FORGET MOTIVATION, REMEMBER DISCIPLINE

Motivation is overrated.

With every goal I try to reach and every habit I try to internalize, I always start off motivated and eager to climb the ladder to success.

But where is my motivation three months later at 5:45am, looking up at a long day of work after a sleepless night?

Where is my motivation during a horrible week, wrought with upsets and disappointments?

I curl up in bed, knowing full well what I have to do, but my motivation is no where to be found.

Motivation is a feeling. It is sand in your palms, sensitive to even the slightest breeze.

So what force do we use to accomplish our goals if not motivation?

Discipline.

Courage is not the absence fear, but the ability to go on despite it.

Discipline is not the absence of avolition, but the pledge to push forward regardless of it’s presence.

Discipline is the force that will be with you no matter what you are thinking or how you are feeling at the time.

No matter what you try to achieve, you will need it. From dieting, to writing a book, to cutting back on your swearing, discipline is the greatest force behind all improvement.

Here are a couple of things I have learned about discipline and how to cultivate it.

Discipline is one day at a time.

I have a little green book in the drawer beside me that I haven’t opened since last august, until today.

This book was my first conscious attempt at developing my discipline, although I had no idea what I was doing at the time.

It has a check list. Read, Write, Gym, 10 Ideas, 8 Hours of sleep.

When I started this book I hadn’t turned any of these things into concrete habits. I tried doing it all at once.

Every day I would put check marks beside what I did and rate myself out of 5.

It started off well, but quickly got ugly.

What I didn’t know at the time is that it is impossible to completely change your life overnight.

Developing your discipline is a life long pursuit. One that most of us don’t consciously pursue.
We aren’t all monks.

Every day try to exercise your discipline just one time. Pick the smallest habit you can and start there. Mine was making breakfast every morning.

That single habit, that single discipline workout every morning, changed my life.

For best results, treat your body with respect.

Everything that you accomplish in your life will stem from your mind. Your mind and the various states you put it through can decide whether you get closer to a better life, or slip further away.

If you are hungry, tired or stressed it will affect everything you do.

You should always make it a priority to get the proper amount of sleep and eat regularly. If you treat your body with disrespect, you will not get anything good from it.

Eating breakfast changed my life because it gave me energy in the morning and encouraged me to get more sleep so that I could wake up early enough to cook.

Your body doesn’t need to be a temple, but don’t let it turn into a garbage dump.

Forgive yourself and move on.

This is another major theme in life. If developing your discipline is a life long pursuit, then it only makes sense that every once and a while you are going to falter.

If you beat yourself up, you are more likely to spiral out of control and end up right back at square one.

Getting angry at yourself will solve nothing. If you fall, get back up as soon as possible and move on.

Today was an exercise in discipline for me.

I didn’t really have the motivation to write today. I have two days off, I’m tired, and it’s thanksgiving. If I wanted to I could have used these things as excuses to skip writing.

But this is where discipline, that little muscle that could, comes in. I know the exact moment that I don’t want to do something when I know I should, is when I have to call upon that little friend.

I have a lot of other things I plan to do today. Some of them will get done, but maybe I’ll miss a few.

That’s okay. I’m not perfect. But I’d like to believe I’m better than I was yesterday.

Happy thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians.
As always, I’ll see you next Sunday.

One Habit That Will Change Your Life

If I told you the simple act of making breakfast made me who I am today, you probably wouldn’t believe me.

But it’s true.

Let’s hop in my time machine and go back nine months for a moment.

I’m depressed. I have no energy and no motivation. I usually never show any negativity at work but my coworkers can sense something is off. I’m not my normal self at all.

She used to take care of me but she is gone now and I feel like my life is falling apart. I barely wake up in time for work every morning and I can’t focus on anything.

My stomach is killing me. My body hates me. I don’t know how to cook anything so I’ll eat something that can barely be considered food once a day.

I have no plans for my future so thinking ahead hurts. Thinking back doesn’t provide any solace either. But all I can feel is my stomach.

I decide that no matter what the future holds, I need to care of myself right now. I need to start eating or I’ll rot away from the inside. I decided to make sure I ate before work the next morning.

Little did I know that I had found my keystone habit.

A keystone habit is one habit that has the power to create a chain reaction, causing a snowball effect that changes other habits as it grows.

Eating breakfast was my keystone habit. Your keystone habit might be quitting drinking or smoking, going to the gym, writing in a journal every night, getting up early or even reading.

By the end of this post you will know the three things to look for and expect from a keystone habit.
Let’s do it!

1) A keystone habit offers the feeling of small, reoccurring wins.

Everyone loves a win. It feels good. Imagine getting a win everyday, or five, or ten!

Every time I ate something in the morning it was a win for me. I would think about how I accomplished my goal before bed that night.

Having this sense of regular small wins can snowball and cause you to believe you can achieve those bigger wins. Maybe I could learn how to cook and eat healthy?

If you are trying to quit smoking everyday that you don’t smoke, is a win. If you don’t like the cold turkey method, everyday that you don’t go past a certain number of cigarettes it is a win.

Better yet, every three hour period that you don’t have a smoke is a win.

Set small, very achievable goals and allow yourself to get as many wins as possible.

Make sure you are congratulating yourself on these accomplishments!

With a hundred small victories at your back, you will not only believe that the major victories are possible, they will feel inevitable.
Which brings us to our next point.

2) A Keystone habit will snowball your confidence and energy.

When you integrate or change a keystone habit, you are improving something that is deeply meaningful to yourself. Pick something that you care about.

If you have been trying to quit smoking, go to the gym, or eat healthy for years and now you can see real tangible progress toward your goal, you will feel good about it.
I guarantee it.

When I started eating breakfast, I felt great. Not just because my stomach was no longer at war with me, but because I was starting to believe that I could change my life in a meaningful way.

With reoccurring small wins and your newly found confidence and energy, you come to point three.

This is where you start to see major changes in all areas of your life.

3) A keystone habit acts as soil from which other habits grow.

In the beginning I just wanted to eat every morning. I was at war with every part of myself and I wanted a truce with my stomach at the very least.

At first I would just eat a banana, but after a while I wanted something bigger so I would wake up a little earlier and make scrambled eggs.

I was terrible at cooking so I started watching Gordon Ramsay YouTube videos while I ate.
Ps: I am NOT a F**king donkey, Ramsay!

Once I learned how to make a half decent breakfast I realized that I loved learning and being creative in the morning.

I was now excited to wake up every morning. This lead to researching how to make myself an early riser naturally without effort.

These were new habits naturally growing from within me.

We all need a catalyst to change our lives, but it doesn’t have to be a near death experience.

The simple habit of eating something every morning gave me small wins, which lead to confidence and excitement, which lead to a whole spring of new habits I never thought I could integrate into my life.

I am a completely different person than I was nine months ago. It’s funny that I write this at the nine month mark because I do feel like I am reborn.

I am begging you, don’t try to change your whole life at once. Change one deeply meaningful thing about yourself.

Change one thing you do daily, and you’ll change your whole life.

Hit the reset button every morning

Some days are a write off.

Something might happen to you that ruins your day to a point where you can’t salvage anything from it. Maybe your boss insulted you in front of coworkers. Maybe the bus driver drove past you with out stopping.

Things like this happen all the time. I’m sure you have your own examples coming to mind as you read this.

I have days where something happens that upsets me so much that no amount of tricks to recenter myself will work. I spend the whole day laying around, watching shows, eating badly, and feeling sorry for myself.

At that point there is only one thing you can do.

It’s quarantine time.

They say when you are in a relationship you should never go to bed angry. Well maybe I don’t have the same mental fortitude as these people seem to have, but when I get in my bed the only thing I can think about is what upset me that day.

I literally just lay there and replay it over and over in my head. So, no luck with that little tip.
Instead I choose to quarantine that day.

When I wake up the next morning I do whatever I can to make sure that yesterday stays where it belongs. Out of sight, out of mind.

How to hit the reset button every morning.

I make sure that the morning is the best part of my whole day. It’s sort of like a challenge.
Wake up happy and see how long I can keep that feeling.

Tip 1:
Wake up early enough to relax a bit before your day has to start.

By doing this, you make sure that there is no stress in your morning. You can wake up and do things at your own pace.

If you wake up and immediately have to rush to get to work, that feeling of being rushed is going to permeate through your whole day.

You shouldn’t allow yourself to be stressed first thing in the morning.

Tip 2:
Make a breakfast that excites you.

Now that you have a bit of free time in the morning I want you to make the type of breakfast you dream about.
You should want it so bad that you literally dream about it the night before.

A great breakfast will make your body happy, and boost your mood instantly.

Even forgetting all of the health benefits to eating breakfast, just think about that beautiful smell first thing in the morning.
Yesterday will be long gone by now.

Tip 3:
Get at least eight hours of sleep.

There is no way you can wake up early and have the motivation to make a great breakfast if you are running on little sleep.

Get into that bed a little bit earlier and your body will thank you for it.

This way you will have energy in the morning and your day won’t seem so much like a mountain to climb.

If you start the day right, you give yourself the best chance to be happy.

As I said, some days are write offs. Some days there will be nothing you can do to feel better.

On those days it’s okay to indulge a little. Watch some tv, be a little lazy. You don’t have to be perfect all the time.

But as long as you follow these tips, you can hit the reset button the next morning and try again.

They say happiness doesn’t last, but neither does bathing.
That’s why it’s recommended daily.

 

 

 

How breakfast saved my life

For most of my life, I have been a child. Even when I was 20 years old, I was still a child. I didn’t clean my room, I didn’t know how to do my own laundry. Hell, I didn’t even make my own food ever. I don’t know how I survived.
Oh, wait a second, I remember.

I had a guardian angel. She would wake up fifteen minutes before me in the morning to make me breakfast. She would clean my room, do my laundry and even make me lunch. Despite how much I have learned from many intelligent people both in person and through books, she was the person who taught me more than anyone in my life.
But when you take people for granted, their time in your life will be numbered.

When she was gone, I was left alone. The laundry piled up fast, my body begged for real food, but I didn’t know how to make anything. Everything around me became a mess. Motivation was gone from my life. I had everything given to me on a silver platter for years, and now I wasn’t sure how to survive.
So, I had to learn.

I felt like Bambi trying to walk for the first time. I tried to do laundry, I started to try and clean up after myself, but nothing would stick. I was so used to having everything done for me that I didn’t have the motivation to do even the most basic chores. I wanted to just hit a switch and change my habits completely overnight, but it just wasn’t possible.
So I decided to pick just one thing.

The next morning that I woke up, I tried to make breakfast. I made scrambled eggs, if you could call them that. 90% of the eggs were stuck to the pan, the other ten percent were a weird brown colour. They looked like a movie prop of alien brain matter.
But, I made them!

I feel like a loser saying this, I was proud. I was determined at the very least, to make myself breakfast every morning. I went on YouTube and started watching Chef Gordon Ramsay videos to learn how to make something a little tastier. Over time I was waking up earlier to make my breakfast, so I had to go to bed earlier. The combination of real food in the morning and extra sleep greatly improved my mood throughout the day. I started having more motivation and energy to do other things. I was cleaning and organizing my room so that it was easy to maintain. I developed a schedule for doing things like laundry, vacuuming and going to the gym five days a week.
I finally felt like a real adult.

These days, I am in a much better place. I am trying to refine myself, to slowly replace some of the bad habits with good ones over time. Sometimes I falter, sometimes I lose motivation, I’m not perfect. But now, I make a breakfast I love every single morning. I am excited to go to bed early at night so that I can wake up and enjoy my morning. It starts my day off in the right direction, even if sometimes I will wander a bit throughout the days that feel harder to get through.
So I urge you.

Try it yourself. Every morning, make something that you absolutely LOVE. Don’t settle for some off brand cereal and questionable milk. Make something in the morning that will make you happy to be alive. Happy to wake up at those ungodly hours. Something that releases all those good chemicals in your brain and makes you delusional enough for a moment to think “Maybe I can survive the rest of the day.”

I can honestly say that breakfast saved my life. Last night was hard to get through, I was reminiscing about my guardian angel. This morning, I ate breakfast, and wrote this.
I could be delusional, but I think I’ll survive today. Just maybe.