Discipline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline
Start working on your goals. Our time here is limited.
You have to pick a path of discipline. - Jordan Peterson
Genuine discipline
You may be thinking of discipline as “You shouldn’t do that”. But that is not what discipline is. Discipline is the integration into a higher form of freedom. That is a much better way of thinking about it. You are a lot more free if, when you are 50 and you have the physique of someone who is 30. If the price you pay for that is that you have to give up gluttony, which is, I want to eat whatever I want to eat whenever I want to eat it, that is not freedom. It means that you are completely subordinate to your hunger. - Jordan Peterson
Potential transforms itself into actuality through discipline
When you are a kid, you are all potential. It is chaotic potential. It can manifest itself in any number of ways. Maybe you don’t want to give that up. So you are like Peter Pan - you want to be a kid forever because you don’t want to give up the potential and you look out the world and all you see are Captain Hooks - who have lost a hand, who are chased by death, because thats the clock in the crocodile - its already got a taste of him - he is terrified by death and he is a tyrant. Well, I don’t want to grow up to be that. So I won’t be disciplined at all. Well, that is no good. Because the way the potential transforms itself into actuality is through discipline. - Jordan Peterson
The Backstory:
“That cursed beast liked the taste of me so well, he’s followed me ever since, licking his chops for the rest of me.” - Captain Hook on Tick-Tock the Crocodile.
Tick-Tock the Crocodile (better known as just the Crocodile) is a supporting character in Disney’s animated feature film Peter Pan. He is a crocodile of monstrous proportions that dwells on the isle of Neverland. After swallowing the hand of Captain Hook (who lost it in battle with Peter Pan), Tick-Tock liked the taste so much that he has been in constant pursuit of the villainous pirate, in hopes of devouring the rest of him. The crocodile also swallowed an alarm clock at some point.
Become disciplined in pursuing something
When you feel like, I don’t know what to do - thats ok. Nobody does. Go do something. Do the best thing that you can think of. Put the best plan you have into practice. Its not going to be perfect and it will change along the way but it will change partly because you become disciplined pursuing the path. And as you become disciplined, you become wiser and as you become wiser, you become able to formulate better and better plans. - Jordan Peterson
Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth… That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. - Viktor E Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.
Motivation vs Discipline
How does motivation work on us? According to “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Motivation can be understood as a quest to maximize rewards and minimize costs.
People make decisions based on a subjective evaluation of the expected benefits and consequences.
Motivation is a feeling that comes and goes. Discipline is infinitely more important. It doesn’t matter whether motivation is there or not. No matter how you feel, get up and do what you are supposed to do. Thats it. Thats discipline. Its not motivation. If you only did what you were supposed to do when you were motivated to do it, thats leaving it to chance. But if you are disciplined, you go do what you are supposed to do. Thats the way it works. - Jocko Willink
Motivation Is Overrated
Mood follows action. In other words: Don’t think. Do.
New Year’s resolutions fail before the end of the year.
Motivation isn’t always the key to sticking with your New Year’s resolutions or habit change in general. The best thing you can do to feel good and accomplish your goals is ignore your motivation altogether.
Conventional wisdom holds that motivation leads to action. But what if you are not motivated at all? In those instances, the best thing you can do to change your mental state is to change your physical state. Mood follows action.
If you are down or in a rut, force yourself to move your body, even if only a little bit. This helps shift your perspective and reset your operating system—and more often than not, the sun starts shining again.
It’s not always easy, so sometimes you’ve got to force yourself to take action.
It is hard, if not impossible, to control your thoughts and the subsequent feelings they generate. What you can control, however, is your behavior—that is, your actions.
Consider a period during which you find yourself in a rut. If you force yourself to ignore your thoughts and feelings and simply take action, you give yourself the best chance of changing your thoughts and feelings. This is one reason exercise has been proven so effective at diminishing or even reversing mild depression.
The transformative power of action is equally important when it comes to sticking with challenging long-term pursuits. If you force yourself to show up, to take action—do the run, skip the cake, be present for your partner—and if you do this consistently, a strange thing starts to happen: Your motivation increases.
A consistent practice may take some motivation to get going, but over time the equation is reversed. Dedicating yourself to the practice, no matter how you feel, is what builds motivation.
“The plateau can be a form of purgatory,” a time when motivation steeply declines, writes the late George Leonard, master aikido teacher, in his book Mastery. “To practice regularly, even when you seem to be getting nowhere, might at first seem onerous. But the day eventually comes when practice becomes a treasured part of your life. You settle into it as if into your favorite easy chair. It will be there for you tomorrow. It will never go away.”
Make room in your mind for discipline
Our minds are like a garage. If the garage is all cluttered up, you cannot put your car in there - because there are boats, kid’s toys and stuff everywhere. But if you organize that garage, and put everything in its rightful spot, you can pull that car in there. You can put two cars in there. You can put bikes in there. And thats how it is with the mind. People talk about discipline and determination and repetitions and consistency. Why people fall off the wagon so often is because their mind is full of shit. There is no room in that mind for discipline. There is no room for consistency. They may do it once or twice - but then the mind takes over, that cluttered garage comes in. And then, its like a circuit breaker. The circuit breaker overloads, and it sparks. Our minds are like circuit breakers. There is so much shit in it, and if you keep on loading it, you can’t put any more into it. Clear space in your mind. Then, you have room for all that discipline - waking up early, doing what you want to do. They do mean something, but we don’t get to that because of the dark matter that is keeping you from clearing out that mental garage. - David Goggins
Things That Slowly Drain Your Motivation
Stop waiting for motivation to hit and make it yourself.
- Fake dopamine spikes - Dopamine
- Waiting for motivation
- Motivation is not a feeling, an emotion, or something that seizes us like a lightning bolt from the heavens.
- Motivation is a doing. It is a verb. It is an action — a lifestyle.
- You act in a way that a motivated person acts. Now you’re motivated.
Your "doing" creates your identity. - Most of us get it wrong, wait for inspiration like Plato.
- If you want to be more motivated, just start doing more stuff. This feeds the self-image you have as a motivated person.
- Act, even if you don’t feel like it. Just take a small steps.
- Shoulding
- We naturally rebel — even if it’s unconsciously — against things we feel we should do that we don’t want to do. We say, ‘Oh, I should go outside and run more.’ So of course we resist and moan, and find excuses. We rebel against our own ‘shoulds’. And if we do find a way to get moving, we’re resentful.
- That’s hardly a motivated state. Instead, we need to find a way to want to do something. This can be done in two ways:
- We find several valid reasons why something is a great idea.
- We stop entertaining thoughts about why that something isn’t what we want and lean into small steps into actually doing.
- This creates the momentum we need. Now you’re in motion. Who will stop you?