So I don’t have my stuff together. I would not describe myself as a disciplined person (whether or not this is true). But I’ve been grinding on this idea of discipline over motivation for about a week so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts. And hopefully further down my journey I will be able to look at this post and laugh about how silly I was.
The beginning
I have always been a somewhat flighty person. Can one be flighty and responsible at the same time? The answer, in my case, is yes, absolutely. I have always found it difficult to concentrate and focus my energies on one thing. Starting at a young age, I skipped from interest to interest. I mean, I crocheted, knit, tatted, sewed, cross stitched, scrap booked, stamped, and those are just the “craft” hobbies. I cycled through these things whenever I was bored. Moving onto the next things after a few days or weeks. Which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. Knitting one sock is not useful, socks come in pairs, unless you are me.
The same thing happened when I started writing. I’d do it for a month, NaNoWriMo (see my writing timeline) and then I’d do a few things, but basically nothing until the next November. So for a couple of years it felt a little like I was spinning my wheels, getting nothing accomplished. Which, while not strictly true, was a little true. So last year was the year of learning to do the daily work. And sometime near the end of the year I read a book that changed everything, Gretchen Rubin’s “The Four Tendencies“. It shifted pretty how I thought about motivating myself and by changing a couple of things I was able to finish my novel’s first draft.
Fast-forward
I wish I could say that my life changed that day and that everything was peachy, but I can’t. I believe pretty strongly that doing hard things builds character and grit and those are essential ingredients in getting anything significant done. That being said, I’m not going to complain about how hard it can be to stay focused and motivated, but I also don’t want you all to think it is all sunshine and rainbows.
That brings me back to discipline. I motivate myself to write in a number of unique and interesting ways. They work, for me, I like motivating myself. But everything I know about sustaining something long term always comes down to discipline and not motivation. I know how to do the daily work, now I’m trying to figure out how to create the discipline and habits so it doesn’t feel so hard to actually do the work.
In part 2 I’ll discuss how I changed my mindset and started doing the daily work.
