Why Discipline Is More Important Than Motivation
Motivation V. Disipline
Motivation- the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
Disipline-the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience
Now that you know the text book definition of each term, which do you think is more important? Both terms can be beneficial when achieving goals, but one can bring you much further.
Aytekin Tank covers "Why disipline is more important than motivation" in the article I have chosen this week. Take a look below at the highlights and as always the full article is linked below!
Fable
As the summer sun blazed overhead, a family of ants were busy hauling corn to their nest. The weather was mild enough now, but they knew that the long, desolate winter would be here soon.
Nearby, a grasshopper lounged in the shade, idly plucking at his fiddle while he watched the ants toil. Their work looked tedious and difficult, and he clucked disapprovingly.
“Why are you working so hard?” he called out to the ants. “Come relax with me instead!”
“We’re storing up food for the winter,” an ant replied, his voice strained under his heavy load of corn. “And we’d advise you to do the same.”
“Winter is ages away,” the grasshopper scoffed. “I’d much rather enjoy this lovely day.” He leaned back contentedly, and the ants continued to carry their corn.
Winter arrived, as it does. Snow blanketed the ground that was once covered in food, and the grasshopper found himself starving. He staggered, desperate, toward the ants’ home, where he found them warm and happy, tucking into the corn they’d spent the summer hauling.
“Please,” he rasped, “I’m very hungry. You have plenty of food. Please share some with me.”
The ants eyed him warily. “We tried to tell you,” said one in between bites of corn. “Guess winter wasn’t as far off as you thought.”
As grim as this fable is (in the original version, the ants let the grasshopper starve to death), it does underscore an important point: Immediate gratification may feel good in the short term, but it’s the discipline that will ultimately serve you in the end.
You Dont Have to Feel Like it
The downside of motivation is that it’s ephemeral; here one moment and gone the next. Discipline, on the other hand, means establishing a routine and sticking to it, whether you feel like it or not. While I was building my company, Jotform, I didn’t always have endless reserves of motivation. What I did — and still do — have are habits and systems that I built over time.
