Are you lacking discipline or motivation to learn English? Part 1

Where does our self-discipline come from? Why can some people operate in a way that allows them to accomplish anything, while others can hardly maintain their existence? How can we change the negative feeling of discipline into the positive feeling of motivation?

I was thinking about the difference between self-discipline and motivation. The word discipline, in general, has a negative sound to it. It is a word that makes you feel like you have to do something even though you do not want to.  Whether it is the type of discipline you receive for bad behaviour from someone else (example: being disciplined as a child from a parent). Or self-discipline which creates negative feeling about yourself when you do not complete a task you have decided to do. Therefore, you are disciplining yourself.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
‒Nelson Mandela

The type of discipline I am speaking about in this article is self-discipline. We praise ourselves when we have self-disciple because it means you have the ability do something, even if you don’t want to do it. Discipline is also known as will-power. Everyone has a different amount of will-power within themselves and the amount of will-power within a person changes from day-to-day. It is also different from one person to the next.

I would like you to think about your will-power as a bank account. Your will-power (or discipline) will run out each day if you are not careful how you use it. Everyday activities are taking withdrawals from you will-power account, or in other words, taking away from the amount of will-power you have left for the day. Going to work, taking care of kids, doing some exercise, eating healthy and learning a second language are great examples that typically require discipline and will power.

Where does motivation come from? How is it different than will-power or discipline? Unlike discipline, the word motivation has a positive energy. Motivation comes an idea to improve something. Motivation also creates action. When you take action towards a goal, you will have results, which can create more motivation.

Motivation starts with a great idea. One that is really going to help you to improve you life in some way. The motivation comes when you decide to take action on this great idea. At the beginning, you will see progress and some results. The idea is new, interesting and exciting, so you naturally have a high level of motivation to do the activity every day.

But then… something becomes difficult or it is not as interesting anymore and the natural motivation dies.

This is the point in time where you need to decide: Am I going to use my will-power every day until this goal is complete? Or am I going to figure out how to stay motivated? When you are motivated about an activity, you do not need to withdrawal or deduct from your will-power account to complete that activity.

Find the second part of this article by clicking here. This is part one of a four part series. Follow this blog to receive updates when I post a new article! Thanks for reading :)

-Amy