Fueling Motivation Through Dedication and Discipline
Motivation is great; it is what gets us excited, it is what gets us to sign up for the race, join the cause, do the thing, apply for the new job, or whatever it is that gives you energy!!
But motivation is also very fickle it has natural ebbs and flows with daily life. There isn’t a single person alive who can sit in front of someone and say they never lack motivation, there isn’t a single person alive who can tell you that every single day they wake up ready to CRUSH every single action they have on the day.
The key to keeping up your motivation is not to focus on the feeling of motivation but rather to focus on the habits of dedication and discipline. Most often what happens is we chase a feeling that we are looking for in order to get to the performance you are looking for but when we chase a feeling we often get lost in what it takes to find that feeling.
Think about confidence, for example, if you are trying to become more confident on the bike yet you skip bike sessions, half ass them, not stay focused during them, or cut them short are you going to feel confident on the bike? Most likely not. What you are missing in that equation is the focus on the behaviors that create confidence.
Behavior —> Emotions/Feelings —> Performance
Motivation is similar as a feeling motivation can come and go and if that is our main focus we can loose sight of it but if we focus on the behaviors that create motivation we won’t lose sight of it!!
Motivation follows your behavior and here are a few behaviors as talked about in the above video:
Start Small - Focus on daily Habits
Small habits are easier to mentally get yourself psyched for because they can feel more tangible as well as tend to more quickly grasp. When we focus on small things it gives us something to work towards rather than just always having a huge end game to have. The small daily habits create dedication and discipline as well and that continues to fuel your motivation.
Celebrate your wins
Celebrating the successes is important it reminds you that you’ve come a long way and reminds you of the strength that you’ve built. When we look at what we’ve created and the progress we’ve made it shows our brain that no matter what we think we can do something.
Focus on the journey not the end game
Being present in the moment is all that you ever have. It is easy to get lost in the journey when all we focus on the end game, the end game can feel really far away and seem like we will never get there but it isn’t the end game that makes strong but rather what we learn in the journey.