You must have faced a situation where, you started a task, a project, or a new venture extremely motivated. The driving force is so overpowering that you feel you are going to create a masterpiece. You lay out all plans, tell all your friends about this new venture, gather all the necessary material required for the venture, and start.
The beginning is amazing. Everything goes according to your plan. You enjoy what you are doing. Help pours in from all directions. People appreciate what you are doing. Everything is going smoothly.
And then, suddenly, without any prior notice or any kind of foreboding, you hit a roadblock.
Something or the other does not work out according to your plan. You see unforeseen setbacks which overwhelm your capacity to fight back and you lose all motivation to complete your task.
And that’s the end of an incomplete masterpiece. One which couldn’t see the light of the world. One which was abandoned without being fully realised. Something great that could never see the dawn of light and never reached the masses it was meant for. This is a fairly common occurrence in those who follow creative pursuits-artists, filmmakers, bookwriters, and so on. Especially, the amateurs and the beginners. But so does it happen with people beginning a new project in the workplace or people preparing for exams. It happens once to every individual. So what happened really? The most common answer will be: I lost my motivation to do it.
And how did it come to this? You had it all worked out in the beginning, but something came in the way and you just stopped working for it.
When we dream, we rarely take into account the roadblocks that we are going to face. And most certainly, even if we prepare ourselves, there is always going to be something uncertain, something totally unknown, that is going to come and wreck our dreams to smithereens. This is a part of the resistance.
There is no easy solution or ultimate cure to remove this resistance. But there is a habit that will help you keep on track till you reach the end of the line. The end might be different from what you had envisioned. It could be better or may differ from your expectations. You may or may not like what you get in the end but it will make sure that you reach there. That habit is the habit of discipline.
Each man and woman have different capacities for hard work. This intrinsic capacity, the potential energy of each individual is made up of two components: discipline and motivation. Even if one component is higher in the beginning, the other will slowly but certainly follow up and become significant eventually.
You have low motivation to start but you know how hard you have to work and you still do it anyway, you will eventually come to fall in love with your work. You have an extreme desire to do something but you don’t know how and what to do, things will start falling into place once you start working on it and you will develop a routine for it yourself after a certain period of time.
Motivation and inspiration-these devices are just like the spark plug. Their work is to provide the required ignition to make the engine run. What really keeps the car moving is the fuel. And that fuel is discipline. If the fuel is empty, no amount of ignition is going to move the car. Many books talk about cultivating the habit of discipline, becoming focused, and increasing this potential energy within you but we will not spend any further time discussing that. What I will say is this-Discipline is like a sapling. It grows with you. It isn’t something you are born with. It is a plant that requires continuous nurturing. Its only enemy is complacency. Once you get complacent, your discipline dies, and then you have to start all over again, watering it slowly from the start once again. That is why it is so much harder to return to an incomplete project. You get used to discipline with time. It is a process that moulds you and shapes you into a different person. A better person. And once you are accustomed to it, you will feel it is natural to follow your routine. It becomes your shadow. Once you’ve attained this stage-the culmination of discipline and perseverance, i.e. “The Zone’-it is hard for external forces and resistances to throw you off track.
But no matter how disciplined you are, you will face pitfalls on the way. There will be forces strong enough to break your momentum and slow you down if not completely stop you in your tracks. This is inevitable.
This is where you just take a short break and reacquire motivation. To rekindle the spark that is missing in your life.
Motivation is all around you. And it might come to you in the most unexpected of circumstances. You might not find it when you are looking for it, but it will definitely find you some time or the other. You will capture it in little things and events when the things that occur will make sense to you and only you. But rather than waiting for motivation to find you, go seek your motivation yourself. Taking a walk outside, watching inspirational videos, reading books, and listening to stories of those who have trodden a similar path to you, will help you find your way. You will find your motivation for certain.
Do not waste too much time searching for motivation or over-motivating yourself. There are potential dangers that lurk when you just keep getting motivated and don’t do any work. Your ego convinces you that you are a great person and could corrupt you into thinking that you can do whatever you want and whenever you want thus making you override the practicalities of life.
Our lives are a series of mountains and valleys and we are a ball travelling through it. When we are going downhill, indeed our speed is up but when we reach rock bottom and start to climb up, that is when the extra motivation comes in to help us to climb up the pitfalls. It is just a series of highs and lows until we finally make it. All of us will eventually make it, but alas many give up before realising the meaning of this journey. Motivation will help you climb the toughest of mountains but discipline will keep you walking for long distances. Keep walking till you find what you want in your life.
