You and I are probably born lazy. Admit it, you don’t like to do the hard stuff any more than me.
However, you and I do like attain our dreams.
To fulfil any dreams and goals, you need figure out how and actually take action to do what it takes. And sometimes, what it takes are usually pretty difficult stuff.
So what will drive you towards your goal?
Motivation?
Motivation simply makes you feel like you want to be successful. It gives a nice ‘pump’ but it can’t sustain you though the journey.
What keeps us going during the bad times, during times when you are ‘just not feeling it’, is discipline and commitment.
Motivation will give you the start that you need, discipline will be responsible to keep you going, and commitment will keep you focused on the path you need to take.
Let’s take the goal of winning a sports tournament as an example.
To win, you will need a good coach, experience, lots of practice, and a little bit of luck. Assuming that you are a rookie, and you already have a championship level coach, what you need to do is to put in lots of practice.
Generally you will feel pretty motivated at the start. You can see the possibility of winning and am excited at the imagery of it.
Then comes the practice and they are really intense. You manage to get through four to five of it, but find yourself exhausted and dreading to go for the next practice. You may find that you don’t seem to be improving, and that winning is maybe not so plausible anymore. This makes you feel even less motivated to attend practice.
This is where discipline and commitment comes in. When the legs are weary, when the heart is unwilling. Discipline is about always packing your bags to get ready for practice. Discipline is about showing up on time to practice. Discipline is about being present even when you don’t feel like it.
Commitment gets you to do what you don’t want to, but need to. Commitment reminds you of why you are doing this and what you will not achieve if you give up. Commitment means giving your very best even if you might fail.
So motivation alone might get you putting in 100% effort for 50 practices, 50% effort for another 25 more, and skipping 25 practices altogether.
Motivation + discipline will get you putting in 100% effort for 50 practices and 50% effort for another 50 more.
Motivation + Discipline + Commitment will get you putting in 100% effort for all 100 practices.
Which one gives you a better chance of winning?
Now, discipline and commitment still feels freaking difficult and the question then is, how do you stay disciplined and committed? Well it is supposed to be difficult. However, there’s a hack to it. An easier way to being disciplined and committed towards a goal.
But that’s for another day.
My thoughts 