Fueling the Fire Within: Secrets to Sustainable Motivation
Discipline without motivation leads to burnout.
I know for myself, I can be incredibly disciplined. As I reflect on my own life, there are desires I have had that I achieved with the brute-force of discipline. Then, there are those desires that continue to elude me. When I commit to them, the discipline required leads me to feelings of burnout and I fall off the bandwagon.
Can you relate? What gives?
In this article you will learn:
How discipline and motivation share purpose from two different perspectives.
How missing the key difference between discipline and motivation quickly depletes drive.
How the internal conflict created by incompatible desires drains motivation.
How to create a discipline around maximizing motivation for desires that are a priority.
Motivation and Discipline: Same Goal, Different Perspective
A few years ago, I reached a point where I had used discipline to achieve the low-hanging fruit in my life.
The remaining desires were those I'd always held but never achieved. At first, I thought I simply lost my knack for discipline. But then, I realized that wasn't the issue.
Discipline wasn't enough.
I was burned out because I was disciplined.
Do you feel the same way sometimes? Like, what's wrong with me? I'm successful in other areas of my life, but I can't seem to make this happen?
When I recognized desires that were low-hanging fruit were low-hanging because I was also motivated, I had an epiphany:
Discipline is how the mind orients itself toward behaviors that bring us closer to our desires. Motivation is how the heart orients itself toward behaviors that bring us closer to our desires.
Discipline and motivation are expressions of the same focus from two different perspectives.
And because we're human, our greatest capacities emerge when we integrate—essentially alchemize—the discipline of our mind with the motivation of our heart.
This unlocks a deeper secret:
Yes, we can achieve great things through discipline, but underestimate the influence of motivation at the risk of becoming burned out.
Discipline is like putting up the sail, and motivation is the wind in the sail.
If you're not motivated, you have to row yourself forward with great effort. You can rely on discipline in short sprints while you wait for the wind of motivation to pick up again. But long term? You burnout. We can't rely solely on motivation, nor can we rely solely on discipline. We need both.
So, what do we do when we find ourselves in the middle of the ocean, burned out, and no promised-land of our desires in sight?
Is there a way we can build motivation at will?
The Key Difference Between Discipline and Motivation
Here's the end-goal to achieving your desires: line up with what has to be done to achieve it.
It really is that simple, but the devil is in the details. Apostles of the “be disciplined” movement are not wrong when they talk about its importance. Discipline is the way you do what needs to be done, even when you don't feel like it.
But now we know this isn't the full picture.
The difference between discipline and motivation fills in the missing piece. Discipline is a mental exercise and motivation is an exercise of the heart. This key difference points to a deeper wisdom still.
Discipline is active, aggressive, “go-get-it-done energy.”
Motivation is passive, receptive, “flow-with-it-as-it-comes energy.”
Given the emphasis on discipline, often at the expense of motivation, as commonly praised—"Motivation is fleeting, discipline is reliable"—is it surprising that we overlook motivation's value?
And let's be clear. Those who are disciplined are motivated to be so! And spreading their message of discipline comes with strong motivations, does it not?
We fail to recognize the key difference between discipline and motivation. Without this understanding, the deeper wisdom remains locked away.
The great news is that once we see the key we can unlock the wisdom. Here's how:
We have to think about motivation for what it is. It's a drive that flows toward us — through the soul and out into the world, if you really want to wade deep into it. It isn't something we can actively chase and pursue. It's something we receive and put to good use.
So, it's important to be disciplined. This invokes the mental piece of the puzzle needed to achieve our desires.
It is also important to be motivated. This invokes the passion piece of the puzzle.
I bet I know what you're thinking, “This doesn't solve my motivation problem! Are you saying that if I don't have motivation, I'm SOL—that my well of motivation has dried up and I'm screwed?”
No, motivation is always flowing to you. Allow me to help (while at the same time repairing my relationship with the discipline-only crowd, this take might be upsetting to):
The secret to sustainable motivation is channeling it with discipline.
Directing motivation towards goals that conflict with one another stagnates progress. While outwardly this looks like a lack of discipline, it's actually due to motivation being misdirected. It stems from internal conflict.
Inner conflict burns through your incoming supply of motivation. I’ll explain how next.
Creating a discipline around where motivation goes reserves it for those goals where discipline is not enough.
Internal Conflict is a Waste of Motivation Increasing Reliance on Discipline
We've all had desires that conflicted with one another:
We aim for health and fitness but succumb to junk food and lazy days.
We seek financial freedom, yet impulsive buys derail our ambitions.
We strive to educational and career heights, but comfort and procrastination hold us down.
We desire personal growth and new skills, but distractions interrupt progress.
We yearn for meaningful connections, yet shallow social interactions and screen time rob us of resonating deeply.
Stuck in these patterns, we are led to believe that we lack discipline.
“We eat junk food, we buy impulsively, we procrastinate, we are distracted, we feel isolated because we are not disciplined.” That's the message we receive and tell ourselves again and again and again, each time we fail.
Finally, when our self-confidence is beat, we resign to the belief that we're not disciplined, giving in to the short-term desires at the expense of long-term desires.
This is far from a comfortable resolution! The long-term desires remain and come back from time to time to see if we're ready to finally achieve them.
We cannot serve two masters. Motivation that ignites two conflicting desires within creates internal conflict.
How do you resolve that inner conflict?
You resolve it by persistently and intentionally identifying with the long-term goal instead of the short-term conflicting goal. I'll show you how, next.
Learning to remove inner conflict, clears motivation's path to the desires that drive you to who you want to be. This is the discipline that sustains motivation.
It builds motivation at will.
Getting Disciplined About Motivation Allocation
We are most sensitive to inner conflicts that come from short-term desires leading to long-term consequences that move us away from achieving a long-term desire.
Inner conflict is an anxious feeling. The very moment we feel conflicted is the moment we become aware of our fraying motivations.
It's an anxious feeling because our inner self is pointing out that we have a decision to make:
Do we motivate the decision that leads to fulfilling our short-term desire?
Or, do we motivate the decision that leads to fulfilling our long-term desire?
Many of us register that anxiety and in an effort to restore inner peace we choose to fulfill the short-term desire. This does make us feel good in the short-term, but the long-term consequences move us away from our long-term desire.
We appear to be undisciplined with our long-term desire, but the contamination comes from being undisciplined about where we allocate our motivation.
If we, in that moment, register that anxious feeling and see it for what it is, we channel our motivation intentionally, rather than pitting our short-term self against our long-term self.
Look at in this way: When we face a decision between two conflicting desires, our inner self signals a warning.
It's a moment of choice: follow short-term pleasure or commit to long-term goals.
Our inner self says: “Hang on there, I can't motivate you to do what you're about to do and get everything you say you want. I've identified an inner conflict and I need to know where to push your motivation. Please tell me how to proceed.”
That moment decides your fate. Will you achieve your long-term goal? Or will you fulfill your short-term desire?
The real test of discipline is not doing what must be done even if you don't feel like it.
It's allocating incoming motivation to drive you to who you want to be.
If you can see the nuance of this distinction, the next time you notice the conflict within, you will see the anxiety for what it is: not FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) on your short-term pleasure, but FOMO on the long-term goal.
The anxiety is a signal that you have to make a choice where to put your motivation. Choices have consequences, and your inner self simply wants to know, who are we again?
Now, you can get around the anxiety by choosing to motivate the short-term desire. That fixes the inner conflict, but it sets up an addiction. Every time the anxiety comes the addictive behavior follows and one day you wake up and you don't recognize yourself.
See the anxiety for what it is: a chance to resolve the inner conflict by choosing a better future. It is true, you may have to repeatedly affirm that choice, again and again. The moment of anxiety will come again.
But the anxious moment comes if you put your motivation behind the short-term goal, just as it does if you put it behind the long-term goal.
The difference is when we put it behind the long-term goal, we leave our addictions and we build confidence in our aspirations.
Overtime this creates a new pattern of behavior. We learn the best way to solve the anxiety of a decision moment is aspiring to our greatness.
Don't be a Hero.
Resolving inner conflict requires a commitment to change.
Trying to change too much too fast is going to over-spend motivation and require you to dip into a heavy-discipline approach. Burnout here we come.
The good news is that no matter how many inner conflicts you identify, by realizing that every conflict is essentially the same—dressed up differently—building the discipline to allocate motivation in one conflict builds the resolve to do it in other conflicts.
In the meantime, how do we make sure we take a sustainable approach?
Priorities.
A bit ago, I wrote a piece exploring the important part setting priorities plays in focusing our time and energy around the change we seek. You can give it a read, but to summarize the message:
It's never good to be in denial about a situation, it's better to accept the reality of it. If you can't accept the reality of it, then consider changing it. If you can't change it, then again, it's better to accept the reality than slip into denial.
This message is perfectly applicable here:
Getting out of the denial state is seeing inner conflict for what it is: a query from your inner self seeking clarity.
Motivating behavior toward long-term goals is accepting the reality of the situation and changing it.
Not being a hero about it is recognizing that change can be challenging and prioritizing what changes come first protects you from burnout, returning to negative self-talk, and addiction to short-term desires at the expense of long-term aspirations.
Be compassionate with yourself as you learn to align your motivations with long-term goals. See the real battle as building the discipline to instruct your inner self to push your allotment of motivation to drive long-term goals, rather than seeing it as doing the thing you don't want to do.
Start by resolving the most important inner conflict and go from there.
No need to rush it, you have the secret to sustainable motivation. It won't be long now.
Reflection
Who wants to spend a life doing something they don't want to do to get where they want to go?
How many people DO achieve their long-term goals just to revert back to old habits because, “Finally, I can let loose.”
They never practiced the discipline of allocating motivation. They never learned the secret. They may have been disciplined about doing what they don't want to do, but they weren't disciplined about changing who they are.
In your own words, what is the secret to sustainable motivation?
Here are some ideas for you to incorporate in your definition:
What does it mean to intentionally allocate motivation?
How does transforming how you see yourself—identity—play into it?
How does prioritization and focus help?
What does adaptive resilience mean to you, and how might you apply this to developing sustainable motivation?
Where might a reflective practice help you to maintain a discipline of sustainable motivation?