Motivation, Discipline, & Flow

[ItzKey]

I think it's safe to say a lot of us want motivation!   

It's fickle and not easy to come up with, but it's the most powerful thing we have to make us work on what we love. It came to me the other day that maybe that's not the only tool we have in our arsenal to help us work. Often the hardest working people talk about discipline; the will to work when there is no motivation to fuel the tank. I think we should have that. It's the proof in our will that we want to create things without always feeling 100% that we want to. It's a robust and effective way to keep you going. Not to mention the under spoken Flow-State that allows us to lean into our work with no other thoughts than what is in front of us. Working together, these tool can be the difference between a passive hobby and the powerhouse of love for our work!

For motivation, with the bloated social media we use on the daily, I think we're used to being overwhelmed by the absolute absurd number of people we follow/algorithms that show us make such awesome things. We might say looking at all of that would maybe help spark our inspiration and motivation, but I think it does more harm than good. I say maybe we should pick out a few handful of people we enjoy the most, and only look at their things. Make a game out of it! See what you can break down from their art without the guide of a video! Breaking down what we see as masterful work to something we as an individual can understand, in my opinion, makes motivation come so much more easily. When something that looks complex becomes something we can pull apart and understand makes the brain happy. It likes puzzles! 

Something I don't hear very often, if at all, is flow or Flow-State. That allows us to lose ourself in the thing we're doing, even when it doesn't feel like what we want to be doing. We can often see ourselves doing this at our jobs, where you want to do the job but want that time to pass us by. It's one way to use flow, but it's better form is when we do things we love if we feel like is discouraging us. Music, videos playing in the background, etc allows us to enter it more easily. I think it's one of the MOST under utilized, and under appreciated skills we have as creatives. 

And, ofc, Discipline. I could safely say some of us flitch or recoil at that word. We think of hard work, deadlines, and the like. It's almost antithetical to the free thinking we have when working on our hobbies. I'm here to tell you it's not all that complicated or tough! Discipline's use is multifarious, and isn't just the "Drop and give me 50" mentality we've come to think of. It's about making the effort! As an artist, you could use sketching in a book every day as discipline! No goals, no real overbearing purpose, but drawing for the sake of it. It trains you to work faster or slower, to give more thought to each line you put down, or to just simply loosen up our mind and muscles! It can go as far or as short as you need it, and you can always build more on top of it!

Maybe the search we creatives are looking for is more of a balance instead of our next 'hit' of motivation. Using sketching (or the basis of practicing to see what you come up with on the fly) to build discipline, a narrow field of artists that we love the most for motivation, and using flow-states to push us through the tough gymnastics our brains do when working. Then the motivation comes easier when we are so engrossed in our work instead of a step back away from our it due to fear of mistakes, skill, and the dreaded "Blank Page". 

But I'd like to hear your thoughts! What do you think about motivation, discipline, and Flow? What's your way to get yourself to work on what you love more? 

[ItzKey]

Forgot to talk about goals!   Keep an eye out for a new post talking about them! 

[Rosaria Delacroix]

Flow has always been an interesting one- there are many self help circles that will talk until the cows come home about the difference between motivation and discipline: but flow seems to be something of a more slippery subject.

For me, flow has always been something I've associated with my neurodivergence: I can pretty much instantly enter flow state if it's even tangentially related to a special interest of mine. This has been incredibly useful when it comes to my academic life: as being able to knit elements of my special interests into the discussion section of scientific papers and general essays has proven a major boon. It tends to generate what seems like 'fanciful leaps of logic' for other people, but connects naturally to me. It has its rare more practical applications, as well- my special interest in hematological disorders led to my saving my older brother's hearing from an unexpected drug side effect: something that his doctors very nearly missed, and frantically called him back on to get down to the local pharmacy ASAP.

Flow is also something that I can tap into while busying myself with one of my hobbies: stuff that involves my hands and a certain emptiness of thought, like embroidery or painting with traditional supplies (I hate working with watercolour, and prefer acrylics- I've dabbled in oils, and found them not really to my taste, though can be fun to combine with acrylics) are easiest.

It also clicks naturally with writing, for me- I don't really struggle with writer's block for reasons unrelated to my health. That is to say, as long as my mental and physical health are marginally in order, then writing comes as naturally as breathing, for me: I'm prone to rambling in conversations, but also fill out dozens of notebooks with diary entries, or countless documents and instantly tap out hundreds of words for PBP TTRPG replies.

I don't really have to "think" about what I want to write- it's more akin to being a conduit for language, and I let the words take me where they will. Of course, my mental and physical health are, at any point in time, determined to blow up in catastrophic, and novel combinations: that's just part of being disabled. But, writing in of itself, is never the problem: its always something that occupies that strange flow state people talk about so esoterically in some spaces.

Motivation is difficult. It is the skill I have the least of- in large part, because anhedonia seeps all the colour out of my life, destroys the circuitry meant to build habits and encourage repetitions of behaviour. I can't rely on motivation. Trying to do so leaves me in scenarios like: putting off watching a TV show for a literal decade, even though I knew logically I would enjoy it, that I do enjoy it, having finally begun to watch it, all these years later- because I lacked any sense of motivation or desire to drive me to do so. I can't rely on the fickleness of feeling to get anything done: I have to schedule it, show up even when I am utterly apathetic to everything and depression has rendered life a dull obligation. Motivation won't bring about joy- I have to show up, even when I'm entirely unmotivated to. I need to work hard for it, and swallow down bitterness about how easily it comes to others working with a functioning brain and body.

Therefore, discipline is a familiar bedfellow- and one that is a double edged sword. On one hand, it is one of the few methods I have to grapple and push through the obstacles thrown up in my life: but it can lead to immense burnout. Academic burnout is no fun. It's taken me the better part of a year and a half to even begin to overcome it- most of which was spent on bedrest. It's a real deal with the devil.

Discipline is the grim, dour face of pushing through and getting things done: even when you're in agony, even when you want to lie down and give up entirely on existing. Discipline is building strict routines, habits that I anchor the rest of my life around- researching and trialling and implementing organizational methods like bullet journalling, the Eisenhower matrix, the Alistair method, Getting Things Done, Atomic Habits- the exhausting work of building a life that works for me, rather than listlessly being dragged along by the current.

Discipline is what drove me to, as one therapist put it, 'DIY exposure therapy for your severe PTSD,' even if every atom of my body was screaming that I needed to get out of that scenario immediately, and the only thing keeping me in the situation was a white knuckled grip on the bus pole, because I knew that I wanted something (an education) desperately enough to endure flashbacks for it (I needed to be able to at least get onto a vehicle without having to be physically manhandled into it kicking and screaming.)

Discipline is something that I often become incredibly bitter towards- because it allows me to do what I need to do, at a terrible cost. Discipline is being the one to force myself to hold myself to account: because no one else is going to- because no one else is going to help you, because no one else is going to come save you. Discipline is what drove me to finish out an academic year, write exams while delirious with fever, pushed me through the final stretch of classes through a bout of pneumonia so severe it demanded hospitalization 'a week ago, at least,' according to the horrified doctor I was finally taken to see: after crumpling into a sweaty heap in my teacher's arms in the hallway from blacking out, blood having just poured out of my facial orifices from my lungs being permanently scarred by sludging into so much blood and goop.

Discipline is what forced me to make it up those three flights of stairs for university laboratory sessions even when I was limping on hemorrhages in my joints, unable to stand upright because bearing my own weight was excruciating: what made me pop down just enough painkillers to dull my chronic and acute pain intermingled enough to stop my hands from violently shaking: to crunch the math of how many I could take before hepatotoxicity would enter the picture, even while so nauseous with pain my vision was going funny.

Discipline is a keen ruthlessness, for me. It is the abject refusal to lay down and give in and give up: and it comes at a terrible cost.

Discipline is something I have to consciously temper with a reminder that my body has its limitations, and as paltry as it feels to work within them: if I do not schedule bodily maintenance, my body will go ahead and schedule it for me by collapsing into a broken heap of not-good-for-very-much-at-all. Discipline is mistaken for having an 'iron will,' or 'resiliency' or 'grit' in sessions, often, but it is something that I wish, frankly: I never had to become so acquainted with. It's something I pick up with unwilling hands, because needs must: but I wish that I didn't have to.

I like flow. I wish motivation was more familiar. I resent discipline, but lean into and on it the most. They're all things I think most people would benefit from really thoroughly exploring and figuring out how they fit into their own lives.

[ItzKey]

Flow has always been an interesting one- there are many self help circles that will talk until the cows come home about the difference between motivation and discipline: but flow seems to be something of a more slippery subject.
...
I like flow. I wish motivation was more familiar. I resent discipline, but lean into and on it the most. They're all things I think most people would benefit from really thoroughly exploring and figuring out how they fit into their own lives.

@Rosaria Delacroix
Yeowch- I'm sorry to hear that you've had to push through so much, but I'm happy you were able to do so and made it to the other side! To hear that despite all the costs you've paid, and the pain you've endured, I'm glad that you're still here raging against the dying of the light with us. I know how it is to pick up a mental state that you have to use to seemingly function how you need to at the cost at what certainly is not worth its price.

Burnout, sacrifice, and self care are certainly topics needing to be explored more when it comes to balancing things in ones life. We with neurodivergent minds especially. Disciple is the real life double-edged power as you've said, and really is a deal with your own devil. Even with all the preparation and care to minimize certain costs, it still hits us harder than we should deserve.

[Patho5002]

Well I think motivation and disipline are both important tools to achive something we want to achive. I agree tha oftentimes social media with it algorithms hinder us from doing what we want to do. I think that it is often more conviniend for many people than doing a hobby instead