Nowadays my wisdom seems to come from Reddit. Now and then someone posts a comment that strikes a chord with me. In this case, the comment basically said to forget motivation and work on self-discipline instead. So I gave it a try. When my alarm went off in the mornings, I usually snoozed for about 30 minutes, which is ridiculous. I’ve once again given up on my Morning Pages due to the energy that I just don’t have, but I decided to “discipline” myself to snooze for just twenty minutes and do my morning meditation. It hasn’t always been easy. Yesterday, for example, I had been awake half the night with a migraine so my 30 minute snooze was too tempting to give up.
I find myself internally telling myself to “get up!”, sometimes in a harsh tone. Is that good or bad? I’m working on getting rid of the negativity of my thoughts but does shouting at myself to do something not hinder my progress? It seems to work, however, and I’d like to think I’m now motivated to get up especially now that I’m doing one of Headspace’s meditation packs, which is a 30-day course. I’m also meditating at night before I go to sleep. I know meditation is better sitting up (apparently) but I lie down for my nightly practices.
If I discipline myself enough, will it eventually turn into motivation? I believe that you can’t have one without the other, but I think self-discipline is a good starting point to achieving self-motivation, especially when you’re suffering from depression and energy is lacking.