Inspiration vs. Motivation vs. Discipline: What Really Drives Success with Michael Henri

0:01 Hey there, and welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. My name is Michael Henry and I'm your host, and today we're going to dive into three powerful forces that shape our success in growth. That is motivation, inspiration, and discipline. So we often think of motivation as the key to taking action, but what happens when that motivation fades away? And inspiration can feel like a spark that inspire us, inspires us, but is it enough to actually sustain some sort of long term progress?

0:35 And then there's discipline, the thing that we know we need but often resist. So in this episode, we're going to break down the differences between these three forces, explore how they interact, and uncover the science behind how we can cultivate them for lasting change.

1:09 This episode has been inspired by just my recent juggle with, call it a New Year's resolution or a focus for the year, my Drifty of the year, which is to ultimately improve my sleep. So my sleep was something that I wanted to get better at from 2024. And I was like, you know what, 2025, I'm just going to focus on that.

1:31 So what does that actually mean? Well, I basically kind of reversed engineered it and it's like, well, what's the, what are the best practices to help me with my sleep? So obviously going to bed at a reasonable time, waking up at a reasonable time. So I'm getting approximately that, you know, 8 hours or so of sleep.

1:50 But more importantly, it's like, what am I doing during the day to help me actually sleep? So some of those things, for example, have been to not eat so late, as in no more snacking late at night and trying to eat my last meal of the day or my dinner before 7:00 PM or ideally before 6:00 PM.

2:08 So that when I go to bed at 9:00 or 9:30 or 10:00, then I've basically fully digested the food that I consumed earlier. And the energy that is in my body is not going to be used for digestion when I'm sleeping. Instead, it's going to be used to actually help my body recover and help my brain recover.

2:27 So that's one of the main ones. And the other elements that I was focusing on or have been focusing on is to reduce or minimize the amount of sweets that I consume to ultimately kind of not dysregulate my hormones. So that my hormones, which is going to be also going to contribute to my sleeping patterns, are going to be better. And then what's the other one?

2:49 Oh, the other one was exercise. Of course, last but not least, exercise obviously being a very great way to help release some of those endorphins and those hormones and kind of allow your body to just basically find its equilibrium and its balance.

3:04 So maintaining a steady, active week, let's say four or five times a week, doing some sort of movement practice was my goal. Now, ultimately, all of this is just related back to discipline, and that's kind of why I inspired this or this inspired this podcast because it's about two months into 2025 and I've done a pretty decent job with this focus.

3:28 But I've noticed that I've had gaps in moments of discipline that's have fallen through, moments where I haven't felt quite motivated, and other moments where I just didn't have any inspiration to actually take action. And that's why discussing or talking about these three elements together, I'm hoping to not only speak to myself and my subconscious, but also to help speak to you so that we can kind of cultivate a better understanding of both motivation, inspiration, and discipline.

3:55 So like always, let's kind of actually break these down in the definition perspective of what they actually mean. So motivation is the drive to act. So motivation is the emotional drive to pursue a goal. And it comes in two forms. One of them is intrinsic motivation and the other one is external or extrinsic motivation. So intrinsic motivation is your internal motivation, your internal passion, your curiosity, and your joy for that action.

4:28 Versus external or extrinsic motivation is focusing on external rewards, external validation, or possibly deadlines that usually come from the outside. So motivation is often fueled by dopamine, the brains reward chemical. However, dopamine spikes are temporarily and making motivation ultimately unreliable as a long term focus. So there's a quote here by John C Maxwell that motivation gets you going, but discipline is what keeps you growing. And now when we look at

5:04 inspiration, so inspiration is more of the spark of a possibility and it is the emotion or the intellectual, intellectual trigger that makes us want to take action. It's what makes us dream bigger and see possibilities. So inspiration actually activates part of your prefrontal cortex and this is the part of your brain that stimulates creative thinking, problem solving, and so on.

5:28 I would consider it part of your logical part of your brain or your newer resourceful part of your brain, and as opposed to like the limbic, reptilian part of your brain. However, this doesn't always actually lead to taking action.

5:44 When we become inspired, unless it's actually combined with motivation and discipline, nothing actually happens. We might feel a spark and see a possibility, but standing alone, nothing happens. So for example, if you, you know, go to a yoga teacher's class or you go to a yoga, you go to a yoga class and the yoga teacher who's teaching the class just inspires you. The way that they teach, the way that they cue maybe some of the things that they share.

6:11 They just touched you in a way that made you feel inspired to possibly teach yoga or share something yoga related or possibly something else related in life, maybe talking to someone in a relationship or something like that.

6:24 You felt the spark, it hit you. But seeing that incredible teacher and what they did for you, while it may have inspired you, won't by itself actually allow you to take action or allow you to practice consistency with that action.

6:41 Ultimately, discipline is the backbone of that consistency. So the definition of discipline is taking action regardless of how you feel. So I'll say that again, discipline is taking action regardless of how you feel, which this one is. This is tricky.

7:00 You know, I can relate a lot to sometimes I just don't feel like it. So when I don't feel like it, I don't always do it. Especially someone like myself who's really focusing on intuition and like, you know, listening to my body and these types of things, you know, it's, it's confusing sometimes. Like how do I know that the way that I'm feeling? Is it my intuition or is it something else that's actually limiting me?

7:26 You know, maybe it's some sort of unconscious or subconscious limiting belief or limiting thought or reference point that's actually stopping me from taking action when action is actually the best thing for me. So I completely understand the struggle if you can relate to this conundrum.

7:44 That being said, discipline or consistency is the key to long term success. When we can actually cultivate that discipline practice, that's what actually strengthens our prefrontal cortex. It's what makes it easier to override that impulsive decisions or that impulsive reactive part of our, let's say limbic system that let's say emotional side of our, our brain.

8:10 So regardless of how you feel, if we can override that by using more of a logical part of our resources, that prefrontal cortex over time, that discipline will ultimately build habits and reduces the reliance on motivation alone to actually continue moving forward and taking that action.

8:30 So there's a, there's a quote here by James Clear that I have from the book Atomic Habits, if you've read it. Otherwise, he says we do not rise to the level of our motivation, we fall to the level of our discipline. So motivation is like the wind, It can push you forward, but it's unpredictable. And inspiration is like a match.

8:53 It can ignite something within you, but it might actually not go further than that. Discipline, however, that's the steady fire that keeps you burning even when the wind dies down. So now thinking about the relationship between motivation, inspiration, there's something that has come up many times in, let's say a few people that I, I know related to only taking action when they feel inspired, where it's like, oh, I'm not feeling inspired about that or

9:24 that doesn't really inspire me. And using that kind of language and that kind of, let's say foundation for action is extremely limiting. Basically, if you're waiting for inspiration to strike before taking action, this is what we would call a passive approach to progress where growth is dictated by unpredictable bursts of inspiration.

9:47 Cause inspiration comes and goes, and sometimes it might only come once a month or once like every couple months, maybe once a week. Which means if we're waiting for those irregular moments or infrequent moments for motivation or action to be taken, then you know not a lot's going to happen. So you can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it.

10:12 So validating this perspective, while I completely understand that it's natural to want to take action when you feel inspired, but inspiration is what creates excitement and energy around a possibility. But what you can do instead is if you don't rely on the inspiration and you actually just recognize that taking action or finding that intrinsic motivation to take the first step, even though you're not inspired, you might find that inspiration, that spark might

10:42 actually click for you somewhere along the way. So some of the most creative breakthroughs have come from moments of inspiration. But sometimes that inspiration doesn't always happen before the action. I would say often times it happens after the action, after the motivation of actually taking the first step and moving through it. For example, an artist may feel most productive when inspiration hits them and they're like, I'm going to paint this piece. But if they only paint when

11:12 they're inspired, they might not actually develop any consistency in their craft. They might not actually grow, and they might not actually go to the place that they want to go to or the level that they want to go to. So why relying on this inspiration is very limiting is because it's just so unreliable and it comes and goes like a passing storm. So if you only act when we're inspired, progress is going to be always inconsistent.

11:38 And ultimately, from a science or a chemical perspective, waiting for inspiration leads to this dopamine dependency, meaning that action becomes linked to excitement rather than the actual habit building itself. So moving beyond inspiration and into the action, we can basically reframe action as a precursor to inspiration.

12:01 Instead of waiting for inspiration to act, we start acting to generate inspiration. Like I said with the example, so action isn't just the effect of motivation, but also the cause of it. The action isn't just the effect of motivation, it's the cause of it.

12:19 So, quick little thing that I have here is a 5 minute rule. You can commit to working on something for just 5 minutes or longer, possibly even if you're uninspired. And most of the time you'll naturally gain some sort of momentum or some sort of intrinsic motivation once you've started, possibly even triggering some sort of inspiration or spark of possibility starting with 5 minutes, maybe 10 minutes, depending on your, your level of capacity. But ultimately the idea is to

12:51 just get started and just to stick with it for a little bit of time and see what happens. A lot of things can change when we start to take action. Energy shifts. Our brain starts to move in ways that, or I should say that things start to happen in our brain in such a way that an energy shifts within our being and, and inspiration could be created or motivation starts to develop or this momentum starts to go and all of a sudden you're in this flow state or some sort

13:19 of float inspirational moment. So the brain's zigernic effect, don't worry about the spelling on that one, but the zigernic effect creates mental tension when we leave tasks unfinished, making us more likely to continue once we start.

13:38 So if you actually start, you're going to actually be almost like tricking or hacking your brain to be like, OK, well, I've already started this. Like I'll just keep going, I'll keep trying at it. But if we never actually start and we're waiting for that inspiring moment, it's just going to who knows? Who knows when we're actually going to get onto the starting line.

13:56 So turning this inspiration into a system. So instead of waiting for that inspiration, set structured time for creativity, movement or learning. So from a yogic insight abiasa, consistent practice leads to breakthroughs. So true mastery comes from daily effort and not occasional inspiration.

14:16 So create an environment that fuels inspiration. Possibly where are ways that you can kind of, you know, cultivate inspiration, possibly by, you know, your environment and shifting things around or the places that you go or the decisions that you make and maybe the people that you hang out with to find some of that inspiration to fuel you before that first action. But at the end of the day, not actually relying on it is the best way to go and just

14:42 recognizing that taking action is the best thing to do. So why motivation fades when we actually start, let's just say, or when we, we, we begin something and we're kind of no longer feeling motivated and the role of this emotional cycle that actually happens within us. And this relates back to this dopamine trap. So motivation is tied to this instant gratification, which unfortunately we're all full of it. Instant gratification, instant results, instant feedback, all this stuff is something that we,

15:16 we, we're almost like a slave to now. So we get dopamine hits when we start, but when results take time, motivation drops. And this is ultimately been cultivated through so many of the elements that exist around us like social media and just the way that the world operates, our attention span, the dopamine hits that we're getting, we're always waiting for that next hit.

15:37 And this really messes up with our emotional cycle and can ultimately affect our ability to intrinsically motivate and stay consistent or disciplined. Simple example is the New Year's resolution, which I kind of didn't really create a New Year's resolution is more so a focus point.

15:54 But I can say that the New Year's resolution is relatable for a lot of people, which at first you're usually highly motivated. It's a new year, you know, and I'm going to get started and I'm going to do this thing and I'm, I'm going to go for it. But without that actual discipline, most of these things fade away within the first few weeks. So that emotional cycle of change that becomes exciting. And then all of a sudden, there's a little bit of resistance.

16:17 Maybe time gets in the way. There's just not enough time for it. Or, you know, you fall ill and you can't do anything for a couple days. Or you get distracted because this other thing becomes priority. And, you know, you step away from whatever that focus point was for a few days.

16:33 And then all of a sudden you start to get frustrated with yourself because you're like, you know, I wasn't consistent. I wasn't able to do it. Or, you know, this thing got in the way or time. I just don't have time anymore.

16:42 I thought I was going to have more time. But even though we get frustrated in those moments, what we need to do is we need to adapt. We need to adapt. Otherwise we're never actually going to lead to the success of that commitment or to that, let's say, discipline that we're moving towards.

16:58 So the hardest part is pushing through when that motivation fades. Very much so. I can relate strongly. So from a yogic insight, we call this tapas, which is one of the niyamas, the self-discipline or the inner fire or the purification through fire or heat. So tapas and yoga philosophy means that self-discipline, that commitment and that effort despite discomfort. So the fire of discipline burns away impurities, making us stronger.

17:30 There's a quote by Patanjali from the Yoga Sutras. The fire of discipline burns away impurities, making us stronger. So if motivation fades, what keeps us actually going? This is where the tapas comes in, the discipline to keep showing up even when it's uncomfortable because real growth happens when we move past that resistance. We settled through the frustration, we adapt, and then we continue.

18:00 So building sustainable motivation and cultivating discipline, how do we actually do that? So how to sustain motivation? Ultimately, we need to reframe progress and celebrate micro wins to keep the dopamine levels somewhat steady, not relying on it and being dependent for it, but ultimately allowing us to fuel forward progress and anchor your why. Why are you actually doing this in the 1st place? What is most important?

18:27 Why did you set this out to begin with and connect tasks to that deeper purpose? So anytime you have little things that you're moving towards or you're working towards, just always come back to the why. Why are you doing? What is the mission here?

18:42 What is the ultimate goal here? Do you remember and can you tap into the state of how you felt when you made that decision in the 1st place? That goal or that that North Star and the environment really matters as well. I mean, surround yourself with people or possibly just an, an area in your house or your working environment in such a way that helps to fuel your motivation, whether it be, you know, motivational quotes or, you know, anything that kind of

19:09 feels more lighthearted and inspiring. Possibly it's brighter lights or lighter lights or colors or anything like this that's going to help to inspire you. Maybe a picture of your kids or your friends or, or moments that just kind of light you up, ultimately allowing you to connect to your, let's say, balanced state of your nervous system. And this might be a good time to actually talk about that a little bit.

19:32 And that is that your nervous system is a really important part in this entire conversation, not just from like the prefrontal cortex and you know, the, the resources in your brain and dopamine and all that stuff. I'm talking about like, where's the balance of you?

19:46 And if we were to connect this back to the polyvagal theory, the polyvagal theory is a three branch perspective of the nervous system or the autonomic nervous system. The whole podcast on that, we can reference it in the show notes. You can listen more about it.

20:01 But ultimately we have 3 levels, one being a stimulated state or a sympathetic state. Then we have the lower part, which we call the dorsal vagal state, which is more of a low energy, low arousal, shutdown, collapse or kind of like unmotivated response. And then we have something in the middle. And then in the middle would be like the balance state. We're kind of excited and we're motivated and stimulated, but we're also calm and regulated at the same time. When we can kind of play with

20:32 this middle ground, that's where we're actually able to cultivate more motivation and stay focused and disciplined. But if our nervous system is not regulated and we're not balanced, it's super difficult to stay consistent with motivation or discipline and possibly won't even feel the moments to be able to be inspired.

20:52 And if we're in these high stimulated states, the sympathetic response, we know we're dealing with more of a fight or flight response and we actually need to down regulate our system to find that balance. Again, versus if we're in this lower state, which is something that I kind of more not necessarily connect to, but I can relate more to is feeling kind of unmotivated. So ultimately, if we're in this shutdown vagal response and we're feeling kind of

21:18 underwhelmed or unmotivated or we're starting to avoid certain things, that's going to affect our ability to actually take action. And to me, this is kind of what's happened to me over the last, well, I don't say the last two months, but there's been moments over the last two months where I was very consistent with exercise and getting in my four or five times per week. You know, my sleep's been pretty good for the most part, but I was just like, you know what, I

21:43 want to stay more consistent with my exercise, but I get busy, you know, teacher trainings, clients, responsibilities, relationships or falling I'll for a few days and it just kind of gets you off your course. And then for me, what happens is I, I kind of fall into this lull this like low energy, low motivational state.

22:04 And regardless of how I feel, I should actually just take action and continue to move forward. But the thing that I really struggle with and I'm sure you can relate to is that even though I want to do it, I also don't want to do it at the same time. And that's because my nervous system is just not in a place to be able to find that motivation.

22:25 So ultimately, what I'm saying here is finding a moment when we're having this conversation about motivation and discipline towards a particular goal or focus of whatever it is you're doing. If it's related to teaching yoga, then perfect. We need to check in to see like, how is our nervous system right now?

22:44 And if I'm going to be taking action and making moves in this moment, how am I actually going to be in a regulated state so that I can do so? Because if I'm in a firefighter flight or parasympathetic, sorry, a sympathetic response, or if I'm underwhelmed and I'm feeling unmotivated, perhaps I actually need to do something to stimulate my body to bring me into this activated but calm state of mind.

23:09 And from there, that's where we can actually cultivate more motivation. We can take action and possibly even find that inspiration. So that's something to think about in itself. So how to build discipline even when you don't actually feel like it and just make it easy.

23:25 Just lower the barriers to action, laying out anything that you need to do to get that thing done. Perhaps it's like, you know, maybe it's just the yoga practice. Put your yoga mat out in the morning or not even the morning. Do it the night before so that when you wake up, you see it. It's so easy, you just jump on the mat, right? Or you can do things like habit stacking where you kind of attach new habits to existing ones. So you, you know, you wake up,

23:49 you brush your teeth, maybe you wake up, you brush your teeth and you have something there to remind you. Maybe have a little note that says like, now's the time to meditate. Or maybe you meditate while you're brushing your teeth. You brush your teeth like a Yogi would. You close your eyes and you, you're so intentional with each stroke of the brush.

24:07 Funny example, but you know, it could work. So relying on systems, not necessarily willpower. So set routines so action becomes more automatic. These are some ways you can kind of hack the idea. So discipline is not about willpower.

24:23 It's about making success inevitable. Regardless of how you feel. You take action and you stay with it. So when we design our environment and routines to support us, we don't have to feel motivated. We just do it anyway.

24:37 So interestingly, how society shapes our view on motivation and success. Already kind of talked about it a little bit with social media and this, you know, dopamine dependency that we have for these dopamine hits. The hustle culture or the myth of the hustle culture, and that is that society glorifies constant productivity, which is true. But success actually comes from aligned action, not actually burnout.

25:05 So working really hard and being really busy doesn't actually mean that there's going to be a, a good result or a successful result. It just means that you're working really hard and burning a lot of energy, which could ultimately lead to something like chronic stress from overworking, increasing the cortisol, living more in that sympathetic fight or flight response leading to fatigue, Decision making becomes affected, and then ultimately possibly no longer finding that motivation to keep going and

25:36 then feeling like a drag. So from a yogic perspective, balancing between effort and surrender, which again comes back to Ishvarapranidana, which is the last niyama of the second limb of yoga, surrendering outcomes to the greater flow of life, or surrendering to your higher self the wise work, not for the fruit of the work, but for the fruit of the service.

26:03 Quote from the Bhagavad Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gita, there we go. Karma yoga, action for the sake of action without attachment to results. So discipline doesn't mean forcing yourself to grind effortlessly. It means showing up with the intention, whatever that intention is, bringing it back to you and staying balanced, knowing when to push forward and when to surrender. So for me, when I kind of think about this a little bit more, sometimes it's hard to tell.

26:37 Like if I don't feel like doing something, is that more of my intuition saying like this isn't right for me right now? Or is it some sort of subconscious pattern condition that's actually limiting me from taking that action in the 1st place? And if you're like me, where you're really trying to cultivate your intuition and really harness that, you know, need for self love and recognizing what you need in certain moments, it can sometimes be a juggle like you don't really know.

27:04 And for myself, even though I'm saying this to you who's listening the podcast, I'm also saying it to myself, sometimes you just got to take action anyway, regardless of how you feel, Even if you feel like your intuition is saying something else because there's going to be new information after you take the action. Maybe you were right, maybe you were wrong. You're never going to know unless you actually move forward on it.

27:25 And sometimes I will be right or wrong. I'll be like, I took action. You know what? I was right the first time. My intuition was telling me that I don't need to be doing this right now or this is not the right time to be doing this. Boom, clarity came through or I took action even though I wasn't feeling like it.

27:44 And I got inspired afterwards. And then boom, I had like, you know, a productive work day or all of a sudden I had clarity and there's new ideas started to flow through. And then I just had such a great process or progress in whatever it is that I was working on. So I can relate to both of those scenarios. So basically, if we were to kind of look at the practical takeaways for the this episode on how to focus on this inspiration, motivation and discipline is how to apply it into your life.

28:13 So finding your fuel, identifying your primary driver, what is the why? Are you more driven by motivation, inspiration or discipline and maybe adjust your approach accordingly. So if you can focus on your why, why are you actually doing or wanting to do the thing that you're doing or the goal? And then start to think about like, OK, inspiration is a beautiful thing.

28:35 And I do want to fill my environment. I do want to fill my surroundings with ways in which I can find inspiration so that I can have those sparked moments. But not relying on that and recognizing that a lot of it is going to have to come from this intrinsic motivation for me to just take action. And then also recognizing at the same time that there's going to be moments where motivation is going to fade and it's not going to be there.

28:59 And that's where you need to lean on the discipline or the tapas of just doing it and showing up anyway. So you can create a very simple three-step plan of action. And that is daily small wins. Focus on some sort of process over perfection. And having some sort of accountability system can really be helpful as well.

29:19 Whether it be, you know, writing little promises to yourself or have someone hold you accountable and check in with you. Maybe you have team members or you have a mentor or someone that can kind of push you in the right direction whenever you're kind of slaying off course.

29:35 And then of course, that mindset shift when we're when motivation fades, we just need to remind herself that discipline is freedom. So motivation comes and goes. Inspiration is fleeting, but discipline itself is the bridge between where you are and where you want to be.

29:56 So this episode, I was inspired by it and I took action. So that was a, that was a good moment for me to, you know, obviously kind of go through this process. But I will say that sometimes I don't feel inspired to do a podcast. Sometimes I'm feeling like I just don't want to do 1 this week.

30:15 And I'm sure you've noticed sometimes there's a week goes by and I, there's no podcast that's released. And sometimes I'm like, you know what, I probably should have done one, whether I'm right or wrong, I don't know. But what I've learned more recently is that all I need to do is just start to think about what do I want to talk about?

30:31 And then I start to read something. I'm like, I'm going to read something with the intention of hopefully finding something that is going to spark some sort of inspiration or some sort of interest for me to talk about or share something with you guys. So it really just starts with some sort of action, hoping for in that inspiration, but not relying on it. And then once you take that action, you get inspired or, or you feel like, oh, this is a great way to go. And all of a sudden you get

30:56 clarity and then things just start to work out. And that's what I really focused on a lot lately. And it's been a really helpful tool for me. So hopefully it's been a helpful tool for you to listen to this and you can pull something away that you can apply right now.

31:11 So motivation, inspiration, and discipline all have their place. But if we want to truly succeed in anything, whether it's yoga, business, personal growth, we have to cultivate discipline. That's what carries us forward when motivation fades.

31:27 So just ask yourself, what's one small thing that you can do today to move forward? And the key isn't to just be perfect. It's just to keep showing up. So thank you so much for tuning in this week. I appreciate you as always. If you have questions, concerns, thoughts or comments, you know, reach out to me on Instagram or you can always send an e-mail at podcast@goingproyoga.com.

31:51 I appreciate you. Otherwise, have a beautiful rest of your day and we'll speak to you next week. Take care for now.