different tactics to stay disciplined in my investing. Selecting only stocks that fit your criteria, never selling in a plunging market, and not investing too much in any one stock are my own investment disciplines.

Another form of financial discipline is to consistently increase your incoming investment amounts by setting up a weekly automatic withdrawal from your checking account to your investment account. You’ll be surprised to see how quickly $25 a week turns into a few hundred than a few thousand dollars, all ready to be put to good use earning a great return.