Welcome back! Thank you for your continued support and coming back to read it!
The last blog post was published exactly 4 months ago and here’s why:
1. I was attending my brother’s wedding all of February and March 2021!
2. I co-launched a podcast namedDo Better Dev Show and have been a bit occupied with it.
3. My motivation to do anything productive died after the trip mentioned above and it’s been rough getting back in the groove of things.
That bring us to today’s post which is a direct result of #3!
After being around family and attending many events during my trip to India, I had fallen out of my rhythm and routine. My bed time was erratic, my phone usage shot up exponentially, and I was constantly distracted.
I basically hit the undo button on months of self-work and was feeling extremely unmotivated to do anything. So I had to soley rely on discipline to get me to the gym, wake up early in the morning, and basically get anything done. I’m sure this comes as no surprise but discipline itself is extremely hard and boring if you have no motivation.
Anyway, over the last few weeks I tried a few things and have finally gotten “mostly” back on the track. It’s still not where it used to be, but as we say in this community “Doing better is a recursive process” 😉
Step 1: Stop beating myself up.
Everytime I was on my phone looking at instagram, lying on my bed wasting away hours, or sitting in front of the TV, I’d criticize myself on how I “used to be” so disciplined and how this is all a waste of time.
So after a few weeks of self-pitying, I wrote down this quote on my whiteboard:
“At the end of your feelings is nothing, but at the end of every principle is promise.”
So the “feeling” of not being good enough or as good as I was was useless/unproductive/wasteful. I had to simply rely on the principle of the practises and build myself back up slowly.
It’s funny how since the day we are born, we’re taught to listen to our parents, teachers, mentors, elders, etc. but never to ourselves. The “self” in self-confidence is given so little value that most of us grow up without having any idea on how to be our own advisor/mentor/friend. We’re taught to be self-critical so that people who are coaching us don’t have to! They tell us what to do, and if we don’t do it, we punish ourselves long before they get a chance to.
Then we slowly grow up and realize we’re all on our own when it comes to getting stuff done and taking responsibility. But now there’s no one to give us any directions or instructions. So what we’re left with, is the self-critical part, without any of the self-love part and we all know where that leads us down to.
How are you supposed to love yourself if you don’t even trust yourself to keep track of your health and wellness. How do you even get anything done when you never give yourself applause for a task done successfully while never lettting yourself off the hook for one small thing going wrong. How do I even beging to build discipline when I can feel it in my heart that I have no motivation.
Step 2: DO. TOUGH. SHIT.
So the obvious next step for me was to find out HOW? Just how people build this self-discipline and self-love? It was super easy for me when I was self-motivated but was that just a fluke? Do I now just wait for the motivation to surface again? What if it never comes back? All these thoughts had taken over my mind and I just had to stop, breathe, and collect some data and do some research.
I started researching how disciplined people remain that way 🤔 and what do they do to build it and found 2 simple points:
- Pain is relative to all of us.
- Incremental change is the way to go.
These two steps were mind numbingly obvious and revolutionary at the same time. The mantra was simple! You want to do things that seem hard to you? DO MORE OF IT!
The more “pain” you are used to, the more easy/normal it seems. It’s astonishing the things humans can get used to! We can endure weeks of hunger, months of isolation, years of trauma and come out stronger on the other side.
You want to build immutable discipline? Step outside your comfort zone, endure some pain, face your fears, listen to every cliche out there because it holds some truth!!! 🔥
Get used to being uncomfortable, and before you know it, you are extremely comfortable with whatever life throws at you!
I remembered how easy it was for me to take ice cold showers before my vacation, because I had been doing them for months by then. When I started last year, I couldn’t even breathe when cold water touched my body and I had to ease myself into it.
So as you do more tough shit, your self confidence gets this massive boost! When you set goals for yourself and meet them, it creates this feedback cycle of trust within you. People who consistently seem to do better at life are simply just making small promises to themselves and following through.
You want to see what crazy difference a small change can make? Promise yourself to workout every single day for 30 days and drink plenty of water and eat healthy and see the results at the end. Once you do something like that, going to the gym 4 days a week and eating a relatively healthy diet doesn’t seem all that hard, because guess what, you have done something much tougher!
Now you may not see any immediate benefits, and frankly may hate it the first few weeks. But if you truly believe in the principle of excercise and how it’s immensely beneficial for your mind and body, you’d aspire for that promise. You have to trade some short term comfort for long term benefits and once you do that a few times, instead of focusing on the short term pain, you start focusing on the long term gain.
How to start
Now maybe you’re wondering where to start for yourself! Our lives aren’t the same, perhaps neither our goals, nor our lifestyles even. What my suggestion would be, is to break the “pain” in smaller goals and achieve them no matter what, unless you’re in the hospital or are causing youself long term damage, you better get out of bed and do the work.
Most importantly, be kind to yourself if you fall off the wagon, AND celebrate small wins! Both sides of the spectrum are important and must be kept in mind.
Sample scenarios:
1. I want to wake up earlier
Alright, what’s your current wake up time? Do you wake up at 8? Start waking up at 7:30, do it for a few weeks, then slowly move it up to 7 and so on. But do it consistently, including the weekends!!! Missed a day? That’s OK! Did it for 20 days in a row, applaud yourself 🎊
2. I want to meditate daily
10 minutes is too high a goal, start with just 1 minute. 1 minute every.single.day! Before bed, when you wake up, right after you eat, whatever! You choose and stick to it. Meditated for straight 10 days? Great job! Missed 2 days because you were too tired, well try again tomorrow! 😴
3. I want to workout daily
Great! Broaden your definition of “workout” and just got at it daily. Walking is good enough if your muscles are sore, yoga is good if your legs are tired! Allocate a period of time and do nothing else but the planned activity.
Anything else on your mind? DM me on insta/fb or email me and let’s chat! I’m here to help YOU! 😄
Final words 🙏
First of all, thank you so so much for reading this article! I am full of gratitude and I thank you for being here.
We’re halfway through the year now! How’s your 2021 been? Hopefully better than 2020? What goals did you set for yourself?
How are you doing now? Let us know!!!
I’m going to try and be more active on the instagram page and try to post a blog once a month 💯 So stay tuned!
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