Clothes piled everywhere, my desk polluted with notebooks and other school supplies, I sit on my bed after just coming home from work. I scroll through social media, something I do everyday to either decompress after work, school or both. Mindlessly scrolling, I zone out and think about everything I need to do within the time I have then and when I should go to bed. Instead of acting on it, I continue to lay in bed as the time passes, simply because I did not have the motivation to.
Eventually, I force myself to get up and decide to actually act on my responsibilities. However, now it is much later into the night and I will get a reduced amount of sleep. In all reality, had I not waited I would have had everything I needed done and gotten the amount of sleep for me to feel well rested the next day. All because I waited for motivation, which did not prevail. So, I had to act on discipline.
Motivation alone is not enough to fuel the drive to complete something—whatever that may be. An article by PsychologyToday found that motivation is like a conversation between two people with opposing viewpoints. One side recognizes what needs to be done, while the other is stopping them from doing it. For me, it’s the idea of wanting to get something done, maybe even knowing the consequences of leaving said task uncompleted—although still not executing it as I didn’t feel like it.
A study by the American Psychological Association found the average person spends three to five hours daily resisting their desires. In other words, motivation is a feeling, a reason why something is wanting to be achieved, not the action; which is why it’s not enough alone, as a desire or feeling can be extremely weak. This lack of motivation is a fallacy that consumes me on the daily. Assignments turned in late, responsibilities left untouched, I felt like I was in a constant state of downfall—except there was no rock bottom.
Discipline on the other hand, is the ability to get something done whether or not you have the motivation to complete it. Discipline outweighs motivation in significance in various ways. An article by SpeakerAgency says each time discipline is chosen over motivation, the brain reinforces neural connections which makes future disciplined choices natural.
Putting it into perspective, I realized the significance of discipline late into my junior year. Once I got a job, work and school became hard to balance together as I heavily relied on motivation to get my responsibilities done. With discipline, I am getting all of my responsibilities done, which gives me a sense of accomplishment as I am able to balance out a job, school and my social life, such as getting assignments done on time, doing hours worth of prep at work, etc. The sense of accomplishment pushes me to keep going—it gives me the motivation I need.
To be fair, discipline is better than motivation, but discipline works better with motivation. Discipline should be the backbone, so whether or not motivation is present, again, the task can still get completed. Small acts of discipline can greatly improve productivity, such as getting an assignment done as soon as possible rather than later, whether feeling motivated to do it or not. Homework, dreadful chores, etc—discipline can be applied to all of these when completing them. Small applications of self-discipline helps in more ways than one. Implementing discipline is one of the best things I implemented into my life and is something I would recommend for everyone.
