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Motivation vs (and) Discipline
A practical guide on using motivation and discipline for long term productivity

Definitions
Motivation is the intrinsic desire and enthusiasm to do a task.Discipline is the practise of doing a task(s) repeated periodically.
Motivation Vs Discipline?
I always believed that as an entrepreneur one needs to be motivated at most times. This felt like a huge challenge because personally I don't feel motivated most of the times. There are days when I can move at lightening speed and create my best products within minutes and then there are longer periods of just dragging my heels through the business (often accompanied with an overwhelming guilt of not doing enough)
I always assumed I needed to do something to feel more motivated and creative on my dull days - exercise, meditate, long walks - but truth be told, when I felt drab, I just wanted 3 cups of coffee and my favourite chocolate brownie and nothing else would help.Surely I couldn't make Cheeky successful with this level of (random/low) motivation ? It was only when I talked to my fellow entrepreneurs and friends that I realised these cycles of motivation and lack of it were more common than I imagined. Which only led me to the conclusion, that this is normal, natural human behaviour, and not something that can be fought.
Motivation AND Discipline
So for the next few months I decided to flow rather than fight my intrinsic motivation cycles.I classified my days/working hours as -
1) Up wave - Desire to work with laser sharp focus on the most creative aspects of my business - content creation, NPD, business development (I call these my up cycle tasks)
2) Down cycle - No desire to be creative, instead using discipline to complete through the required tasks in my business - order processing, sales follow ups, book keeping (I call these my down cycle tasks)I made a list of my up cycle and down cycle tasks and ensured that I only do one or the other in the right cycle.Most of my struggles came from trying to mix the tasks.Like doing bookkeeping during my upcycle when I was most motivated, would not produce much more better results and would be a waste of my creative juices. Similarly creating a new product recipe in my down cycle would result in subpar product that would take twice as long to complete.
Once I started working in rhythm of aligning my up and down cycle tasks, I realised that my days eased out considerably- I was most creatively productive during the up cycles and managed the day to day business in the down cycles.
And the most profound revelation was that my guilt disappeared. The guilt we are all so utterly familiar with - guilt of not doing enough, guilt of not contacting new sales leads, guilt of not being 100% productive on all working days.
This informatics (that I created during my last up cycle) helps me remember why and both Motivation and Discipline are required for the success of a long term project.

Practical Examples
Discipline is jogging that keeps your muscles warm and fit, Motivation is sprinting to get to point A to B the fastest you can.
Discipline is making your bed everyday, Motivation is a deep clean behind the bed.Discipline is following up with your sales lead weekly, Motivation is scourging LinkedIn for 20 new leads.Discipline is following up on order processing, Motivation is creating new products to sell.
Often we struggle with tasks within the business because we force ourselves to do the creative tasks (ideally done during up cycles) on days we are least motivated. Instead, if we parked the creative tasks like creating new products, finding new sales leads, writing a blog for days when motivation really hits, we will find that days, business and life flow easier.What I have also found in my experience is that when I flow with my up and down cycles, I have a higher chance of turning motivated tasks into disciplined tasks. In the example of this blog writing, when I first started I would leave the writing to when I felt most creative and that was fine. However I now find that since I was not fighting my natural flows, writing feels more and more easy and that I am able to incorporate this in my weekly discipline.
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