Rely on discipline

KIMZO

Mar 13, 2023 • 6 min read

Hello friends

This week was an interesting week for me. I have learned so many new things in different areas and I feel absolutely happy about that, because it is knowledge that I can apply for my projects, including my blog. On top of that, I had an amazing discussion with some friends about different areas in life and purpose, and to top that off again, I got some amazing feedback for my blog that I will be applying over time. Thank you so much for that!

Today we will be talking about a trap that many people fall into: The trap of feeling motivated.

Have you ever heard of statements like "motivate yourself" or "you need motivation"? For a long time, I believed those statements, too. But recently I got interested in a few works of David Goggins, and his point of view on motivation has inspired me.

We give motivation too much value. We rely on it, even tho it is hardly ever here. The only thing we should trust is something that is there for us, when we need it. And Motivation isn't.

There is a better tool for achieving our goals. And we need to learn to cultivate it.

Your most reliable weapon

I have a problem with procrastination. From time to time, I want to start doing something, and then I avoid the task at hand by either doing "something more important" or wasting time until there is no time left at all for the thing that I wanted to do. This is especially true when I want to produce music: I love the process, but I can hardly ever bring myself to start.

Is this because I am lazy? Is this because I have a fear of failing? Is this because I am not "meant to produce music"?

Those are thoughts that were going through my mind. And honestly, I cannot truly say which one of those (or if any at all) are true.

While reflecting on myself, I realized that I am waiting for some magic feeling that will motivate me.

Or, to say it differently: I'm waiting for motivation to give me the kick in the ass I need.

By waiting for motivation, I am waiting for something that I cannot control.

Motivation feels good, but won't bring you to your goals. For that, you need something that you can rely on.

Motivation isn't reliable. Habits and discipline are.

And this lack of discipline is something that many of us are struggling with.

Sometimes we are lazy. We can't bring ourselves to do something. This doesn't mean that we don't want to achieve our goals or that we don't want to become great. It just means that we aren't yet smart enough to outsmart ourselves.

We can learn to trick our brain into liking work.

Because if we think about it from an evolutionary standpoint: Our brain is made to keep us alive. And it does that by keeping our energy to ourselves and saving as much energy as possible. That's why everything that feels exhausting isn't "worth it" for your brain.

To give you an example of that: That's why people can struggle so much with starting to do sports.

On the other side, our brain loves pleasure. It goes crazy for dopamine. If you ever asked yourself why it is so easy to binge-watch a 4-hour Netflix show and so hard to do a 15-minute-long homework task: Your brain wants to "keep you alive" by focusing on dopamine and saving resources. Your "instincts" are trying to save energy.

(btw. Keep in mind that this example above is simplified, so that it is easier for you to understand my point. I can already see all neuroscientist searching for my location.)

So our brain hates work, but we have goals we want to achieve. And our brain is sadly insanely good at giving us excuses to not do the things that are exhausting.

But luckily enough, we can learn to be insanely good at tricking our brain into liking something.

The book "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg teaches you how to build habits over time. And from this book I am going to take an idea and reform it in a way, that we can use it here to do the things we are procrastinating on.

It's a simple question you can ask yourself: What is the tiniest amount of effort you can put in, to put yourself a tiny amount in the right direction?

No joke. If you can't get yourself to do sports, only commit to 2 push-ups. If you can't get yourself to write something, only start writing one sentence. Do the smallest contribution that you can do.

After you have done that, you can see for yourself if you are able to do more: You already did two push-ups, why not do more. You are already training. If you did write this one sentence, you are already writing. You got the ball rolling.

And if you can only do the minimum, that's fine as well. Seriously. If you only did the 2 push-ups, don't be like "OMG, that's nothing". You committed to doing it. You got the repetition in. Good job.

Then celebrated after you have done the task that was hard to do. You can do this by telling yourself "Good job", by making some kind of move like putting your fist in the air or whatever feels good for you. The most important part is: After every action that took effort, celebrate.

With that, you trick your brain into liking to do things. You can start small and then build your way up. Just write one sentence --> Just write the intro --> Just write the first page and so on.

And with this system, you have a strategy to trick your brain. Good luck.

My challenge for you

In this week's challenge, I want you to focus on a task that is important to you and that you may have been putting away for a while. I don't care if it's something like doing the dishes or something like running a marathon. I want you to commit to one goal of your liking that you choose for yourself.

Then I want you to do the tiniest amount of contribution to it. Only focus on that.

After you did that, you can see if you can bring yourself to do more. If you can, great, if not, that's fine as well. You already made a tiny amount of progress.

After you did the amount of work that you could commit yourself to do, celebrate.

Do that 5 times this week.

Do you feel committed to this challenge? If you want someone to hold yourself accountable, reach out to me via Mail (kimzo.blog@gmail.com) and write "I commit to the challenge Rely on discipline"

Last week's Challenge

Last week's challenge was about Producing vs. Consuming. I already am someone who produces content in the form of this blog, but I realized during this challenge that I sometimes have a resistance to producing music. Therefore, I more often than not procrastinated on that. I waited for motivation to kick in. As I realized that, I knew I had to change that. And with that, I found the topic for today's blog post.

How was the challenge for you? Let me know via Mail or IG.

My Song of the week

This is a new song from a German artist called CRO and I love it.