I've never been the most disciplined person in my whole life. If you've been living with me or know me very well, you know I normally take things easy until the very last minute. Or I just don't do certain things that I have to do until I really need to get it done.
I believe one of the most common excuses given is "I have no motivation lah" (Excuse Malaysian style).
The thing is, if we are driven by motivation, that would mean we have no discipline.
Discipline is when we are ABLE to push ourselves to complete things that we need to do. It is our mind and willpower which is doing the trick, not motivation and any other things. I
googled did research a little bit and found that
this article talks about self-discipline the best! Also this is the first article that appeared after a wikipedia article upon googling 'discipline' HAHAHA.
Funny how I thought discipline is about being able to do certain thing consistently. I guess I learned the word 'discipline' together with 'study lah why you never study as hard as your friend! people study everyday you know?'. So I grew up with the impression that discipline=working hard, and knowing that I am not a hard worker, I often gave the excuse of lack of motivation to dodge pushing myself a bit further. (sidenote1: boss, if you're reading this, some awesome people say it's better to hire a lazy people than a hard worker because lazy people tend to possess bigger talent in innovation and I believe this is what you're looking for. So please don't fire me tqvm)
So saying I'm lack of motivation is equals to saying that I'm just damn freaking lazy to push myself to do what I need to do, and that I have zero self-discipline. (sidenote2: when I say I have no inspiration to write blog I meant it and it has absolutely nothing to do with self discipline wtf wtf wtf)
Also, when it comes to having self-discipline, we need to recognize whether our effort is really self-discipline or just motivation.
What's the difference, you asked?
Ok let's see. I love writing. But I can't write everyday (provided that I do have alot of inspiration) because I am just too damn unmotivated aka lazy. So I make this Project 365 to help myself to develop a writing habit by writing everyday. Me being able to write everyday is driven by Project 365, which is my motivator. Another of my motivator is that I've publicly declared I would write a post a day, so I have to do for the sake of not looking like a loser who can't keep her promise (and I really can't hahaha).
Remember I wrote about
a speaker flushing his money to punish himself for skipping his planned task?
That's another motivator for him to be able to carry out his duty.
But ultimate discipline is when I am able to write everyday even without this Project 365 as my motivation. My willpower is the one which is controlling my action, not motivation. It is when we don't need a motivator to motivate us. It is when we are driven by passion and determination to get things done.
Honestly I'm not sure what will happen after my post 365/365. But I'm sure if I'm still able to continue blogging, I have grown as a person. And that's definitely what I want.
See y'all soon! As in tomorrow!