We’ve all heard the thought-provoking riddle: “Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg?” While I’m not intellectually savvy enough to answer that question, I may be able to answer a similar one.
During this quarantine I’m hearing quite frequently that people are finding it hard to motivate themselves to work out, eat healthy, and stay the course in their fitness journey. I get it. Seriously, I do. I would consider myself in the same boat and have struggled over the past couple of months to remain committed to what I set out to do with my personal health and fitness.
Let’s face it. This is a hard time. Period. Our way of life has completely changed. Things are different. However, who you are is the same as it was before the quarantine and economic shut-down. If you’re finding yourself struggling, it is not the quarantines fault. Those struggles were already there before but this has just revealed them in an eye-opening way. A house built on sand was always susceptible to crashing before the hurricane hit. The hurricane just expedited the process.
I don’t say that to be harsh. However, to move forward in this process of understanding motivation and discipline, it’s crucial we begin with taking personal responsibility. Blaming others will not help. The buck stops with you and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can begin to change. The sooner you accept the responsibility to overcome hard times and do hard things, the sooner you become the person who can overcome hard times and can do hard things.
So, back to the original point, which comes first: the motivation to begin acting or the discipline to act? The answer is yes. Don’t try to make enemies out of friends. Motivation and discipline are two sides of the same coin.
Many of us understand discipline fairly easy. The disciplined person is the one who doesn’t miss a workout, who doesn’t hit snooze on the alarm clock, who doesn’t get led away by their emotions when they want to go off course. It’s the hard nosed, blue-collar mentality that always shows up. Every day.
However, most don’t have a good understanding of motivation. When we hear the word motivation, we think of the feeling we get from watching a hype video of the football coach’s speech before the game. You know, the speech that fires you up and makes you want to run through a brick wall. What we often neglect and don’t recognize is that true motivation comes from, well, motive.
All we do is derived from personal motive. Why do we go to work? So we can make money and use that money how we ultimately desire. Now we may not think spending our hard earned money on bills is what we desire, and it may not be. Yet we do desire to not have the bank foreclose on our house. As we continue to ask ourselves “why” we do what we do, we eventually get down to the ultimate purpose of our actions and our true motive.
The point I’m driving at is you NEED to know your motive if you want to connect that motive with your actions. For example, you might have a long day where you’re tired and you don’t have the ‘motivation’ to workout. What’s really happening is in the moment you’re allowing your motive and ultimate desire for rest to supersede your motive of staying healthy. However, if you take just a moment to really think about what it is you desire, and recognize that the happiness that will come from staying committed (discipline) to your ultimate desire of health far outweighs the happiness that will come from giving in to your momentary feeling of fatigue.
Once you know your motive and have it connected with your actions, you get to the heart and soul of discipline. Discipline is not something we need for the sake of discipline. If motivations are our compass, then discipline is the sail that catches the wind of our actions and drives us towards our destination. Without a connection to our motives, we are a ship tossed about by the sea. Without discipline, we are a boat stuck in harbor. We must have both.
The practical applications of this are very simple. First, understand your motives behind your actions and what it is you ultimately desire. Then do whatever you can to keep those motives front and center of your daily life so that you can always be reminded of them. There’s a reason why the refrain to “remember” is always brought up in Scripture. We are forgetful people. Don’t deny this. Instead, do everything you can to make war against it.
Finally, when you have your motives in place, set up action items to incorporate that move you towards the fulfillment of those motives. These are your discipline action steps. For example, if you want to workout 5 days a week, find someone you trust (aka - a COACH!!), let them know what time of day you plan to workout and ask them to send you a text 15 min prior to hold you accountable. See these steps as a boundary or protection from your feelings. Feelings are fickle and they derail us often if we give into them. Discipline is what keeps those feelings in check.
A final word on discipline - it’s not easy. If it were, many people would be more successful than they are. However, there is hope in discipline and the future reward that it brings:
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11
Free Help Session
Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1
Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin
