“Motivation is fleeting, discipline is permanent”.
“Winners act regardless of how they feel”.
“Motivation gets you started, discipline keeps you going”.
These are some of the common things you’ll hear from self-help and all those motivational speakers.
They say ignore your impulses, they say just do it, rationality over emotions, never quit…
People who say these things completely miss a fundamental reality of human nature and behavior.
Emotion is everything
When you think about it, emotions are the core of what drives us to do everything we do.
And of course I’m not just talking about “shallow” short-term impulsive desires.
Emotions go way beyond that.
When we talk about goals, values, happiness, purpose, well-being…
All these things lead back to emotion — the reason why you would desire one state of life over others is because of you feel about that state of being.
It all goes back to your feelings.
Desire always comes first before action.
What of those times when you feel like you’ve made yourself do something you didn’t want to do?
Even in those scenarios, you didn’t really “overcome” your desire.
What really happened is that you had multiple competing desires — and only one of them won out in the end to be actualized into reality as you taking an action.
There is always a desire behind everything you do.
When you go the gym instead of slacking off at home?
It’s the desire for a stronger, healthier, more beautiful body vs the desire to avoid the discomfort of preparing and making the journey and the pain of exercise.
When you drag yourself out of bed?
The desire for sleep and relaxation vs the desire to avoid the consequences of being late for something (like work/school) — or the desire to get the day start and do everything you want to do.
It all goes back to desire.
You can’t make yourself do what you don’t actually want to do.
You can’t make yourself do what you don’t actually want to do.
It might sound obvious but when people give advice like “act regardless of how you feel” they ignore this fundamental fact.
And then you start beating yourself up when you constantly procrastinate and fail to move closer to any of your goals.
Instead of trying to fight your desires, work with them. You can’t win against your desires — no matter how hard you try.
But you can “manipulate” them to work in your favor. That’s why emotional mastery is a such huge part of growing as a Humanist.
“Manipulate” in what way?
Manipulate by using mindset hacks, psychological principles, and deep motivation to redirect and align your short-term desires of impulse with your long-term desires of success and greatness.
They are all desires from emotion, but emotional power lets you make one desire win out over the other.
mindset hacks, psychological principles, and deep motivation…
What do I mean by this?
For example we have the atomization principle.
This drastically improves your chances of doing something — by either breaking it down into sub-tasks or starting small.
Ridiculously small.
You can’t do twenty push-ups?
What about ten?
Five? One?
You can’t get started writing that article? That book?
One paragraph.
Still can’t do it?
One sentence.
One word, one letter…
Or literally just sitting on the chair to start.
This principle destroys the inertia of starting and makes it more likely for this higher desire to win over the other impulsive desires in your head.
And finally translate into real-world action.
This is just of the several tools a person with high emotional power/intelligence has in their arsenal.
Don’t try to whip yourself into submission. Instead, grow emotionally by acknowledging the reality of emotion and desire, and learning the principles for controlling them.