Getting to great work: Why I’m giving up on Motivation

Motivation has been the gold standard throughout much of my life. How motivated I’ve felt to learn, pursue, experience, achieve, or explore something has usually been the measure of whether I follow through or not. 

Early on in my life that proved useful. It was Motivation that channeled my curiosity, it showed me the difference between something that turned my head and something that lit a fire within me. It was Motivation that kept me up into the early hours filling notebook after notebook; had me dashing from my day jobs to my voluntary work in libraries, schools, and community centres; and kept me reading and reading and reading all these years. The ebbs and flows in Motivation served as a guide on my pathless wanderings, providing me with something bright to follow when it arrived and flashing a red stop signal when it disappeared. Although Motivation can be a little fickle, it led me to today—or more accurately, to today’s me.

But like the gold standard, Motivation has become an outdated model. Today, I know what I’m fuelled by: bold ideas, great stories, and social progress—the real magic happens when all three converge. My focus has shifted from discovery and exploration to action and impact, and alas Motivation’s inconsistencies make it a poor guide on a path I can see. 

So I’m leaving my old guide behind, I’m giving up on Motivation. And in its place I’m putting my faith in its unfashionable cousin: Discipline.

Why Discipline? 

Because Discipline is the only path to consistently great work. 

Because Discipline demands I turn up everyday, chipping away at every task with the same intentionality and intensity.

Because Discipline helps me navigate the tough days, the days when my work is awkward, unsuccessful, or dull.

Because Discipline transforms everyday into an opportunity to deliver something meaningful or learn what doesn’t work.

Because bold ideas are built from the compost of hundreds of bad ideas.

Because great stories require time and craft to get right.

Because social progress isn’t linear and only happens when resilient, hope-filled people turn up again and again and again. 

And because Discipline is a gateway to Inspiration. For me, truly great work requires Inspiration. It needs that moment when it feels as if an idea has arrived from nowhere and from a million places all at once, where every aimless thought, terrible idea, and hour of research converges into a truth beyond facts, into something new and interesting and exciting. But without Discipline, Inspiration rarely arrives—and even when it does the effort of turning Inspiration into something real is too big a job for Motivation to handle on its own. 

That’s why it’s Discipline, with all its everyday intensities that I’m trusting as my guide. Because Motivation may have shown me where to go, but it’s Discipline that will carve the path ahead.