It takes more than motivation to develop good habits.
Motivation is unreliable.
It comes and goes.
Good habits require discipline.
Discipline, unlike motivation, is a decision.
Good habits are difficult to form and easy to break.
Discipline is what keeps you on track when your motivation wanes.
DISCIPLINE IS A DECISION
By Robert Van Valkenburgh
Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
To read my longer writing, subscribe at robertvanvalkenburgh.com
What if nobody cared about your hard work?
What if nobody cared about your success?
What if nobody cared about your failure?
What would you do?
Would you still be on the same path?
If you got no credit, received no praise, and there was no external reward for your efforts, what would you do with your life?
Search deep inside for your internal motivation and let that guide you along your path.
INTERNAL MOTIVATION
By Robert Van Valkenburgh
Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
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To contact me or to see what else I’m up to, visit robertvanvalkenburgh.com
Don’t be so inspired that you do nothing.
Inspiration can be intoxicating.
It is uplifting and emotionally satisfying.
But the purpose of inspiration is not simply to make you feel good.
The purpose of inspiration is to motivate you to action.
This causes tension, however, because if you act, you might fail, and so you settle for just being inspired.
Don’t be the type of person on whom inspiration is wasted.
INSPIRATION AS MOTIVATION
By Robert Van Valkenburgh
Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
To receive my daily blog in your inbox, subscribe at holisticbudo.com
To contact me, to see what else I’m up to, or to read my longer writings, visit robertvanvalkenburgh.com
Don’t let pride hinder your progress.
Whatever you are working to achieve will come with difficulty and unavoidable setbacks.
The more lofty your goals, the greater the challenges you will face along the way.
As you start to make progress, you will feel good, and motivation will be easy to come by.
But then comes the inevitable dip wherein progress slows, motivation wanes, and things get hard.
If you take this personally, if you perceive this as a sign of your personal inadequacy, you will quit.
If, however, you understand that growth is difficult and setbacks are part of the process, you will trust that it is in the dip that the real work is done and where the most progress is made.
Losses can either defeat you or motivate you.
The choice is yours to make.
You cannot change the past, but you can choose what you do next.
There are no easy paths to success.
Every meaningful course of action is difficult.
Loss is the price you pay on the way to your goals.
Let your losses be the fuel that propels you forward, lest they be the burden that drags you down.
Meditations on God 