| In general: discipline ("I am going to do this") trumps motivation ("I want to do this"), because the latter is fleeting. Either you can make yourself do what's necessary or you can't. What you can reasonably focus on is: - making sure that you are motivated more often and don't need to rely just on discipline all the time
- looking for ways that you are more disciplined and can rely upon it when necessary
- if you find that you lack motivation altogether or have no discipline, look into whatever the cause for that might be
If you're sleeping badly, eating badly, or are dealing with any number of life challenges, either might be diminished and you should address those causes first. If that's not possible, just acknowledge that some things won't get done and don't constantly guilt trip yourself for it.Something like coffee, exercise (if not a habit) or a divide and conquer approach, or the pomodoro technique can all be temporary bandaids, but if there are underlying problems you might eventually still feel too bad to get things done. For example, I have enough motivation to do the things at work that are actually nice to deal with: writing my own code that's testable, well commented and reasonably simple, using new technologies and improving development processes in general. I have enough discipline to force myself to deal with the other aspects: particular mindsets held by certain individuals that can sometimes be an impediment to getting things done, dealing with code that isn't commented or user friendly, legacy codebases and so on. I acknowledge that some things will get done later: a growing list of ideas for personal projects, that I can't fit in my current life circumstances. |