Why Discipline is More Important than Motivation

Most of our clients here at Thrive Counseling have certain goals that their therapist helps them with. Common goals we see are:

  • Improve relationships
  • Stop feeling depressed or anxious
  • Find a career direction
  • Be more financially stable
  • Get anger under control
  • Learn from a break-up how to be a better partner
  • Understand and stop impulsive, self-defeating behaviors

In addition, most of the clients that I see also think they need to have motivation in order to work on any of these goals. I hear things like this all the time:

Once I get motivated, then I know I can exercise regularly.

If I could only find out how to motivate myself, then I could be better.

I’ve lost my motivation and I don’t know how to get it back

The Truth about Motivation

Here’s the thing about motivation: it’s a feeling. Like an emotion, we experience it for a time and then it passes. It’s a pleasant feeling for sure, I love feeling motivated. I find it uplifting and energizing. However, just like any feeling or emotion, I don’t have any direct control over it. I can’t make it stay or make it go. I can’t make it more intense or less intense. I can’t conjure it when I think it would serve me.

It’s true that when I have the happy circumstance of experiencing this feeling of motivation, I tend to find it easier to do things that I normally find difficult (like getting in a workout after a long day at the office, or snacking on carrots rather than cheetos). But it’s not a necessary component to do any of these things. If I really had to, I could work out even if I don’t feel motivation. My body can exercise when I feel sad, or lonely, or angry, or any number of emotions that come and go through our awareness every single day.

Learning to Separate Emotions from Behaviors

So here’s the trick to get around motivation; we need to stop thinking of it as the essential ingredient to do difficult things, and instead put it in it’s rightful place of something that’s a nice extra, but not the starting point. Experiencing motivation before we do a behavior (or while doing it) is like icing on the cake; it’s really lovely and it should be savored, but don’t get overly attached to it. And certainly don’t expect it or wait around for it. That’s a waste of time and energy simply because we don’t control it (it would be nice if we could, but we just can’t).

If we can separate our feelings from our behaviors, we give ourselves a lot more room to act. If I give myself permission to feel anything under the sun while I do a behavior that I value (say, exercising), then I free myself up. If I wait around until I feel like exercising, I’m no longer in control (and I could be waiting a really long time).

Sometimes I coach myself through this with an inner monologue something like this:

I value my health. I’m choosing to do some exercise right now. Even if I hate every single minute of it, or feel angry about it, I know that my muscles and my heart and lungs don’t know or care what I’m feeling on a moment-to-moment basis. I wish I felt motivated or uplifted, but I just don’t right now, and that’s ok.

Here’s Where Discipline Comes In

We can think about the opposite of motivate as discipline. Discipline doesn’t mean you’re in trouble or get a punishment, not in this sense. Discipline is the ongoing practice of acting in accordance to a rule or a set of standards. The only “rule” that matters here is the one you assign yourself. Discipline is the thing that happens when you expend some effort (both physical and mental) to do a thing that in that moment, you don’t feel like doing.

Everyone has discipline for certain things. People usually don’t feel like getting out of bed with their alarm every single morning; but they usually do. That little bit of effort that you use on those days that you’re rather sleep in, but instead you get up to go to work, that’s discipline.

Discipline doesn’t need to be extreme or self-punishing; it’s just the choices that you make every day.

The beauty of using discipline to reach goals rather than motivation is discipline is something you can control (unlike a feeling like motivation). Discipline doesn’t really take into account your thoughts or feelings. They are important, of course, but it’s your actions that move you towards your goals, not just your thoughts and feelings.

Getting Started with Discipline

When you’re getting started with discipline, it’s okay to start small. Set a small and achievable goal and be flexibile with yourself. What you’re looking for is to locate how it feels to let go of your immediate feelings and take a action that you value. Some clients say it’s like pushing through a stubborn door, or expending some mental effort, or the proverbial “taking it one step at a time.”

It’s okay if you’re not perfect with your goal; the key is to be curious about this new way of doing things, and observe what comes up. Here’s some good self-reflection questions:

  • Do you find yourself wishing you had different thoughts and feelings when you do this behavior?
  • Do you find your feelings shift and change as you do this behavior?
  • Why is this behavior important to you?
  • Does the effort to do this behavior change day-to-day?

There are not wrong answers, these are just questions to get you curious about your experience.