I woke up a few weeks ago motivated as hell and told myself that I would put on every single article of clothing I owned to determine what I liked and more importantly what fit me well. A week later, I finished trying them on, and now my room is littered with clothing in various, semi-organized piles. To this day, those piles have been untouched.
Yesterday, I told myself I would wake up at 7:45 and start my day early, because I was motivated and thought I could do so. I woke up at 8:45, took a shower, and immediately succumbed to the pleasure of falling asleep again until 1:00.
Today, I felt motivated to eat less, and instead ended up having triple servings at dinner, as well as dessert, and a strange craving for soup.
In my experience, the only thing worse than a task unattempted is a task unfinished. This is possibly the greatest (worst?) side effect of motivation.
Motivation is a wonderful thing. it gets us up in the morning feeling pumped, we tackle challenges with vigor that we surprise ourselves with, and in the heat of the moment we feel like we're at our strongest. However, this strength disappears as quickly as it came, a fleeting moment of power that leaves us in the middle of a sea of projects that we simply don't feel like doing anymore. Now we berate ourselves for having bit off more than we could chew, and either have to force ourselves to half-ass the tasks that we've given ourselves or, alternatively, completely give up.
Don't misunderstand me, I love motivation. There's nothing quite like the feeling of happiness and power that it gives you. But the issue of motivation being so temporary is something that I simply can't ignore. There are dozens upon dozens of self-help guides and articles and videos, all offering tips to increase your motivation. Deep breathing, setting postiive notes to yourself, do yoga, etc. These all rely on one key component: being motivated in the first place and/or being positive. Positivity is never guaranteed, and throughout life one could argue that there are more "negative" days than "positive" ones, and anyone who's had a bad day can tell you that motivation will not hit on your low days. After relying on motivation to get you through life you quickly realize that you spend countless hours or days or weeks waiting for a prime moment to continue your life, only to find your energy gone the next day. Rather than waiting around for life to give you a reason to get up and do stuff, take life and tell it that it's time to get going.
Become self-disciplined.
The word discipline generally boils down to being able to follow orders. As a child, we may have been disciplined into obeying our father by getting slapped around with a slipper or getting grounded. The military disciplines its soldiers so that when an order is given, an order is followed. The immediate, apparent issue with discipline then is that it requires two parties: a superior to make decisions and the disciplined inferior to follow it. In order for discipline to work for oneself, you have to play both of these roles. You must be able to tell yourself what needs to be done then follow through with it. Self-discipline is characterized by proactivity and initiative, a self-driven force to do what should be done even when we don't want to.
Self-discipline is something that's very hard to follow. It means sacrifice. It means planning and working on logic rather than instinct. It means doing the "right" things over the stuff you want to do or rejecting those negative but oh so tempting chances you get throughout the day. For example, had i been more disciplined, I could've stayed awake this morning and finished folding and sorting all my clothes. Instead, I fell into bed and slept. However, it is far more effective than motivation in nearly all aspects of life. Where motivation is random, uncontrolled, and short lived, self-discipline is subject to your will, lasts as long as you want it to, and can be called upon at any time. Imagine an average free day, with no classes or work, or other reason to get out of bed. I know of many people (myself included) who would be tempted to simply lie in bed until noon, get something to eat, then browse Facebook for hours on end until it is time to sleep again. Certain people who I know would call this a good day, as they got to "relax" .I however, call this wasted time. A single day is far longer than most people realize, and each of us is capable of doing so much more than we believe we can. The military uses a "40% rule", in which when we feel as though we can do no more, we're really only at 40% capacity. Its no surprise that our mind prevents us from functioning at 100% capacity; if we were to run on full afterburner all the time we'd burn out incredibly quickly. That being said, we're more than capable of doing more than we think we are, It's all just a matter of steeling ourselves to unlock that potential. In my opinion, discipline is the best way to get there.
There is no one set path to becoming disciplined. Some find themselves lucky enough to have the skill naturally, while others require the brute force of the military to have it drilled into them. Still others, like me, attempt to find their own way to achieving this skill set, and in all honesty motivation is a great way to get started. Become motivated to be more disciplined, so that instead of waiting around for life to give you the drive to accomplish your goals, make life move along at your pace and drive it yourself.
Don't let the world determine your outlook on life.
Let yourself determine how you want to look at the world and mold your life the way you want to be.
