Want To Get Stuff Done? Forget Motivation - Cultivate Discipline.

‘One of your strengths is your strong bias towards action. You’re extremely action oriented and we can trust you to always get things done’ - this has been a consistent piece of feedback that I have been receiving during my whole working life (I’m 6.5 years in) and I won’t lie, I’m actually pretty proud of this!

But yeah, big deal, so what if I can get stuff done? Like any other person, I just wanted to finish up work and leave so I could go off to enjoy my evenings! The main question i always get is ‘How do you motivate yourself to get all this done?’ And my answer is always..‘I just force myself to do it lor, I have a deadline to meet right, and I take pride being a good partner to work with so…’

Thinking back, I now know that what I have instilled in me - is actually Discipline.

Motivation as a (shitty) concept

A few months ago, I was listening to a podcast by Ali Abdaal (my favourite youtuber) and the topic of discussion happened to be about ‘Why do we struggle with motivation?’. He quoted the article ‘Screw motivation, what you need is discipline.’ written by Wisdomination (<—LOVE THE NAME BTW). WOW, was I mind-blown - it pretty much affirmed and changed my thoughts about how I looked at Motivation as a concept.

‘Action isn’t just the effect of motivation, but also the cause of it.’

The concept is as such: motivation relies heavily on how you are feeling before you want to try to complete a task. Comparatively, discipline forces you to systematically start the motion of getting started on your tasks regardless of how you are feeling.

Chasing Motivation

Chasing motivation before starting a task goes a little like this: ‘How do I get myself to feel like doing what I have decided to do? Once Inspiration hits me, I’m sure I’ll be motivated to start on this!’

So essentially, most people think:

Emotional Inspiration → Motivation → Action

Which usually leads people to this lovely cycle of procrastination:

Instead, the ‘motivation chain’ is actually an endless loop and we are starting at the wrong point:

… Action → Emotional Inspiration → Motivation → Action → Emotional Inspiration → Motivation → Action..

In reality, your actions (no matter how tiny or minute), will actually encourage you to be ‘inspired and motivated’ to take further action. Because that tiny action subconsciously tells your brain ‘Hey, I did that. I can probably do more!’ and the effect gets compounded over time - and soon enough you actually end up finishing your task!

I’ll be honest - there comes a point in every single job / task where you’ll be like..’UGH. SERIOUSLY DON’T WANNA DO THIS SHIT’ because really, who gets excited about mundane stuff we HAVE do all the time, and how it makes us feel? ‘Yayy, can’t wait to start editing this deck to present those numbers, challenges and learnings to a whole bunch of random people’… Nope. The feeling of dread actually crept around once I typed that out. Oops.

Stop thinking about motivation as a concept. Focus on Discipline.

‘So how do I make my feelings inconsequential and do the things I consciously want to do?’The simple answer: cut the link between feelings and actions. JUST DO IT. YES, SERIOUSLY NIKE GOT IT RIGHT!

You’ve got to bite the bullet and just do the damn task anyway, and the positive effects of this comes AFTER the task at hand is completed. I’m sure every one knows the feeling of accomplishment - think back to the last time you finished exercising or even cleaning your room. The task was probably hard and tedious, but didn’t you feel AMAZING after?

‘Motivation is like empty carbs. It gives us a quick hit of energy, but burns itself out very quickly. Discipline, on the other hand, is our protein - slower to break down, and keeps us going longer.’

Luckily for me, my 八字 person (this astrologer dude who kinda reads your.. Chinese name and stars and stuff) said that discipline is actually one of my traits that is deep rooted inside of my character since birth! I’m supposedly a strong forest tree with deep roots. HAH - I guess that works for me!

How do you then cultivate discipline?

It starts by building habits. Small habits. Start with small goals and actions. Once they are completed, you will naturally be driven to make bigger changes. Think of discipline as a system, and use it as one in your daily life. Don’t take my word for it - try it for 21 days (the amount of time proven to form a habit) and let me know if it works for you :)

Conclusion

Motivation is trying to feel like doing stuff. It’s short in duration, random and it comes in spurts. And really, often do you feel motivated anyway!?

Discipline is doing the task even if you don’t feel like it - but MAN, do you get to feel good AFTER. Since cultivated discipline is a system, it will become a constant once it is ingrained in you.

‘Productivity has no requisite mental states. For consistent, long-term results, discipline trumps motivation hands down!’

Don’t wait to feel motivated! Cultivate discipline and Just freaking do it! You won’t regret that you started, because you’ll have completed the task before you know it ;)

Stay tuned for the next post as it will be about how to build habits - which will help cultivate discipline!

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Reading Resources

‘Screw motivation, what you need is discipline.’ (Article | 3 minute read) - Wisdomination

‘Why do we struggle with motivation'? (Podcast | 38 minutes listening time) - Not overthinking

‘Discipline and Motivation - The protein and crabs of getting stuff done’ (Article | 3 minute read) - James Cook

‘The ‘Do Something’ Principle’ (Article | 6 minute read) - Mark Manson