My dance class started again after not being allowed studio time due to the COVID pandemic and all the ins and outs of lockdown. Last week I was a little early and my dance teacher who is beautiful and dynamic and also married to a professional dancer commented on how hard she finds it to motivate herself in these strange times. I was quite surprised, because she is the perfect picture of drive and motivation.
This reminded me of a quote that was on the breakroom wall at one of my student jobs: “You will not always be motivated, so you must learn to be disciplined.”
The conversation was picked up by one of the other dancers who arrived and turned to how you should be disciplined in the most basic things in your day and this got me thinking of my own life. She used the example of something simple like, picking something up that had fallen beside the wastepaper basket immediately vs. leaving it there for later defines how disciplined you are. Little things like making the bed, sticking to a routine, getting up early…
I did the silent tally in my head. There are things that I struggle with that others have just made a part of their day. Something stupid like cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. I tend to stack the dishwasher and then leave the pots and pans that cannot go in there for… I don’t know… the fairies. And EVERY morning I am angry that I did not just take the time to clean it up. One would think that by your mid-thirties you would have started doing grown-up things. But no, every morning I have this fight with myself as I pack lunchboxes. At least I make the bed.
When I was diagnosed with depression and the associated anxiety, this was a lesson that my psychologist also wanted to teach me… but it did not root at the time. Looking back all the little changes that I started with to just cope were there to teach me discipline. Because the motivation at the time was just to keep the tiny Lilliputians alive.
When the prodding continued and we figured out that there were vestibular issues associated with my hearing loss, which obviously contributed to the anxiety, I had to go through rehab to literally get my balance back. Simple little things were not simple at the time and with despondence came disappointment and the motivation flew out the window. So I had to find some discipline to keep at it.
I have written a lot about routine and planning and how important those things are to me. And I realised that sticking to anything takes discipline.
The first step for me is therefore deciding what I want to achieve and formulate a plan. Together with that plan things need to be in place to help me stick to it. Some days are easier than others, on some days I get up feeling like I am going to conquer the world and then the discipline is not really needed and on other days I wake up feeling like I want to hide out somewhere and on those days, I just need a simple recipe to go through the motions. Thigs need to happen and I need to do them.
What is true is that I tend to stick to the things that I enjoy. So I stick to my bullet journaling and my morning pages and the planning, because I enjoy it. I stick to the running because I like how it makes me feel. I stick to the story at night for the Lilliputians because I love reading with them. But those damn dishes!
So perhaps I should figure out what the things are that I enjoy within the stuff that sometimes feels like work. Perhaps that will help me keep the momentum. I also need to consider that I may be avoiding something because I think that it is such an effort and then when I finally do it, it takes me 10 minutes.
And sure, I will also celebrate the things that I do manage to do and tick off the list. I will acknowledge tomorrow morning, for example, that even though I did not wash the pan, I at least made the bed.