Lately, I have been wavering the line of being motivated and disciplined. My goals need both, but at times, I struggle to maintain such. Currently, I am trying to build a personal brand that will help create the lifestyle I want. I am motivated and disciplined at times, at other times one or the other, and at other times neither. Finding that balance and continuous push is difficult.

Recently, I asked Sam Spurlin of thesimplerlife to write a guest post for TheMinimalistPath. He dove into the development and understanding of motivation and discipline which is something, as stated earlier and in my last post Taking 2 Steps Back for Each Step Forward, I have been struggling with. I decided that his post would be better fit to LifeExcursion as it details said struggles. I hope you all enjoy….

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Motivation vs. Discipline

By: Sam Spurlin

What is more important to a life of simplicity, motivation or discipline? I have seen people come down on both sides of this argument, most notably Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on the motivation side. I, however, would like to take the opposite. I firmly believe that while both motivation and discipline are very important (and neither is much use if you don’t have the other), discipline is more important.

First, let me define my understanding of each word. Motivation is the reasoning behind an action. It’s why you do something. Every goal or action is going to have some kind of motivation behind it. I might decide to wake up and go for a run because I want to lose 10 pounds. Or run a marathon someday. Both of these would be examples of my motivation to go running.

Discipline, on the other hand, is the ability to do something while ignoring the short-term discomfort. Discipline is what allows you to focus on long-term goals and persevere through the hard times. If I am a disciplined person, and I woke up feeling a little sore and it was raining, I would still go for a run anyway.

Motivation usually arrives in a burst of energy and tapers off over time. The better your motivation, the longer it takes for it to start to fade. Most goals that are worth striving for, however, are fairly long-term in nature. In order to accomplish them, you need to keep working toward them for a long time. I think it is unrealistic and impossible to be motivated toward your goal 100% of the time. No matter your motivation, sometimes you just aren’t going to feel like going for that run. Or sticking to that diet plan. Or working on your novel. It’s much easier to stay in bed, eat ice cream, and read a book instead. If you expect yourself to be motivated at all times, I’m afraid you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

This is when discipline steps in to save the day. If you are a disciplined person you aren’t going to worry about these lapses in motivation. You aren’t going to beat yourself up over being unmotivated because you understand that it happens to everybody. Instead, you are going to keep working toward that goal because that is what you know how to do. You have practiced it and built upon previous successes. I would rather have the discipline to look past my momentary lapses in motivation and know that I will not be derailed from my goal by my own weak mind than relying on my motivation to sustain me to the end.

The other reason that I tend to fall on the side of discipline in this argument is that I think discipline can be developed and practiced while motivation cannot. You can find really good reasons to be motivated but I don’t think you can sit down and say, “Today I’m going to practice being motivated.” Motivation, regardless of its potency, comes and goes. However, discipline can be practiced and honed. There are a myriad of ways to develop personal discipline. Establishing and executing routines, and setting/achieving smaller goals, are both great ways to develop your discipline. The beautiful thing is that once your discipline is developed, it can be applied to almost any situation. The discipline that you use to make your bed every morning is the same discipline needed to workout every day, just applied differently.

In the long run, both motivation and discipline are vital for accomplishing anything. Without motivation, you might want to question how badly you want to reach your goal. However, don’t be alarmed by lapses in motivation. They happen to the best of us and as long as you have developed your discipline, you will keep moving in the right direction. On the quest for a simpler life, I prefer to put my time and attention into the skill that can be practiced and developed.

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Thanks to Sam for providing some great insight here. Don’t forget to check him out over at thesimplerlife

David Damron

LifeExcursion