What makes you Productive?

 Motivation, willpower, and discipline are all key elements in our ability to get those things done that are necessary. These concepts help us reach our goals. We need to understand these concepts and adapt them to our everyday life to meet our definition of success. Whether you define grand and great goals or several quarterly goals, you won’t get them done without exhibiting these three traits.

Motivation

 You won’t produce or improve your productivity unless it motivates you to do so. Motivation is internal or external. External motivation could be a job where you work to get paid. Or it can be a relationship that comes with certain expectations for you to meet. Internal motivation comes from within. I want to publish two blogs per week (not there yet.), So, I need to write several articles per week, edit them, grammar check each, and finally publish them. You can see the link here between being motivated and being productive. Each day you succeed, it strengthens your motivation and makes it easier to produce.

 Another facet of motivation is Finding your Why, made popular by Simon Sinek. If you have a strong why or a strong purpose, then these are highly motivating. They help you get more done with less friction and struggle. These help you stay resilient when things go wrong as you pursue your goals.

Willpower

 Our inability to hold to our New Year’s Resolutions, complete our goals, and get the right things done is often caused by a lack of willpower. Willpower is the ability to control your own thoughts and how you behave. Willpower or self-control is that psychological phenomenon that can cause not eating right, not exercising regularly, and keeps us procrastinating. Lack of willpower contributes to the stress in our lives.

How many of you look back on your day and say I got nothing done? This thought unless you learn to control it raises your stress and anxiety. And you really mean I didn’t do the things I planned to do. For example, I set down 3-5 things I want to get done each day. Many days I don’t get what I planned to do done. To reduce my stress, I also keep track of what I got done. So, I may have done 3-5 other things that needed to do instead, so why beat myself up.

 Accept your cravings. This is the test that I most often fail at. But don’t act on them. This is self-control and willpower. Step back and analyze them and then choose whether to give in. Every time you resist, you strengthen your willpower.

Discipline

 Discipline is the ability to control yourself or other people, even in difficult situations. We achieve it through training. Teams, soldiers,  marching bands, and others train for endless hours so that they are disciplined and know what to do when a situation arises. Self-discipline creates habits that enable us to get things done. For example, writers write every day at the same time or the same number of words. Or you may have a journaling habit of starting your day writing whatever is in your mind. Doing a mind dump. Self-discipline is shown when you regularly reflect on what is going on so you can clarify your focus on what you need to do. If you get off track, this reflection and review get you back where you want to be.

All three: motivation, willpower, and discipline are similar and all relate to you and yourself. Are you going to plan what you want to do, take action, and reflect on the results so that you can become highly motivated, build a deep reservoir of willpower, and become self-disciplined?

Only you know the answer! But the journey is exceptional. Take action and produce the results you want. Build a balanced life around discipline, focus, reliability, consistency, and credibility.

“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes–understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”–Arianna Huffington.

“Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”–Socrates.