when your feeling unmotivated & lack discipline
People usually stay weak by using motivation to carry them through daily life. They watch motivational videos and podcasts that get them hype for whatever they are about to do.
People underestimate the power of building discipline, discipline is the power of being able to do something even when you have no motivation.
Finding work on discipline as a skill is vital for daily self-improvement. I could be doing my favorite activity, going out with friends or watching videos but instead I'm using discipline to do my work, to help young men like you.
Finding discipline
Think of discipline as a skill,the more you use it, the higher level it gets. Just like any low level skill you have, you have to start easy. Start by making your bed in the morning, feeding you pets, doing a chore as soon as you can. Find daily tasks and use them to level up your skill.
This builds a tolerance and gives you a level of control for your brain to make the right decisions on what to do, not what you want to do.
Things like doing your work or studying or working out will always be hard and unmotivating. Using discipline to make life less about what you want right now, will make your future be what you've always wanted.
Start slowly, make bigger and bigger steps, eventually you start working out more consistently, doing chores and working towards your dreams with less distraction.
Tips & Tricks
Finding ways to build discipline can be hard, eventually you reach plateaus that seem hard to pass because the things you need to do to level up are hard. For times like these you can use special strategies to stop being so lazy and get the things you want done.
Strategy #1: 1-step rule
The 1-step rule is basically cutting your brain off from the whole activity and taking it one step at a time, as you go through it ends up getting easier and easier. Here's an example for going to the gym.
You feel weak and unmotivated, your still in bed in the early morning and you hate the idea of getting up to work out, do this list in your brain one step at a time, going to the next after you finish the previous;
Get out of bed, turn on the lights, get dressed, drink water, brush your teeth, put your shoes on, get in the car, drive to the gym, stretch, do 1 set etc.
By the time you've reached the gym your 80% done the task, all you have left is to workout. Nobody goes to the gym after doing all that and then decides to turn around and go back to bed.
You do your first set, which becomes the second, then the first exercise is done, then the second. By the end of a couple of steps into your task, you're moving fast, getting what you need done and moving on to the next thing.
Strategy #2: Lower dopamine
This is more of a long-term brewing answer. Dopamine is the thing that makes you feel motivated to do the hard work. If you get your baseline of dopamine low enough from doing harder activities and sticking with the healthier habits, you can be more disciplined to do the hard work.
You can find a dopamine detox blog here;
Lowering your dopamine can help with motivation and can actually make harder work feel good. It's a very simple but more long-term strategy that can be hard and frustrating. Things like staying off your phone or not scrolling through tik tok or other social media all day will lower dopamine and lead you to be able to have more fun with the boring, but necessary stuff.
To find more about dopamine and how to fix your mind, set up a coaching call with me.
To your success.