You have to pick a path of discipline. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. NOTHING.
Motivation is a feeling that comes and goes, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s there or not. Discipline is infinitely more important. So, no matter how you feel, get up and do what you’re supposed to do. That’s it. And that’s discipline. It’s not motivation. If you only did what you were supposed to do when you were motivated to do it, that’s leaving it to chance. But if you’re disciplined, you go do what you’re supposed to do. That’s the way it works.
And this thing that people do where they avoid discomfort, it sounds ridiculous, but that it just creates more discomfort. You don’t realize that in embracing discomfort and forcing yourself to do something very uncomfortable that you can control, like an ice bath, like a sauna, like a run, like a workout, you are eliminating another form of discomfort.
Look, when you’re a kid, you’re all potential. It’s chaotic potential. It can manifest itself in any number of ways. And maybe you don’t want to give that up. So, you’re like Peter Pan. You want to be a kid forever because you don’t want to give up the potential. And you look out in the world and all you see are captain hooks who’ve lost a hand, who are chased by death, because that’s the clock in the crocodile. It’s already got a taste of him. He’s terrified by death, and he’s a tyrant. Well, I don’t want to grow up to be that, so I won’t be disciplined at all. Well, that’s no good, because the way the potential transforms itself into actuality is through discipline.
Our minds are like a garage. And the garage, if you open a garage and it’s all cluttered up. You can’t put your car in there. You got boats and you got kids toys and shit everywhere. But if you organize that garage and you put everything in its rightful spot, you can pull that car in there, you can put two cars in there, you can put bikes in there. And that’s like with the mind. People talk about discipline and determination and repetitions and all this shit. Consistency. Why people fall off the wagon so often is because their mind is full of shit. There’s no room in that mind for discipline. There’s no room for consistency. They may do it once or twice, but then the mind takes over and that cluttered garage comes in and then it’s like a circuit breaker, man, a circuit breaker just overloads and sparks. And our minds, that’s our mind, man. It’s like a circuit breaker that has so much shit in it, you keep unloading it, you can’t put any more into it. Clearing space in your mind.
So then you have room for all those disciplines, waking up early, taking those because they do mean something. But we don’t get to that fucking dark matter that is keeping you from clearing out that mental garage.
Well, I don’t know what to do. It’s like, that’s okay, nobody does go do something. Do the best thing that you can think of. Put the best plan you have into practice. It’s not going to be perfect and it will change along the way. But it will change partly because you become disciplined pursuing the path. And as you become disciplined, you become wiser. And as you become wiser, you become able to formulate better and better plans.
There is no passion to be found playing small and settling for a life that’s less than the one you’re capable of living. I’m sure people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on. Make sure you got something to fall back on. But I never understood that concept, having something to fall back on. If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything. I want to fall forward. I figure at least this way I’ll see what I’m going to hit.