Why Discipline Is Much More Important Than Motivation

Another translation of a text. This one isn't pleasant at all to those, who need motivation. I don't believe either  motivation or discipline alone is an absolute answer, but here you will need to bow to the her majesty - DISCIPLINE :P

There are two main ways to get yourself to do something.

The first, most popular, and devastatingly wrong choice is to try to motivate yourself.

The second, less popular, and entirely correct choice is to develop discipline.

This is one of those situations where adopting a different approach immediately leads to better results. It’s not often you hear the phrase “paradigm shift” used correctly, but this is one of those. The moment when a light bulb goes on over your head.

What’s the difference?

Motivation, in general, is based on the mistaken assumption that a particular mental or emotional state is necessary to complete a task.

This is a completely false perception.

Discipline, on the other hand, separates activity from moods and feelings, thereby sidestepping the problem by continually improving them.

The consequences are staggering.

Successful completion of tasks leads to internal states that chronic procrastinators feel are necessary to get started on the task.

To put it simply, you don’t wait until you’re in Olympic shape to start training. You train to get there.

When action is driven by feelings, waiting for the right mindset is a particularly insidious form of procrastination. I know this all too well, and I wish someone had pointed it out to me twenty, fifteen, or ten years before I felt the difference.

If you wait until you feel ready to do something, you’re screwed. This is how the dreaded procrastinator loops arise.

At its core, chasing motivation is insisting on the infantile fantasy that we should only do what we feel like doing. The problem is framed as, “How do I get myself to do what I’ve already decided in my mind of doing?” This is bad.

The real question is, "How do I recognize my feelings as irrelevant and start doing the things I consciously want to do without being a whiny?"

The trick is to cut the connection between feelings and actions, and do what needs to be done anyway. You will feel good and energized afterward.

Motivation is the wrong way. I am 100% sure that this false limitation is the main reason why many people in developed countries just sit in their underwear, play Xbox and masturbate instead of doing something useful.

Believing in motivation is a consequence of psychological problems.

Since real life in the real world sometimes requires people to do things that no one in their right mind can enthusiastically accept, "motivation" runs into an insurmountable obstacle in trying to generate enthusiasm for something that objectively does not deserve it. The only solution, other than fooling around, is to forget about this "right mind". This is a terrible, and fortunately, wrong dilemma.

Trying to maintain enthusiasm for fundamentally dull and deadly actions is a form of deliberate psychological self-harm, a voluntary madness: "I love these spreadsheets so much, I can't wait to finally fill out the formula for calculating my annual income, I love my job so much!"

I do not consider deliberate manifestations of hypomania to be the optimal stimulus for human activity. The human brain does not tolerate abuse over an infinite period, so the retribution is inevitable. The body has its own brakes and safety valves.

The worst that can happen is success in the wrong action - temporary. A much better scenario is to maintain your sanity, which unfortunately tends to be misconstrued as a moral failure: “I still don’t like my pointless paper-pushing job.” “I still prefer pie to broccoli and can’t lose weight, maybe I’m just a wimp.” “I need to buy another motivation book.” Bullsh*t. The critical mistake is to think of these cases in terms of motivation or lack thereof at all. The answer is discipline, not motivation.

There’s another, practical problem with motivation. It has a tiny shelf life and needs to be constantly refreshed.

Motivation is your hand on a crank to increase the pressure. At its best, it stores and converts energy for a specific purpose. There are times when this is the right approach – Olympic competition and prison breaks come to mind. But it’s a terrible basis for ordinary daily action, and unlikely to achieve long-term results.

Instead, discipline is like a motor that once started, continually supplies energy to the system.

Productivity has no necessary mental states. For consistent, long-term results, discipline trumps motivation (running circles around it, giving it a flick, and eating its lunch).

In the end, motivation is an attempt to achieve a state of readiness to do something. Discipline is when you do something even when you are not able to.

You feel good afterward.

Discipline, in short, is a system, while motivation is more like a goal. There is symmetry in this. Discipline is something more or less permanent, while motivation is fleeting.

How to develop discipline? By acquiring habits - starting with small, even microscopic ones, gaining momentum, using them to further change in everyday life, building a positive feedback loop.

Motivation is a counterproductive approach to productivity. What is important is discipline.


From page "Psychology, manipulation, influence"
Translation: Laurynas Sadzevicius

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