Motivation, discipline and habits

Raw thoughts on hunger, motivation, discipline and habits

Hunger is important, very important. Hunger as in the hunger to learn new things. A different word for hunger to learn is curiosity. With a strong sense of curiosity, it is much easier to climb a steep mountain.

Using this energy, the hunger to learn more, you can do great things. You will feel motivation to take another step and this process will be pleasant. Motivation does come with a downside, it is temporary and not always there for you when you need to get out of bed in the morning. What happens if there is no motivation to move forward?

Discipline

What you will need when there is no motivation to move forward is discipline.

Discipline is all about moving forward will a decision that has already been made – Jakob Johannesson, 2022

When you have motivation, it is important to realize that hunger will not always be that strong and will not always pull you forward. Sometimes there is no one there to pull you forward and when that happens it is important that you stick to a decision that you have already made.

Let’s take an example: You have heard about running, it is good for you, all the ancestors did it all the time and it keeps the blood flowing through our veins. You have made up your mind, it is time to get started with running. Everything is going great, the first day went really good and life is great, motivation for getting out there again is really high. Then something happens, the next day the vibe is not there at all.

You do not want to leave the bed, it is sooooo cozy. In this scenario you will need one thing and that is your discipline. You have to get out of the bed and trust that the decision that you have made earlier about running everyday is a great one.

Why does the system work like this? The reason for that is the brain, it is highly limited in capacity and can’t make great decisions all the time. Therefore you need to gather all the energy you can, make a high quality decision about your health and stick to it no matter what happens.

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There is great news! After a week or so, the amount of discipline required to push yourself out of bed will be less. Why? Because you have managed to build what is a growing ground for great habits.

Habits

flowchart LR
  A[Curiosity] --> B[Motivation]
  B --> C[Discipline]
  C --> D[Habits]

The more consistency you keep when doing your training, the easier it will become to do. After 30 or so sessions, you can do your training without even thinking about it, you just do it!