Motivation vs. Discipline
“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
-Dali Lama
Motivation is having the desire to do something. Things may be enjoyable or rewarding in some way. Our motivation is oriented toward the activity because it meets some vital needs. I need to be healthy, so I am motivated to exercise. I want more opportunities in life, so I pursue an education. I want to make a million dollars, so I work hard in my business. Motivations are as varied as people are varied.
The problem with motivation is that it often waxes and wanes. It rarely has a consistent energy to it. I might enjoy something and typically feel very motivated to pursue the activity, but some days I might not. I enjoy training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is fun, engaging, and good exercise, and I almost always feel good after training. However, some days I might be tired or busy and, if honest, just not feeling like training. What to do?
Well, it is good to listen to your body. Sometimes you might be genuinely tired and need to rest and recover. You may have been training hard lately, and it would be suitable to rest to avoid burnout. However, if those two things do not apply, it may be the case that I need to practice discipline.
Discipline is when you continue doing what is necessary, whether you experience motivation or not. It is what keeps us on course to what is important to us. Many days, I have felt ambivalent about going to training. It’s been a long day. I’m tired, and so on. Discipline is when I go to training anyway, even if I’m not motivated. What I have found interesting is that motivation waxes and wanes, but when I use discipline to stay on course, I usually feel better. During those times, I was on the fence about going to train, and I trained anyway. I am always satisfied that I did. I rarely regret going to training afterward.
It is a misconception that discipline individuals are those who are constantly grinding on things and never have any fun. According to one study (Hofmann, 2014), people with high self-control are happier than those without. The study discovered this is true because the self-disciplined subjects were more capable of dealing with goal conflicts. These people spent less time debating whether to indulge in behaviors detrimental to their health and were able to make positive decisions more easily. The self-disciplined did not allow their choices to be dictated by impulses or feelings. Instead, they made informed, rational decisions daily without feeling overly stressed or upset. When I take this approach, I wind up being happier because I achieve more of the things that are important to me.
⭐️Motivation you may have towards things that are important to you will inevitably wax and wane. Understanding this helps you to use discipline to stay on course. Remember, you are staying on course with something that you have said is important. If you remain consistent, even though your motivation waxes and wanes, you will eventually arrive at the desired result. This makes you happy! You are less happy if you veer off course and never achieve the result.
Improving self-discipline means changing your routine behaviors, which can be uncomfortable and awkward initially. Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, explains that habit behaviors are traced to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia – a portion associated with emotions, patterns, and memories. Decisions, on the other hand, are made in the prefrontal cortex, a completely different area. When a behavior becomes a habit, we stop using our decision-making skills and instead function on autopilot. (Duhigg, 2014) If I have a process (such as I will train every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday), over time, the process becomes a habit. Oh, it’s Friday, time to train. Why am I training? Because it’s Friday.
Breaking a bad habit and building a new one requires us to make active decisions, and it will also tend to feel wrong. Your brain will resist the change in favor of what it has been programmed to do. When developing a new habit it is helpful to use a technique called “habit stacking.” (Duhigg, 2014) The basic idea is that even the most undisciplined of us still have some things that we do regularly. We might work out regularly, take the dog for a walk, brush our teeth, eat dinner, etc.
⭐️If you want to develop a new habit, pairing it with one you already have is helpful. If you wanted to get more disciplined about meditating, instead of choosing random times to practice when you are in the mood, you might pair it with something like before or after you walk the dogs or eat breakfast. When you do this, the new habit will “inherit” some of the habit force of the existing habit. You may be motivated to achieve various goals, but discipline keeps you focused on the process carrying you toward them.
Change to “you”
Here too change to “you”