Why we need to stop being motivated

and what skill we need to replace it with

The Backstory

The story of my increased productivity and reduction of guilt has an interesting origin story that involves a celebrity and a quote I found online.

Let’s start with the celebrity. Late in my Junior year of college, I was interning with an office in my colleges student success division. As an office focused on leadership, one of their key events for the year was bringing in a sponsored speaker to speak about their life journey and growth in leadership. My boss graciously asked me to work on the marketing for the event.

The speaker? Piper Kerman. Yes, the woman who inspired the show Orange is the New Black (not to mention who WROTE the book based off of her life experiences).

Part of the luck of my role was being with Piper that day, interviewing her in front of a small audience and facilitating a question session during the larger keynote speech.

When I walked up onto that stage in front of 750 people, I took a grounding breath and glanced down at Piper’s laptop where my questions were sitting on notecards. Taped against the silver metal was a single fortune cookie slip. On it, a quote sat.

“Discipline is the root of self respect.”

I mulled this over in my head the next few days, writing it on sticky notes for places I visited frequently. I put one up at work.

I thought about the implications and the truth of the saying. If I respected myself enough and truly, I would and could be disciplined enough to do the things that I didn’t love but that helped me. Things like putting the laundry away right away and working out became more than just an activity. They became something I did in respect of myself. I began to complete tasks quicker, which I expected. But the best benefit of this shift of mindset?

I stopped dreading doing these things. They were something I was doing for myself, now.

A few days later I saw a post on social media that reflected my new mindset. While I can’t find the original post, it still resonates with me.

The post explained how motivation won’t always be enough– sometimes it will be present and other times, you will have none of it. But the skill of discipline is one that you can have at all times once it’s developed enough.

The Research

One of the leading researchers in this area doesn’t call it self-discipline, she calls it something else: grit. You’ve probably heard about Angela Duckworth, her book, and her TED Talk.

She’s done a lot of research on grit, self-discipline, and how we feed that skill. Because of her, we know that discipline is an important indicator of success. In fact, she found that self-discipline has more (2 times) of an accurate impact on predicting academic achievement than IQ does.

In the above talk, Duckworth talks about how a “growth mindset” is key to making sure you continue to develop that skill.

Willpower and discipline are likely limited resources in that they deplete energy from us (emotional energy which then translates to physical energy). It’s a skill, which means that the more you practice the easier it will be to utilize it and the longer you’ll be able to do it without feeling tired.

Make sure that you save that mental push for the activities that need to be prioritized and that you know you’ll struggle with wanting to complete. But, if you need an extra push, self-regulating by reminding yourself of a future you want, the roadblocks in the way, and the steps you have to take when that roadblock comes up, a technique called mental contrasting. Then, remind yourself that those steps will get you to success.

When motivation is not enough, discipline steps in and takes over.

When you (I) think this way, you (I) feel more productive, responsible, and accomplished and less guilty and stressed.