Motivation VS Discipline and the Two-Week Dip

Hello guys and welcome back to ShowMe.Fit. I’m Dan from the Accountability Academy and today I want to talk through motivation VS discipline. It’s very, very common that whenever we start a new venture, we start a new business, start a new health and fitness journey, there’s always going to be a lot of motivation to start with because we’re inspired to change, we’re motivated, we’re really excited to get started on this journey. The reality is that we notice a two week dip… Two weeks in, when things start to get a little bit mundane, things start to get a little bit tough, old habits start to become very very appealing to go back to. Does this sound familiar?

The two week dip is really, really common and I say to all of our clients that this is where discipline has to come into it. If you always relying on motivation, you’re not going to get very far in life because motivation comes in waves and we need to learn to surf those waves. You need to learn how to surf those waves. When you’ve got motivation, you do everything you can do, but those days when this motivation isn’t there and you don’t want to turn up and you don’t want to eat healthily, you don’t want to do your workouts, you don’t want to work on your business or work on your relationships. Those days are going to be very, very common but you have to rely on your discipline to make sure that you get the work done. Otherwise, we’re going to be going in constant cycles of progress and then regression, we’re going to take three steps forward and the four steps back. If we’re always relying on motivation to get us starting and to stay on track, then we’re not going to go very far because motivation fluctuates massively. We need to rely on that discipline. 

Discipline is intrinsic to us, it’s that conversation we have with ourselves, we go: “no I’m going to actually do the things I said I was going to do”. I did another video where I talked about our “why”. Going back to your “why” in these times when you’re struggling to stay consistent, when you’re looking at the food that you need to cook, or the training plan that you need to do, or you’re looking at the work and your business where you’re feeling like you don’t want to do that… go back to your “why”. You need to look at yourself and go to the place inside you that’s going to make sure that you get that work done. That’s what I call discipline. Having the discipline to get up and do the things you said you were going to do. The people who were extremely successful, the people who we see in the gym who look healthier, the people who have built the biggest businesses, the people who have the most successful relationships, it’s not luck. They haven’t built it off motivation, they’ve built that off discipline of turning up every single day when they didn’t want to. It’s really, really easy to get going when you’re motivated but it’s not easy to get going when you’re not and that’s where discipline comes into it. So, if you’ve gone through this two week dip of motivation where you don’t want to turn up, it’s really really common, I’ve been there myself. Not everyday is going to be easy, it’s really not, if it was then everyone would do it. The reality is you look yourself in the mirror ask yourself why you’re here and then turn up and do the work you said you were going to do. That’s discipline. If you do that continuously and consistently over a certain amount of time, the results will start to show and once you’ve seen the results, that’s going to increase the motivation again to get going even further. So, when your motivation is dipped, rely on discipline. Discipline is going to get you to the end of the race, motivation is going to get you to start. Alright guys, I’m Dan, if you’ve got any questions, I’ll see you soon. Bye!