You’re really motivated to start a new self-fulfilling routine. In the past you’ve always found a way to stop yourself from working out.

Not this time.

Watching the new TED talk about the benefits of exercise completely reignited your motivation! You put in an alarm at 5am, and you tell yourself “I’m going to wake up 4 times a week at 5am, and go for a run!”.

It’s now 5am, the sun isn’t even up…and lo and behold, you actually do it! You go out for a run and sure, you get tired a bit too fast, but as long as you keep this going you’re stamina will skyrocket!

And you DO keep it up. For a while.

Then one day passes. Two days. And another. You just don’t have the time. You had to work on a project all night, you had to study for an exam, or you REALLY needed to binge watch Daredevil because all your friends have watched it except you!

Then your routine stops. Maybe you gain a bit of weight, then stumble upon another motivational video. Now you feel really motivated, and end up restarting your exercise routine…for the 7th time.

“But THIS time,” you tell yourself, “I got this!”. Right?

What happens when you are not disciplined enough to follow your own rules?

I’ve had countless days where I just didn’t want to drag myself out of bed to hit the weights. I would tell myself “How about we don’t go today? I’ve been so consistent all month…I’ll just take ONE day off!”. But I don’t.

That’s not because I’m super duper motivated. That’s because I have discipline.

Motivation is unreliable.

Discipline, however, is an unyielding force that cannot be reckoned with.

“I don’t feel like it” is not even an option. You will still have those thoughts, but if you are disciplined, you will not even consider not following on your intent.

Sparks of motivation here and there don’t inspire you to keep going. What they do is remind you WHY you’re doing what you’re doing. Being reminded about your “Why” isn’t correlated with actually putting the effort to take action on a consistent basis.

That’s discipline’s job.

Building discipline requires weeks and months of consistent effort. Once you have it, you won’t need to rely on motivation to keep going.

You can follow me @Marwanalshafei where I spark rainbows within people’s subconscious and make the world go round n’ round.