This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Connor Hanrahan. Find him on Instagram at @hannerhansmh. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Motivation can be hard to find. Every now and again we don’t want to do anything. Turning the TV on sounds like too much work, chores are just a drag, and the thought of doing anything at all makes us want to curl up in the fetal position. It happens to everyone, but the best thing we can do in this situation is persevere and just do whatever it is we need to do. This will not only accomplish the task at hand, it will also help train our brains to conjure motivation more easily the next time we find ourselves in that situation.
Forcing yourself to do something mundane when you don’t want to do it is the hardest part of accomplishing said task. We can easily manifest the energy to do it once, but having the discipline to do it every time we don’t feel like doing it is a whole other beast. However, discipline is the key to manifesting any goal.
Motivation vs Discipline
Your motivation is simply your willingness to do something. When faced with a task you don’t want to do, motivation is tough to manifest but it is easy once you actually begin doing it. Discipline is what makes you do it over and over and over again. For example, cleaning the house is easy. You set out with a goal to clean the house and you do it once, yielding the clean house you sought after. Simple as that.
However, if you would like to keep a perpetually clean house, you must clean the house regularly. This can be tough to do because some days when it is time to clean the house, you will care less about having a clean house than other days. It’ll be harder to summon the motivation to clean it that day. However, you must retain your discipline and clean the house despite your laziness.
Discipline is a key to developing a mastery of any craft as well, especially things that require a lot of practice or recital. These can include, but aren’t limited to: ballet, baseball, golf, computer coding, mathematics, knitting, etc… To become a master at any one of these, you must practice for hundreds or thousands of hours. One cannot maintain a practice regime without discipline.
Real Life
Discipline may be the key to these passions turned careers for some, but they also apply to everyone else on Earth as well. Work ethic is a very underrated form of discipline as well. Showing up to work freakin’ blows sometimes but that is no good excuse for not putting your head down and doing a good job at what it is you’re paid to do. As unpleasurable as it may be, showing discipline at work is a terrific way to get a promotion or raise.
Discipline is a crucial attribute of workplace productivity and competence. Every boss wants to see that their worker is both motivated and disciplined. Of course, you have to be producing quality work as well, but even if you suck at something, you probably won’t be fired if you work hard enough and put your full focus and attention into everything you do.
Discipline is also a key ingredient for a healthy relationship. Not necessarily because you are learning via repercussion, but because you know what is right and what is wrong. These moral parameters are what control your behaviors and jeep you operating within the moral codes associated with a relationship.
For example: you go out with the boys to bars for your buddy Chad’s birthday and a girl starts flirting with you and you tell her, “Hey, I’m sure you’re great, but I’m in a loving relationship and would do anything for my partner.” This is a form of discipline because you used controlled behavior for a long term purpose. A fun positive that comes with this form of discipline is getting to walk away happy knowing you aren’t a scumbag who perpetuates stereotypes.
Disciplining Oneself
This is pretty similar to disciplining a dog for eating your sandwich off of the coffee table. Now, you probably won’t call yourself a “bad boy” but you will probably make a conscious effort to never make that mistake again. This is assumed. However, some people need a quick, self administered kick in the rear to make sure that they don’t repeat their actions.
For example, if I skip the gym one day, I’ll make myself run the next day after going to the gym for my daily workout. Is running good for you? Sure. Do I want to go on a run? Absolutely the hell not. Running is a snoozefest and I am WAY too ADHD to run any longer than 30-45 minutes. This is why I make myself run for an hour. Sure, I feel great after but that doesn’t mean I want to do it. I do my best to avoid this run at all costs. This run is my discipline for effing up my workout schedule.
Disclaimer: This type of behavior when associated with eating can be involved in eating disorders if one’s nutrition is not sufficient to support a run. It can also be unhealthy if they are using it as punishment for eating an appropriate amount of food. “Almond Mom” culture has health related drawbacks.
For more information on eating disorders, click here.
Anywho…
The word ‘discipline’ comes with a negative connotation. It sounds harsh, is used for negative reinforcement, and is generally associated with punishment. This doesn’t mean that your chosen discipline has to be bad for you. This is why I chose to make mine running. You could realistically choose anything to be your discipline.
Another good example that doesn’t involve general health is work shift lengths. If you have a fairly self governed schedule but need to make sure you get your 40 hours each week but only work 7 hours on Monday, work 9 hours on Tuesday to compensate. This extended workday will feel really long and that final hour will remind you why you should’ve worked 8 the day before. You could be home by then, but no, you’re still at the office.
Athletics and Health
Maintaining discipline when participating in competitive environments can be really tough to achieve and requires a short memory. Holding on to past failures can diminish your motivation and hamper your improvement. Failures should only be viewed as learning experiences that improve us mentally for the future. This is a concept commonly referred to as ‘mental fortitude’.
This fortitude is what keeps us from missing a practice session because we are upset about a previous result and “just need a day off”. Taking a day off to recover mentally can be healthy at times but is typically indicative of a lack of commitment to one’s craft, unless it is taken for physical recovery.
The mind only needs rest when passion has been depleted, the body needs at least 8 hours of rest every single day.
While this concept applies to competitive sports, it also applies to general health regimens, like my aforementioned gym schedule. If you go running 3 times per week, you need to make sure that you go running on those particular days, or intervals, without fail or else your brain will acknowledge that it’s alright to skip a day. As you stray further and further from your routine, it becomes easier and easier to abandon it entirely.
Overall, dieting is another area that requires intense amounts of discipline. I would argue that it’s easier to ditch a diet than it is to quit your workout or sports training regimen because it just tastes so damn good. The guilt always hits after, but that taboo double double from In n Out tastes amazing until the final bite.
Addiction
Addiction is the toughest mental battle anybody can ever fight. When you have something you are mentally and emotionally dependent on that you have done so many times that your body expects it daily, it feels damn near impossible to stop. This can be the case for weed, alcohol, vaping, other drugs, fast food, self harm, etc. Everybody has their crux that they need to quit for a better life.
We will use vaping as the example, but these concepts apply to any addiction.
About half the people I know have vaped at some point or currently vape. Some have quit. Most haven’t. Nicotine creates a chemical addiction, the act and feeling of vaping creates an oral fixation, and the dizziness (dome) that comes with it can’t really be replicated by anything else. All of these symptoms combine to make it a nice little hat-trick of separate addictions masquerading as one.
Quitting vaping requires motivation. You have to want to stop vaping in the first place. Understanding why it’s so bad for you is a huge step toward wanting to quit in the first place. Feeling the real life effects it has on your health provides the perfect reasons why quitting is a good idea.
Quitting vaping requires discipline. No matter what, you have to keep vaping off your mind. Your discipline for craving a vape has to be a distraction. Nothing you can replace a vape with is even similar, but you can at least satisfy one of the three smaller addictions you’re fighting. No inhalant is a good idea, but you could eat some watermelon or fruit instead. Eating something will satisfy the oral fixation and the sugar rush you get from the healthy, natural sugars in fruit will replace the feeling of the dome. If this doesn’t work, do a 30 minute run to get some dopamine via runner’s high. Runner’s high is a real buzz runners get from rigorous cardio work. It’s the one thing I’ve seen people successfully use to wean off substances.
Quitting vaping requires fortitude. You have to be able to stick with your plan no matter what. You must be mentally strong enough to remember why you shouldn’t vape with as much passion and intensity that you had the day you decided to quit. You cannot let the craving of a vape now deter you from your desperation to quit two weeks ago.
Motivation is easy to manifest. You simply have to want to do something. Whether it’s for a second or years, motivation can be found numerous times per day. The fortitude and discipline required to achieve long term goals can only be found a few times within a lifetime. The resolve required to abide by your own terms for personal betterment is hard to come by, which is why it’s so crucial to take that resolve and really run with it when it comes up. Quit your bad habits while you still want to. Don’t fall back into the hole. In turn, achieve your goals when you feel ready to. The moment you feel that motivation to really go after something you want, it is your prerogative to have the resolve to implement discipline when you must. The future you will love you for it.
What do you think? Did I miss an aspect of discipline or what it takes to achieve a goal? I tend to use personal cases in these examples and I would love to hear about your story, especially if it required different thought processes than mine did. Let me know in the comments below!
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