I took a yoga picture for Instagram yesterday and wrote this caption with it.
"You can’t wait for motivation to come and save you. You have to do things for yourself. Aquire discipline. If you want something, work for it. Create a system that works for you. Make to-do lists. Put your phone down. Turn the negative thoughts off. Tell yourself that you’re going to get this done. Then do it. That’s the only way that things will start to happen for you. You have to put the work in and the rewards will follow. But none of it will happen by relying solely on motivation. Motivation isn’t always going to be here, but discipline and passion will be. You have to want it, show up, work for it, and believe that it will happen each day. And in time, it will."
Today I'm feeling a bit tired. I'm usually really great at getting enough sleep, but the past two nights I've been slacking a pretty impressive amount. This is my first Saturday home in months, I believe. Usually Darrin and I are out and about doing something and Saturday's are our day for that. Today it didn't happen though (even though I tried to make it happen!) so I had the day to do whatever I wanted.
I was up early as usual. I can never sleep in, which I'm almost always grateful for. Three cheers for a good sleep schedule! I got up and had a leisurely first few hours of the day. I'm a bit tired, it's snowing, and I was just not feeling the motivation to do any work.
But I did work. And I'm so glad.
Over the past year or so I've really been working on creating discipline in my life when it comes to my goals and dreams. Doing this has helped me learn one thing: motivation is not necessarily a good thing. But at the same time, it's a great thing.
Let's get a bit more in depth with what I'm trying to say.
I come across people all the time who make comments about how they don't have the motivation to do this or that. Usually the topic comes up when discussing working out or being active. I can relate the topic to many other aspects in my life, too.
If I only worked out when I was feeling motivated then I would probably work out like once a week. There aren't many mornings when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m. where I jump up out of my warm bed into the cold, dark winter morning and think to myself how excited I am to kill my muscles for an hour. But with that being said, I do it and I love it. I really, really do. There are days though where I'm not really feeling it. Yet, I still show up and every single time I am grateful for making that choice.
The reason that I am able to do this for myself is because I genuinely want to workout. I want to feel great, get stronger, and move my body to start off the day. I have become disciplined in doing so. I know that I need to be consistent to see results, so I have it set in my mind that I will be consistent.
It's really that simple.
Consistent discipline in areas of your life that you want to improve is key.
If you want something bad enough you can't wait for the motivation train to make its random stops at your house. You have to be the conductor of the discipline train and have a schedule, plan, and passion for being the conductor. You can drive the discipline train right to your visualized destination at lot easier than you can rely on the random motivation train to get you to where you ultimately want to be.
Much love, stay disciplined!