A good part of motivation comes from the people you involuntarily affect.  Those lives you change just from the simple things you’ve done to grow yourself.  What you consider small can be huge to others.  Simple random acts of kindness or support can mean the world to those who are lost and have no discipline.  Even when you believe that was not my intention, it serves the same.  Your strength becomes the flickering light for others.  Your small gains in discipline become small motivators for you, but they are more than that to people around you.  Knowing that you are influencing others is not your goal; that is a separate motivator, one that should keep you humble rather than prideful.

Your main focus should be on adding value to your lives.   Do you know how you should perceive your growth?  You add value to your knowledge and strengths each day as you look to increase who you are by the smallest of steps.  Small steps are more easily remembered than large strides.  We can correct our steps more easily when we take small steps to our goal.  We always have to backtrack when our steps are larger than our memory can hold.

Why add value to yourself:  Become stronger so you can protect.  Become healthier so you can inspire.  Become wiser so you can teach.  Become kinder so you can encourage.
Success becomes far more satisfying when other people rise because you chose to improve yourself first.

On your path to creating the disciplined life, you need to succeed.  The values of succeeding create a purpose-driven life.  You should create a purpose for your future days.  Each day, even before you wake up, know a purpose.  So that when you get up in the morning, your purpose allows you to set goals for the day, with your purpose already in mind.  Real motivation comes from purpose.

When your goals matter, getting out of bed becomes easier.  When your day has meaning, obstacles become faceable challenges rather than reasons to avoid or make excuses.  A meaningful and purpose-driven life is what we all strive for, not a life filled with fear of challenges or the anxieties that precede hard work.
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When you're improving yourself, your purpose for working out shifts from a social event to a time to improve your health, so that tomorrow doesn’t become a struggle of getting out of bed.  Even the simplest movements in our lives can become a struggle if we don’t take precautions to change the path of aging.  People who live with purpose rarely need someone else to push them.

Can you, or have you, spent years working hard and never asked yourself one important question: "Am I building the life I truly want?"

Don't confuse being busy with making progress. Your discipline should serve your values, not someone else's agenda.  Someone else may have a good answer to a problem and tell you about the solution before you have even earned the right to problem-solve this or any future challenges.  You are the one who must fall before you learn valuable lessons on not touching the hot fire.  Trust the process and the value of the gift of learning.  What works for one person doesn’t mean the solution works for others.

Physically train because you value your health; study because you value growth; practice because you value excellence, and accept failure because you value answers.

​Your discipline should build your future—not simply maintain someone else's.

When you think of discipline, you think of the ability to control every aspect of you.  The things you say and do, the things you allow in and out.  Control is the very first and sometimes the hardest aspect to manage.  Every disciplined decision you make is a vote for the very person you want to become.  You won’t be able to go from having no control over yourself to all of a sudden having full control.  That is overwhelming.
Start small with a decision that you have to face every day.  It's in those decisions you face every day that you will know you can evaluate and make a decision that is consistent and rewarding every day.  What time do I get up? How do I charge my attitude for the day?  Then grow from 1 decision to 3, then to 5, and know that you are capable of making all your own decisions because now you are basing them on discipline.  You control yourself, and that takes discipline.

Don’t add to your need for self-discipline to control others.  Now you are extending your need for self-discipline beyond what you are responsible for.  Self-discipline should not be used to manipulate others.

When you choose to work on excuses, you are taking control.  When you choose not to scroll on your phone, you’re taking control.  When you choose to add a workout several times a week, you’re taking control of your health instead of letting excuses take control, and the fewer circumstances there are in your life, the more control or discipline you have.

Discipline gives you control. Motivation gives that control a direction. Together, they build a life that belongs to you instead of being directed by someone else's expectations.

Everyone says they want motivation, but very few people are willing to build discipline first. Motivation is very emotional—it rises and falls. Discipline is dependable. It shows up on the days you don't feel like training, running, doing pushups, studying, working, or improving. Discipline manages the emotional highs and lows that follow motivation. Discipline tells you when you're down to get back up and move.

We can spend a lot of time on motivational speakers, well-written books that have the answers and can tell you the ten or twelve steps to success. Just follow what they say, and you are on the path to their success. This is where discipline shows you control. Without your own control, you can’t call it self-discipline; you call it others' discipline.

Maybe there are directions and advice that will give you a start in the disciplined path. If you believe what experts say, then try it but don’t buy it, at least not at first. Pick and choose what you think will push you, teach you, and grow you, and not in an easy way. Growth that has value comes from struggles before adapting your will to succeed. That’s the disciplined part of learning and growing. This type of success will motivate you to do more.

If you rely on motivation, you'll be inconsistent. If you rely on discipline, motivation eventually catches up because success has a way of creating excitement.

Discipline gives you control. Motivation gives that control a direction. Together, they build a life that belongs to you rather than being directed by external influences.

Most people spend their lives waiting to feel motivated before they take action. They wait for the perfect mood, the perfect opportunity, or the perfect moment. Unfortunately, those moments rarely arrive. The people who accomplish extraordinary things don't wait for motivation—they build discipline first.  Discipline creates consistency.  Consistency creates confidence.  Confidence creates motivation.  Once you understand that sequence, you stop depending on emotions and begin depending on yourself.

Discipline is only the beginning.  It gives you control over your choices, your habits, and your direction.  Motivation is what takes that disciplined life and points it toward something meaningful. When you combine the two, you stop living according to someone else's expectations and begin building a life that reflects your own values, goals, and purpose.
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Day 1: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Discipline Before Motivation
Day 2: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Control Is Your First Step
Day 3: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Stop Building Someone Else’s Dream
Day 4: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Purpose Creates Powerful Motivation
Day 5: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Add Value Every Day
Day 6: Self-Disciplined Motivation – Keep Climbing

Summary
Your life will never consistently rise above the standards you set for yourself.  Self-discipline establishes those standards, and self-disciplined motivation gives them life.  Together they allow you to choose your own direction instead of drifting wherever circumstances—or other people—push you.  Are you driven by your own purpose or are you driven aimlessly by someone else’s?
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Every day you wake up with two choices: wait for motivation or create it through disciplined action.  The first leaves your future in someone else's hands.  The second places it firmly in your own.  Begin challenging yourself to become the kind of person who doesn't need to be reminded to improve, encouraged to work hard, or convinced to chase excellence.  Build the habits that create the motivation, and let that motivation become the force that lifts everyone around you.  Your influence affects others in ways you don't expect, but they feel.  Your greatest accomplishments won't come from waiting—they'll come from becoming the person who leads yourself first.