Discipline Over Motivation - Insights From a Motivational Speaker

There are bookshelves out there

bowing under the weight

of self help books

 

If you ever read one that says this

 

“It all starts with motivation

If you can just find your motivation

you’ll takes leaps and bounds forward

on your chosen goal’

 

then

close that book,

put it down

and ask for your money back.

 

Because that book was written by either

a robot,

a 4 year old

or someone who hasn’t lived

what they are promoting.

 

Suggesting that people try and motivate themselves

into starting

is wrong.

It’s unfair.

and it’s advice that can keep good and earnest

and capable people

from starting something

that could have been

good in their lives.

 

Here’s the simple truth.

I’ve lived this and seen it with others

literally hundreds, maybe even a thousand times.

 

Motivation is not the starting point.

The two D’s are.

Desire and discipline.

 

If you are lucky

you may wake up one day with a burning desire

a desire to change from your current situation

somehow you just feel driven to act

 

Truth is

that sort of desire is pretty rare.

Love it when I get it

but it’s only every now and then.

 

Most of the time

we all have to revert to the less sexy of the 2 D’s

discipline

 

and we have to learn how to cultivate this discipline

so we start taking the necessary steps,

one after the other.

 

and it’s only now

that the elusive motivation

starts to peek around the curtains

from where it’s been hiding

 

because what happens

after many steps

you’ll reach a tipping point

this is where you start to see results

from everything you’ve been doing

 

and you get the first hint of success

“this might just work”

“I can see it all coming together now”

“it’s looking better than I thought”

 

It’s ‘now’ that motivation appears.

 

Progress and tangible results

are the beginnings

the fuel of motivation.

 

and this is the best bit

this is the magic of motivation

 

Motivation is an anaesthetic for hard work.

 

The harder you apply yourself

The more results you see

The more results you see means

the more motivation you get.

the more motivation you get means

more anaesthetic to numb the hard work.

and this cycle repeats and repeats

you become an unstoppable engine.

 

If you’re waiting for motivation to lift you up in it’s wings

so you can soar onwards and upwards?

Your’e gonna be waiting a long time.

 

Motivation is never the first step in the process

yet so many people quote it’s absence

as their reason for not starting.

 

Oh I just can’t get motivated

 

I’m not immune to this. This happened to me just last week..

 

My wife Vicky is from New Zealand

where her family still lives.

We own a house there.

It’s an investment property

that requires an investment of our money and our time.

This is the leveraging of the life, knowledge and time assets

that I promote.

Every now and then

I spend a few weeks ‘on the tools’

to get the 100 year old Villa into shape

so one day we can sell.

 

This past week my job was to paint the front of the house.

It’s old and peeling, much like me.

The weather was wet and cold.

Did I feel like staring this ‘week of work’?

Are you kidding. Not at all.

 

Sure it was cold and wet

but the real reason was

it was taking me away from starting this very podcast you are listening too.

I was in the flow. I was in the zone.

My creative energy was running. 

I can safely say I had zero motivation to start.

In fact I was thinking of ways I could get out of doing it.

 

Since there was no desire,

the starting point I was left with

was boring old discipline.

‘Doing’.

I knew that from doing will come motivation.

But did it feel at all likely

when I went to the paint shop and bought the supplies?

Nope.

Did it feel likely I would be motivated when I started scraping and sanding?

Nope.

Did it feel likely after the first day?

there was not even a hint of motivation.

there was lots of moaning to myself though.

 

Day two

I lugged myself back to paint pots

and laboured grudgingly.

At sunset

I walked to the opposite side of the street

and took in my handiwork.

For the first time I could see change.

I felt a rising interest in what I was doing

and a sense of hope

I might actually achieve something significant over the remaining 5 days.

 

Still, I was reluctantly pushing back my urges

to start this podcast .

 

Next day

with all the sanding out the way

I started to see more results

Then bingo. The motivation kicked in.

I could see it was possible to finish the entire front of the house

within my limited time in New Zealand.

I began to focus. I began to set smaller goals and deadlines.

The work was less tiresome.

That’s the anaesthetic of motivation kicking in.

I was driven to finish

and I did.

and it felt good and satisfying

and that’s how it works.

 

 

 

Here’s why it works.

 

At the heart of the problem

is a childlike belief

that we should only do the things

we feel like doing

 

that somehow

we need to be

in certain state of mind

to achieve something

and that it’s ‘motivation’

that will provide us with this

all important feeling.

 

Well that’s just fantasy

and that’s why we grow up

and go on to develop a more nuts and bolts

mature approach to getting things done

also known as discipline

 

Discipline by it’s very nature

separates your actions

from your moods and feelings

 

So discipline separates

the outside world

from your inner world.

 

It takes away the crippling connection

between needing to feel good

and the need to get something done.

 

This sort of sums it up

“stop your whining and get on with it

and while you’re at it

stop being a big princess about it”

 

The whole irony is just the simple action

of getting the task done

creates the ‘feel good feelings’

you’ve been trying to find all along.

 

 

Remember motivation

comes after desire and discipline

so that feel-good frame of mind you were looking for

comes only after you start.

 

If getting things done were dependant on feelings

the world would grind to a halt.

 

It’s the successful completing of things

that brings on that wonderful mental state called motivation.

The more you complete tasks,

the more you get the buzz

that you were looking for in the first place.

 

So the bottom line is

if you wait until you ‘feel’ like doing something

it ain’t never going to happen.

 

Let me paraphrase this another way

 

Every person I’ve ever met

who is living their dream

has done a lot of crap they didn’t want to do

to get there.

 

So you have 2 choices.

 

Sit around and hope that burning desire shows up

or

start cultivating discipline

and given that burning desire is as rare as a nun in a bikini

I’m suggesting cultivating discipline is the way to go.

 

and I’ve had to employ discipline

every time I’ve changed careers

I usually work on a five year transition plan

and if you can master discipline

your chance of creating a tailor made career

becomes that bit more real

 

How then

do we cultivate discipline?

I use the Perpetual Motion Formula

and in the next episode I’m going to lay it all out for you.

 

Summary: The passage emphasizes that relying on motivation to start a task is misguided. Instead, discipline and desire are the true foundations for progress. Motivation often follows, rather than precedes, disciplined action. The writer uses a personal story of painting a house to demonstrate that motivation comes after consistent effort, not before. The idea is that discipline can help overcome initial resistance, and once results appear, motivation kicks in, making the hard work feel easier.

Lessons Learned:

• Motivation is not the starting point for action; desire and discipline are.
• Motivation comes after consistent effort, not before.
• Discipline separates actions from moods and feelings, making it essential for progress.
• Success requires doing unpleasant tasks to achieve long-term goals.
• Cultivating discipline is more reliable than waiting for motivation.