Motivation VS. Self-Discipline

What is Motivation?

The dictionary defines motivation as a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way. 

Motivation is something we all have, whether its motivation to read a book, tidy our room or complete a new challenge. We all can get sudden bursts of motivation which can be extremely helpful when we want to achieve something. However, it can be counterproductive when you run out of motivation to complete something. Whilst motivation can be wonderful, it can also be very stressful when you went out of it.

What is Self-Discipline?

The dictionary defines self-discipline as the ability to control one’s feelings and overcome one’s weakness. 

Motivation can be beneficial to achieve a task or goal, but self-discipline is ultimately what you need to see the goal through to the end. Self-discipline will help you to stay on track and to keep going with your goal. 

If you get bouts of motivation but lack the self-discipline to see a task through, you are just like me, or at least how I used to be.

man walking down the road looking for motivation and self-discipline

How Lack of Self-Discipline Affected Me

I used to get periods of motivation and start a new goal but I would quickly run out of motivation and give up on my goals. I would completely give up on my goals and it started to really affect me and my mental health. I started thinking extremely negatively about myself and my ability to stick to something. 

I decided that I needed to develop some self-discipline to help me see my tasks and goals through to the end. This also then helped me to improve my mental health and view of myself.

man who found motivation and self-discipline

How I Started To Improve My Self-Discipline

When I decided to make a change and try to improve my self-discipline I decided to make small daily changes. One of my goals was to keep my room tidy, clean and organised. I started this goal by setting a five minute timer each evening to clean, I found that this helped me to start because it was easy and only took five minutes.

This small easy change helped me drastically, sometimes when cleaning the five minutes would end and there would only be a few more things to put away, so I would just continue until my room was clean. This then led to me just automatically cleaning my room every night without a timer, which then developed into me putting things away after I had gotten them out so there was less to put away in the night.

This small change kept evolving and helped me to keep my room super clean and tidy. Now, I use this method to clean my flat every day and to keep it spotless.

How You Can Practice Self-Discipline

You can start by making a small change like I did and getting used to this and then adapting it slowly. Starting with a massive, time and effort consuming task only made me want to stop trying again. But starting slowly with small steps, allowed me to stay on track and reach my goals.

Taking small but meaningful steps is the best and easiest way I have found to stick to goals and ensure I see it through. I also found it extremely helpful to use small measurable goals. Making something measurable means you can see when you are achieving it, which can offer a motivation boost making it that little bit easier to keep going.

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