Discipline vs. Motivation

The topic of discipline versus motivation comes up a lot when it comes to passion or purpose. Lately, I’ve been thinking about it a lot as I’ve gotten back to going to the gym and especially about how I’ve gotten back to my art. Both of which requiring motivation and discipline. Both of which are hard for me to be consistent with. it’s a topic that comes up in a lot of spaces, lately I’ve seen it online in various social media discussions. People on socials working and utilizing their online spaces and platforms for inspiration, pushing peers and doomscrollers to flipping their perspective to power and purpose. They show it in consistency with their posting and platform, their ability to beat an art challenge, or gym challenge, or financial planning challenge; something that twists the norm for them and challenges their usual routine. I think it’s incredible, and the fact that those resources are available to look at and be inspired by are great. Sometimes, it doesn’t do that for me though.

I saw a TikTok recently that discussed it, “discipline”. A young woman said something along the lines of it’s raining out and it’s cold and it’s 6am, but I’m still going for a walk, “it’s not motivation you’re just lazy”. Which is a really aggressive simplified way to look at things. I think both conversations of motivation and discipline bring up the topic of privilege. Privilege in affording time, having access, resources for the gym or art supplies, in mental health that helps build discipline or self-belief. Access to a safe neighborhood or a gym they can afford. Privilege in time away from a job or family to give way to art or the gym or hobbies. One could argue that motivation and discipline help breath life into self belief and push it further, but that just brings me to the question of what comes first; the chicken or the egg, self belief or discipline and motivation? How do you start one without the other? How do you build it? What happens when the feeling comes in and you’d rather just not?

I think I was slightly triggered by the post that the young woman shared, in their brief one off video. Many of the comments seemed to feel the same as me, frustration at a conventially attractive young woman already slim in what appeared to be a nice safe neighborhood, bragging on her ability to take care of herself, or the time and access she has to do so. In my case, I think I was triggered by it because it has been hard to be consistent in the time I have been given, it has been hard to have discipline in posting or making art in going to the gym, and in all of the hobbies I love. It’s been hard to have the motivation for it when I’ve felt defeated recently. Job applications go unanswered or denied, my part time job is slow, and sometimes it’s just easier to relax into the couch and dream of what will be when I get farther away from this space of not having the discipline or motivation to push myself there—not yet at least, not right now. 

It’s not to say I dont have the privilege either; of time, of support, of skill and ability. I have a lot of those things, especially now with work being slow, but there are other things taking root in my mind, taking up space and motivation. I think of the question, do I have to be doing something to be doing something worthy? Does my time have to contribute to something worthy and out of this world down the line? Do I have to be building towards something all the time? Here comes the existential; because the world is going through a lot right now. There’s war, there’s injustice, there are children being separated from families right here in the Bay Area because of Ice and the political powers that be right now, the environment is getting to it’s boiling point of no coming back it seems, it’s more and more expensive every single day, companies post job ads and don’t care to respond for weeks on end if at all—can you tell I’m bitter?….And I have to make things? I have to build towards something, I have to animate and make art and take photos and be with friends and family and somehow someway take care of myself and any and all adult things that also need my energy. All at the same time? For what? I came to these same thoughts back in 2020, when we were all at home and there wasn’t much to do or go and be. We had to watch injustices, and see so many people die because of arrogance and political idiocy, and we still had to pay rent and hold down the fort for societies return. Getting back to the topic at hand; I think the topic of motivation and discipline is an important one. I think they exist at the same time, and are constantly influencing one another. I also think that it’s a conversation that exists as a part of a bigger one, that has many cogs and intersections, just like anything else.

What motivates you? How do you build discipline and keep it? Where and how do you grant yourself grace? Because usually I know, and even now I’m forgetting that I am animating, and I have projects in mine that I’m working on and building towards; but it’s in stillness, in the Sunday Scary’s where I reconsider what I’m doing, where I wonder if it’s laziness after all. But still, I do have many apples despite all the lemons, and I do have a full world of things before me, it’s hard to not get bogged down by uncertainty and what if’s. There still is a lot of room for hope of what can be in those moments too. I do want to achieve more discipline when it comes to creating, and the gym, and life in general. I do want to allow my motivations to soak into me and project me forward. I hope to get there soon, I also hope to not beat myself up in how long that takes either.