Day 12 Recap: I did not sleep Friday night, so Day 12 was sort of a hot mess. I was exhausted. But I did stretching in the morning and drank my gallon of water. I ate like garbage. And I did not walk. So there’s that. Today has been much better… so we are going to swallow the rough couple of days I have had and move on.
One of the biggest things people think about when wanting to lose weight (well, at least me) is how to stay motivated. It’s so easy to do great the first few days because we are motivated… then it starts to wear off. Why does it stop? What can we do to get it back? How do we keep on a successful path without motivation?
Through reading a lot of different things on this subject from fitness experts/motivational speakers and from my own experience, I have drawn some conclusions that help me to keep moving forward.
First and foremost, no one is perfect all of the time. It’s okay to have days that just aren’t the “right” way you want them to be. It’s okay to veer off path. All of that is okay. We are human. And the best thing to do is to just jump right back on to working towards your goals. I used to always think this advice was stupid, but it’s true. You’re not a failure from stepping off the path to your goals. You just have to jump back on it as son as you can.
Next, I’ve looked at myself and what my brain thinks the difference is between motivation and discipline. And this is what I have discovered:
Motivation comes and goes. There are going to be days where you are like “YEA! I can’t wait to workout and eat in my perfect caloric window and be active and be positive all day and be confident that I can do this!” And that’s because you are feeling motivated. You have that spark inside of you that you can do this and that you actually want to do it. But then the next day it could be gone. Hell, it can be gone in the next hour before you start that work out. I personally feel that motivation isn’t a conscious choice. It’s just a feeling that comes and goes. And you don’t decide at what moment you will be feeling motivated.
This is where discipline comes in. Discipline, to me, is a choice. You choose to follow the path to your goals, no matter what your motivation level is. You choose your actions that get you to where you want to be. You are disciplined enough to ignore you want to not do certain things. You are disciplined enough to not listen to the voice inside of your head that tells you that you don’t want to do what you need to.
You will never be motivated 100% of the time, but you can always choose to be disciplined.
Once I thought about this and mulled it over in my head, it made sense. I feel like I always count on motivation, but I need to stop that. Sure, if I feel a burst of motivation, that is amazing! But I need to focus more on being disciplined. No one else can choose the discipline but you. No one else can choose to follow the actions that discipline demands but you. And I really like thinking about it that way.
You truly can do whatever it is you want to if you have the discipline to follow through with the actions you need to.
What do you think the difference is between motivation and discipline?