Roy Tang

Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.

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Motivation vs Discipline

Motivation is a fickle mistress. It comes and it goes. It’s easily distracted. It can vanish in a blink of an eye. When it’s there, it’s great, but when it’s not you don’t get anything done and you don’t feel terrible. Motivation is based on the principle that you need a certain emotion or state of mind to get things done. Motivation is burst damage, you can get a lot done but you don’t know when it’s gonna come out.

Discipline is a harsh mistress. Discipline means doing things no matter what. It means you do what you need to do even if you’re uninspired, or tired, or exhausted. It means you gather all the mental blocks and the excuses and the urge to go do something else, and you power through all of these and do what you needed to do in spite of all of these. Discipline means that your goals are independent of emotional whims, that they need to get done no matter how you’re feeling. Discipline is DPS, it’s constant work that can get boring, but it will surely get the job done.

… I need more discipline.

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