How to get anything done….
If you want to get anything done, there are two basic ways to get yourself to do it.- The first is to try to motivate yourself. This is the more popular option. And, it is devastatingly wrong.
- The second — somewhat unpopular but entirely correct — choice is to cultivate discipline.
Motivation |
Discipline |
|---|---|
| Motivation, broadly speaking, operates on the assumption that a particular mental or emotional state is necessary to complete a task. | Discipline, by contrast, separates outwards functioning from moods and feelings and thereby ironically circumvents the problem by consistently improving them. |
| Action is conditional on feelings. You wait for the right mood to start doing stuff, it’s an invitation to the dreaded procrastination loops we all know about. | Successful completion of tasks brings about the positive state of mind that chronic procrastinators think they need to initiate tasks in the first place. |
| Motivation is waiting until you’re in Olympic form to start training. | Discipline is training to get into an Olympic form. |
| At its core, motivation is insistence that we should only be doing things we feel like doing. | Discipline aims to cut the link between feelings and actions, and do it anyway. |
| “How do I get myself to feel like doing what I have rationally decided to do?”. | “How do I make my feelings inconsequential and do the things I consciously want to do?”. |
| There are psychological problems with relying on motivation. Trying to drum up enthusiasm time and again is literally a form of deliberate psychological self-harm. | Discipline makes you feel good and buzzed and energetic and eager afterward. |
| Motivation usually comes in short, periodic bursts. It has a tiny shelf life and needs constant refreshing. | Discipline is usually self-perpetuating and constant. |
| Motivation is like winding up a crank to deliver a burst of force. At best, it stores and converts energy to a particular purpose. | By contrast, discipline is like an engine that, once kick-started, continuously supplies energy to the system. |
| There are situations where it is the correct attitude, one-off situations where spring-loading a lot of energy up front is the best course of action. | Discipline is the basis for regular day-to-day functioning and consistent long-term results. |
| Motivation is trying to feel like doing stuff. | Discipline is doing it even if you don’t feel like it. |
| Motivation is analogous to goals. | Discipline, in short, is a system. |
Summary
Productivity has no requisite mental states.For consistent, long-term results, discipline trumps motivation.
How do you cultivate discipline?
By building habits.Start as small as you can manage, even microscopic, and keep gathering momentum. Re-invest it in progressively bigger changes to your routine, and build a positive feedback loop.
Forget motivation… What we really need is discipline.
Excerpts from a blog post by Zbyněk DrábAlso available as a presentation on SlideShare:
Blog URL: http://www.wisdomination.com/
www.slideshare.net/gautamsoman/motivation-vs-discipline
