Success doesn’t only come to those who can cultivate self-discipline alone. Success comes to those who can make good use of both motivation and self-discipline. Motivation and self-discipline aren’t the same and none is useless between the two. They are two different things but they can both be used as weapons to crush your goals. In other words, both play different roles. Useful for different things. Both are equally important and we will talk about them in this article. First let’s start by defining motivation.
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the driving force for seeking a change. Motivation forces you to start that course. It forces you to start that business. It forces you to start working out. Motivation is the initial force necessary for change. There are two main types of motivation: One, extrinsic motivation and two, Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation is when you are motivated by external factors.This type of motivation comes as a result of seeking a reward. For example:
- Working hard to get a pay rise
- Tweeting to get more followers
- Reading to get smarter
Whilst intrinsic motivation on the other hand comes from within you, that is, you are simply motivated to do that thing solely because you enjoy it. For example:
- Tweeting because you ENJOY tweeting
- Reading because you ENJOY reading
- Playing the guitar because you ENJOY it.
I could go on and on but I know by now you know the difference between the two. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation both work hand in hand to make our goals a reality. Every man must aim to be driven by intrinsic motivation and not by extrinsic motivation but I digress because that’s not what this post is about. That being said…
What is Self discipline?
Self-discipline or discipline, is simply the act of putting in the work to reach your goal most especially when you don’t feel like it. What’s the difference between motivation and self discipline?
One, motivation comes first before self-discipline: Without motivation you can’t be forced to start to work on that goal. Motivation comes FIRST. For without motivation there will be no goal to work towards. Without motivation self-discipline can’t occur. Motivation is not as useless as most people believe it is. It’s not paltry. It’s useful. VERY useful.
Athletes are motivated to be the best at their craft because of the enjoyment, the dopamine hit, the recognition, the fame, the titles, the medal and most importantly the money. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations working together to make the dream of an athlete a reality. The rewards associated with becoming extremely good at his or her craft MOTIVATES an athlete to become disciplined so as to make his or her dreams a reality.
Two, motivation depends on your emotions whilst discipline depends on your logic. Motivation depends on your mood. Self-discipline doesn’t care about your mood. Self-discipline impels you to put in the work most especially when you aren’t in the mood.
Which is more reliable between self-discipline and motivation? Or to put it another way, why choose motivation over self-discipline?
As I said earlier, motivation depends on your emotions. And your emotions are fickle, that is they come and go, blowing hot and cold. Here today gone ten days and this is why you should never rely on motivation. Motivation for that same mundane task won’t be there for you everyday.
Discipline, on the other hand will always be there. Discipline doesn’t depend on your feelings. Discipline doesn’t depend on whether you feel good or you feel bad. Discipline depends on your logic. And logic will always beat emotions.
As I said at the beginning of this article, motivation is not useless. Motivation plus self-discipline makes it easier for you to outperform others, it makes it easier and faster for you to achieve your goals, your dreams. Here’s how you can keep on being motivated whenever the passion for the work disappears:
#1 Start Small
Start by setting small goals for yourself. For example you want to start reading books, maybe fiction or nonfiction. You can start by reading two pages a day. Then you can move to four pages a day. Or if you want to be a writer, you can start by writing 50 words per day. And then increase it. When you start small, you make it seem easier and it makes you more comfortable with the task at hand. You simply won’t overwhelm yourself.
#2 Reward Yourself
Here you make use of extrinsic motivation. You have a proclivity to be motivated to do a task when there is a reward attached to completing that task. Every time you complete the task, give yourself a reward. The reward could be treating yourself to your favorite snack. Or playing video games. When there’s a reward attached to achieving it and punishing yourself when you fail to achieve it, this motivates you and makes it harder for you to give up on your goals.
#3 Focus on Completing one Task at a time.
Don’t overwhelm yourself by focusing on two or more tasks at a time. This will kill your motivation. Face one at a time. The simpler it is the more likely you are to feel motivated to complete it.
Final words
Again, motivation is not as useless as a lot of people make it seem. Both motivation and self-discipline are weapons, weapons that could be used together like bow and arrow. Motivation is like the bow whilst self-discipline is the arrow. Both bow and arrow can function without one another. But Without the bow, the arrow cannot be effective in doing the work it was originally created to do. And without the arrow the bow is completely useless—So is discipline without motivation and vice versa.
I agree