Category: Discipline

You must do things you don’t feel like doing, all the time.

As a Father, business owner, and coach there are so many things I do not feel like doing. But I do them anyway.

You have to build up this muscle where you start moving, which begins to make you feel like doing more, and then before you know it the thing you didn’t want to do is almost done or completed.

Action precedes motivation, meaning discipline requires taking physical or mental steps before you actually “feel” like doing them. 

Here’s a core principle of discipline: 

Action precedes emotion: You do not need to wait for inspiration or a good mood to start a task; starting the action changes your brain chemistry and creates momentum.

For example,

1. Waking up. Some days you just don’t want to because you’re tired, you didn’t get enough sleep, or whatever. But you get up, walk to the bathroom, wash some cold water on your face and before you know it you feel a little more awake and you’ve got some momentum. 
2. I don’t feel like training my Basketball player or fitness clients. But same idea. I get to the gym and for some odd reason I begin to feel good, the training is moving, time is ticking and before I know it we had a great session.
3. I don’t feel like working out. I know the value of exercise after reading books like, “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain”.
4. Writing on my blog and my newsletter. Frankly, I didn’t feel like writing this post you’re reading. But I have a habit of writing everyday and I know the impact and value my experience can bring to you. And so, I begin to write one letter, then one word and before I know it, here I am almost complete with this post.
5. Doing my accounts receivables. I hate asking people for money but once I open up my Google Spreadsheets, getting into the flow of deep work, invoicing my clients, the boring work I had been avoiding is done.

TLDR: get moving. Just by taking the smallest action, you will begin momentum, and you’ll begin to feel like doing more.

Here’s the formula:

Action -> Feel -> Result. 

You can’t always rely on feeling good because as humans our emotions and how we feel go up and down. But what we can rely on is taking action, whether we feel like it or not, which is the first trigger to the domino effect to completing any task.