Happy Monday!
And happy Columbus Day - or “Happy Imperialist Colonizer Day,” if you’d like. I kind of miss the annual Columbus Day statue-defacing outside of Union Station in DC. That reliable performance of street activism always heralded the beginning of my favorite season. #Stability.
I love Mondays. I’ve always been a bit of a freak with that, I suppose - Mondays are the days when I can do something with all of those ideas that popped up over the weekend. Since I have the day off thanks to my cushy corporate job, I have ample time to get clarity, focus, and things done on both the personal and professional fronts.
For today’s post, I was going to dive into how discipline is greater than motivation. You know - everyone is motivated to do something, but it’s the discipline that gets you there. As I’ve heard it said, and tell myself frequently, “You don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to the level of your discipline.”
But I quickly realized that belief was on my mind. How long can you maintain effective discipline without an iron-core belief that you CAN attain that which you’re working for? I’d say that you can’t. You need to know that it’s within your powers to either do or to figure out. This belief must have its own internal power source. Fusion powered, if possible.
But to be completely honest, I’m not feeling any of it today. I have dozens, if not hundreds of motivational quotes and memes queued up for immediate deployment, but they’re out-gunned by the simple sound of rain falling outside of an open window, reinforced by the fatigue of an emotionally taxing weekend and a terrible night’s sleep. Resistance threatens to take the stronghold of my soul.
In such moments, I ask myself, WWJWD? What would Jocko Willink do? Yeah, he probably wouldn’t do anything - he’d just…stare.
So, do I believe? Yes-ish. Yesh. A solid yesh.
If that sounds squishy, that’s probably because it is. The second I step onto that theoretically firm ground of conviction, I begin to sink into the quicksand of qualifiers. “Yes, buts” and the like. Still, it’s farther along than I’ve ever been. I got here by showing up. By putting my butt in the chair and doing the work even when all I can think about is going back to bed and then, maybe a nice hot jacuzzi-tub bath and watching something Star Wars-related. Let’s throw a mimosa in there - they’re okay before noon, right?
The daily act of showing up to do the things that I’m not in the mood for has done more for my belief than any meticulously reasoned strategy or articulated vision. It’s like the lights along the path are powered by my footsteps. I slow down: the lights get dim. I stop: the lights go out. I sprint: ten thousand angels throw the switches on their klieg lights all the way to the horizon.
Funny how that works.
What about all those distractions? All those perfectly legitimate, daily, minute-by-minute concerns of life? You might be thinking, “I know I could do X if only I had the time,” or “If I could only focus…”
For me, it’s been like floodwaters receding. The longer I discipline myself, the more the water recedes. A landscape emerges. And within the winding valleys or high plains, a path emerges. When you see the ribbon of the path ahead, everything else settles into place. It’s easy to see what’s important, what isn’t, and what is just a shiny temptation just off of, but definitely not on, the path.
Again, motion is key.
Obvious stuff, right? Probably. But everyone needs reminders. Especially me.