Motivation, Drive, Discipline

motivation

The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior. (WordNet)

drive

The trait of being highly motivated. (WordNet)

discipline

A system of rules of conduct or method of practice. (WordNet)

Motivation is the prime mover for people to work towards their goals, for without motivation, there is literally no reason for the person to be doing whatever he/she ought to be doing. Everyone should have some form of motivation to get things done if they want to get ahead in life, or as I would like to call it, to improve upon what they are currently experiencing in life.

Drive is the kind of can-do spirit we often find in those we look up to as leaders and luminaries. It is the trait that manifests itself as the relentless pursuit towards excellence, the hyper-enthusiasm that surrounds the particular person that many are aware of but know that they cannot emulate for one reason or another.

The two traits of motivation and drive are what most people will tend to associate with the generic notion of a ``successful'' person in life (and society), but to claim that that is all that is needed, is a serious lie.

You see, motivation and drive aren't things that are around forever. There are days where one will feel unmotivated (or worse still, de-motivated, the kind of motivation-killing often ascribed to external influences), and if all that one runs on is mere motivation, productivity under its many guises will fall drastically. Leaders have their ``off'' days, and it's usually not a concern because these people don't always have to be making decisions all the time. So their ``off'' days can be covered up a little.

For those of us who are a little more minion-like (rank-and-file as they call it in a more politically correct way), we cannot afford this kind of ``off'' day. In fact, there may even be cases where we aren't even motivated with what we are doing at all, because the going is hard, is monotonous or is otherwise torturous, but we like the end result (being strong, having money), we know we have to keep chugging along despite the lack of motivation.

That is humankind's superpower: discipline.

Discipline is what gives you your steady gains in life, it's what keeps you going when motivation decides to take it easy in Tahiti. And the best part is, discipline can be cultivated, unlike motivation and drive.

Yet few people actually realise that simple fact. And that's what makes me sad/angry some times.

I don't like baseball, but I like a metaphor that is often associated with them. In a game of baseball, there are many innings, and the idea is to score as many runs through the bases as possible for each inning. There are many strategies to do that, but the two most extreme ones are going by singles and going by home runs. In a home run, the batter thwacks the ball waaaaay out and tries to run through all the bases at once, thus scoring a run on a single bat. It's high risk, but high return---similar to that of being driven. But the other strategy is to hit singles---have the bases loaded, with each runner advancing one base at a time per bat. It's lower risk, but it yields a steady stream of successes---but it requires discipline. You can keep going, but you won't get spectacular results on the get go.

Life's like this most of the time; small moments of overwhelming triumph with large amounts of just regular survival/living stuff. You need to grind through some stuff in life; it's inevitable. Don't rely on motivation for that, instead, rely on discipline. It keeps the output going while you are still feeling down, thereby reducing the negative impact from your lack of motivation. Can't wake up on time? Develop the discipline to---when your alarm clock rings, sit up right immediately and get off the bed. Do it till it becomes systematic. Now if you want an out, find a new motivation and build a new discipline while abandoning the old system.

If you want to be an innovator, then you will need to learn how to balance these two in a different way. Unfortunately, I have no words of advice for that for now---you're on your own. The proper balance between motivation and discipline is in itself a secret superpower that only the best in the world have perfected.

To paraphrase,

Discipline is what keeps you doing the thing after you've lost your motivation.