Motivation vs Discipline... and Weightlifting
I’m already regretting this, but here we go anyway.
I want to address the idea of motivation versus discipline, because the topic has gotten a lot of attention the last couple years, and I see problems with the way it’s being conceptualized and applied.
A few of you are going to dismiss me in the first 20 seconds as a pedantic curmudgeon making a semantic argument because I’m bitter about a world of self-imposed but unrecognized illiteracy reducing the audience for my books and articles, so let me get out front of that and assure you that my concern here is not with usage exactly, but how the conceptual misunderstanding prevents you from being as successful as possible, and can even cause serious problems for you down the road.
To summarize: I have an issue with the idea that discipline is a long term substitute for motivation. This isn’t just untrue, but impossible.
Let me lay some groundwork with a few definitions:
Inspiration is “The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something.”
Motivation is “The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”
Behavior is “The way in which one acts or conducts oneself.”
And Discipline is “A system of rules of conduct, or the controlled behavior resulting from discipline.”
The popular idea is that you rely on discipline because eventually motivation will wane, and without discipline, you’ll quit working hard and fail to achieve your goals.
But if you don’t have motivation, you cannot have discipline.
Discipline is a self-enforced set of rules guiding your behavior in challenging, unnatural ways—there must be a reason for you to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do, and that reason is your motivation. Once that reason disappears, why would you continue forcing yourself to behave in a challenging, unnatural way?
In other words, discipline is not a substitute for motivation—it’s a tool to help achieve what your motivation directs.
The reason this has been confused is that common usage for the word motivation is really a more secondary definition, which is synonymous with enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is “Intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval.”
Enthusiasm is what you feel when you’re first inspired and begin to work toward something meaningful to you. That inspiration resonates with you because you feel compelled for one reason or another to want whatever it is—that’s motivation.
You get up every morning and go to work because you’re motivated to do so by the desire to not be destitute. Very few of you feel enthusiasm about your job. You’re disciplined to get to work on time and do what you need to do there because you’re motivated to pay the bills. Motivation is not enthusiasm—they just tend to come as a package deal early on after inspiration.
Another piece of the confusion I think is the further conflation of discipline and habit.
Habit is “A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”
A habit is a behavior you do so routinely that it requires no conscious decision to do it, and certainly no enforcement. In other words, performing habitual acts requires zero discipline, which means that habits can exist in the absence of motivation, unlike discipline.
Discipline is required initially to transform a new behavior into habit, but once it’s habitual, no real discipline or motivation are required to continue. The point of discipline in pursuit of your goals is to create habits to make as much of the required behavior for success so routine that it demands little to no conscious thought or effort, and your energy and focus are preserved for behaviors and decisions that still do require thought and effort.
To summarize: Inspiration is the idea. Motivation is why you want it. Behavior is how you achieve it. Discipline keeps you performing these behaviors when you don’t enjoy them. Habit is the goal for behavior to save energy and focus for more difficult choices and behaviors. Enthusiasm is nice but doesn’t always parallel motivation, and if you’re truly motivated, you’ll remain disciplined in your behavior in the absence of enthusiasm.
The Weightlifting Part (Finally)
So how do we apply all this nonsense to weightlifting? Pretty straightforward—if you’re involved in weightlifting, you’re obviously motivated to get better to some degree. That degree of motivation will dictate the kind of behavior and the level of discipline you’re willing to apply.
The more serious you are about the sport, the more you’re going to need to structure your life around training and recovery, limit non-conducive activities, dial in your nutrition, and find every way possible to minimize non-training stress.
The goal is to establish new habits that reduce the need for actual discipline. Going to bed at a certain time every night is a pretty easy habit to create, but it’ll do wonders for your sleep and recovery, and after a bit of time using discipline to get it consistent, you won’t have to think much about it ever again.
You’re not going to be overwhelmingly enthusiastic during your entire lifting career. In fact, you’re very likely going to have at least short periods of time where you wonder if you actually hate the sport. But you’re going to push through it anyway because you’re motivated to achieve whatever goals you’ve made for yourself.
Remember, don’t confuse a lack of enthusiasm for a lack of motivation. When your enthusiasm wanes, stop and remember why you want this—why it’s meaningful to you, what value it adds to your experience in life. Those reasons are still there, so use them to maintain discipline.
And if that motivation isn’t there anymore, it’s time to move on.
I want to address the idea of motivation versus discipline, because the topic has gotten a lot of attention the last couple years, and I see problems with the way it’s being conceptualized and applied.
A few of you are going to dismiss me in the first 20 seconds as a pedantic curmudgeon making a semantic argument because I’m bitter about a world of self-imposed but unrecognized illiteracy reducing the audience for my books and articles, so let me get out front of that and assure you that my concern here is not with usage exactly, but how the conceptual misunderstanding prevents you from being as successful as possible, and can even cause serious problems for you down the road.
To summarize: I have an issue with the idea that discipline is a long term substitute for motivation. This isn’t just untrue, but impossible.
Let me lay some groundwork with a few definitions:
Inspiration is “The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something.”
Motivation is “The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”
Behavior is “The way in which one acts or conducts oneself.”
And Discipline is “A system of rules of conduct, or the controlled behavior resulting from discipline.”
The popular idea is that you rely on discipline because eventually motivation will wane, and without discipline, you’ll quit working hard and fail to achieve your goals.
But if you don’t have motivation, you cannot have discipline.
Discipline is a self-enforced set of rules guiding your behavior in challenging, unnatural ways—there must be a reason for you to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do, and that reason is your motivation. Once that reason disappears, why would you continue forcing yourself to behave in a challenging, unnatural way?
In other words, discipline is not a substitute for motivation—it’s a tool to help achieve what your motivation directs.
The reason this has been confused is that common usage for the word motivation is really a more secondary definition, which is synonymous with enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is “Intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval.”
Enthusiasm is what you feel when you’re first inspired and begin to work toward something meaningful to you. That inspiration resonates with you because you feel compelled for one reason or another to want whatever it is—that’s motivation.
You get up every morning and go to work because you’re motivated to do so by the desire to not be destitute. Very few of you feel enthusiasm about your job. You’re disciplined to get to work on time and do what you need to do there because you’re motivated to pay the bills. Motivation is not enthusiasm—they just tend to come as a package deal early on after inspiration.
Another piece of the confusion I think is the further conflation of discipline and habit.
Habit is “A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”
A habit is a behavior you do so routinely that it requires no conscious decision to do it, and certainly no enforcement. In other words, performing habitual acts requires zero discipline, which means that habits can exist in the absence of motivation, unlike discipline.
Discipline is required initially to transform a new behavior into habit, but once it’s habitual, no real discipline or motivation are required to continue. The point of discipline in pursuit of your goals is to create habits to make as much of the required behavior for success so routine that it demands little to no conscious thought or effort, and your energy and focus are preserved for behaviors and decisions that still do require thought and effort.
To summarize: Inspiration is the idea. Motivation is why you want it. Behavior is how you achieve it. Discipline keeps you performing these behaviors when you don’t enjoy them. Habit is the goal for behavior to save energy and focus for more difficult choices and behaviors. Enthusiasm is nice but doesn’t always parallel motivation, and if you’re truly motivated, you’ll remain disciplined in your behavior in the absence of enthusiasm.
The Weightlifting Part (Finally)
So how do we apply all this nonsense to weightlifting? Pretty straightforward—if you’re involved in weightlifting, you’re obviously motivated to get better to some degree. That degree of motivation will dictate the kind of behavior and the level of discipline you’re willing to apply.
The more serious you are about the sport, the more you’re going to need to structure your life around training and recovery, limit non-conducive activities, dial in your nutrition, and find every way possible to minimize non-training stress.
The goal is to establish new habits that reduce the need for actual discipline. Going to bed at a certain time every night is a pretty easy habit to create, but it’ll do wonders for your sleep and recovery, and after a bit of time using discipline to get it consistent, you won’t have to think much about it ever again.
You’re not going to be overwhelmingly enthusiastic during your entire lifting career. In fact, you’re very likely going to have at least short periods of time where you wonder if you actually hate the sport. But you’re going to push through it anyway because you’re motivated to achieve whatever goals you’ve made for yourself.
Remember, don’t confuse a lack of enthusiasm for a lack of motivation. When your enthusiasm wanes, stop and remember why you want this—why it’s meaningful to you, what value it adds to your experience in life. Those reasons are still there, so use them to maintain discipline.
And if that motivation isn’t there anymore, it’s time to move on.
