Fuck Your Motivation

What do you say when you see someone who works extremely hard all of the time? we all know someone like this, we even make jokes about how they must have more hours of the day than us.

You say "Wow he is so motivated" or "I wish I was as motivated as him/her", but what if I told you that it has nothing at all to do with motivation?

Don't get me wrong, motivation is a powerful tool when it's available, but that's the thing, it just isn't as readily available as it needs to be.

Sure, you could wake up and watch a motivational YouTube video every morning that will pump you up and get you going. But how many YouTube videos of the millions that are available will even get this done? And how long until the one YouTube video you find no longer has the same effect? 

Motivation is fickle, it should never be relied upon. If you’re ready to make a serious change and become the person you’ve always known you could be, you’re going to need to rid yourself of the need for motivation. 

The reason for this is there just isn't motivation strong enough to get people where they want to go, no amount of external motivation will help you achieve your goals.

But there is something a lot better, more reliable and malleable, which is discipline.

Why Discipline?

What even is discipline? Well I'm not talking about the discipline that involves punishing children, I'm talking about the trait that involves self-control, grit, determination, and most importantly, the ability to continue doing what should be done, regardless of the discomfort that comes along with it.

By having this trait, it's obvious to see why it's a suitable alternative to motivation. Motivation is used to push you through something, and the reason you need pushing to begin with is because doing it can be challenging. 

Therefore, both discipline and motivation are used to get you through or at least begin something difficult, but since motivation is rarely there when you need it most, building and using discipline is probably you're best bet.

As I like to say, motivation is setting the alarm the night before, and discipline getting up the morning of. 

Unlike motivation, you can increase you're levels of discipline, and your ability to do hard things can grow alongside you and your goals. This means the better you get, the more disciplined you can become, allowing you to do increasingly harder things. 

Discipline is self-care, but not for the current you, it's taking care of future you. They are waiting for you to turn them into reality, discipline is probably the best and most reliable way of doing so. 

It's saying no to the sweet treat that has been winking at you all evening, it's going for a run that you planned despite the sudden downpour of rain, it’s having the difficult conversation you would otherwise prefer to avoid, discipline is the safest, most dependable, most reliable friend you could ever have. So choose discipline.

Building Discipline

If I have done my job correctly, you should now be anxiously waiting for clear instructions on how discipline is built. So let's do it. 

Discipline is doing something and pushing through something despite how hard it feels, so really, building discipline just involves doing more of these things.

However, quite a substantial number of people just still don’t get the memo, so I'm going to break it down the best I can.

If you want to successfully build this trait, you're going to need to change your relationship with discomfort and your attitude towards doing hard things as these are the foundations on which discipline is built. Without these, you cannot become disciplined. So to build it, you're going to need to go from the automatic tendency of avoiding them to actively seeking them out. 

Also, one of the most important things is to ensure you do not overwhelm yourself to the point of quitting. When starting this journey, of course, you're going to be doing difficult things, so choosing ones that are of higher pain tolerance than you’re currently able to handle will increase the chances of you stopping altogether. This needs to be avoided at all costs.

So, start small, begin with something difficult but manageable, and then slowly increase the difficulty. This, to begin with, is a conscious effort, but give it some time and you'll start to subconsciously seek more difficult challenges. 

You should also start with one thing at a time, eventually, you'll be balancing multiple challenges within multiple domains, but for now, the most important thing is to not overdo it. 

Doing hard things should be a daily activity, just pick something that doesn't feel good, something that you do not want to do, something healthy.

There is no point pricking yourself with a needle every day because it's challenging. Exercise is hard, dieting is hard, learning is hard, cold plunges are hard, and waking up earlier is hard.

If you know it should be done, and you’ll be better for it, but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ good, then you’re on the right track.

So, going forward, stop waiting for when you feel most motivated to do something, do it when you feel like it the least, you’ll become disciplined and resilient and unrecognisable within a couple of months.

The path to hell feels like heaven and the path to heaven feels like hell, just make the correct choice.