Motivation vs Discipline

 

I feel like I had a decent reply to Vlad so I'm making a post out of it. 

 Somehow you are managing to disagree with him without saying anything substantial or contrary to what Michael already said. And no, lack of balance and overwork doesn't actually lead to burnout, it leads to bad health outcomes and exhaustion. Yes, these events often go hand in hand with burnout, but it's stress that does it, not the overwork itself.

Michael is spot on about motivation and discipline. Relying on discipline to carry you through life is like relying on fear to rule a state. It will work in the short term, but... yeah.

It's actually kind of lazy to rely on discipline more. It's weirdly Stockholm-syndrome-y and American that many think the 2nd and 3rd comics is a good situation to be in, without realizing the 1st is perfectly attainable if they were to sit alone with their thoughts and gain some self-knowledge (which is something Americans fear, apparently).

And often when people ascribe success to discipline it's usually just strong drive (see: motivation), good planning, organization, and a conducive/favorable environment.

This is actually science, not the kind of ambiguous platitudes you are offering here: studies have found that people who are successful in resisting temptations long-term do so not by practicing discipline, but by avoiding situations where they might fail as temptations fade over time.

It's like training a dog, motivate them with positive reinforcement and set them up for success and they'll eventually re-align their motivators and motivate themselves. Isn't it weird that no other animal on earth feels like it has to choke down stuff it doesn't want, but apparently it's a perfectly normal state of affairs for humans?

    The thing is, life is complex and it's hard for the brain to calculate motivation and reward to every facet of every decision you make, particularly when you have to weigh all that against immediate needs such as food, sex, sleep, etc. That's when we do a sort of override to get past that dilemma -- this is what people call "discipline". The comic depiction of discipline as some rock giant carrying you through tasks is actually perfect. You don't want to, but you do. 

    Some people rely on this discipline process often enough without allowing their motivation to catch up, until their reward center has had enough and makes you sit on the couch binging Netflix and ice cream all night after work wondering why you just don't have the energy to do your laundry (especially with all this sugar you're consuming). THAT'S burnout. 

    Your motivation is not something you need to fight or override. It's something you need to learn to work with, and yes, discipline is a very important tool to get your over the small bumps and smooth out the ride, or when things get high-stakes. But a lot of people don't really have time for self-knowledge and believe it's just a problem of discipline, so , and for people who are struggling it's not doing them any favors to tell them they have a discipline problem.