Week 55- Discipline Over Motivation- Am I Cooked?

Aloha 皆さん、

“We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.”

                 -Elder Richard G. Scott

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. WHAT A BAR. By doing things that emulate what we want to become we will become the thing that we want to become. However, the same goes for the opposite. If we continue doing things that emulate the opposite, we will of course become the opposite.

Yeah, yeah seems pretty obvious. Obviously if we do good things we become food, and if we do bad things we become bad. 

“Duh, thanks Elder Ellis for this profound knowledge. Super helpful.”

But if we all know that to be the case, then why don't we do good things, or things that emulate what we want to be? 

BECAUSE ITS HARD.

I cannot count the number of days on my mission where I've said to myself 

“Tomorrow I'm going to get up exactly at 6:30am and work out!”

I'm sure you can guess how well that went. Woke up the next day, alarm blaring. Got up and turned it off and fell right back asleep. 

But why? I was so motivated to get up on time and workout and eat a healthy breakfast, then take a cold shower. All of those things sound super awesome when we think about it. “Yeah bro I'm gonna be the best me I can be!” But then waking up is hard, working out is hard. Making a healthy breakfast? Please, that's too much work. And who in their right mind wants to take a cold shower during the winter, a hot shower is just so much more comfortable. 

It's because motivation is like sugar. Oh yeah it'll get you going for the first little bit but then we have the “sugar crash”. After a while the motivation ends, and when the motivation ends you are left with the hard part. The hard part where your discipline comes in. 

Discipline allows us to do things even when they are hard. Waking up when we don't want to. Going to work when we don't want to. Studying when there's a party to go to. Eating the right foods even though you live a LITERAL 2 minute walk from McDonald's (bro get me away from Kure ASAP). 

I used to think I was a pretty disciplined person. But I'm starting to realize how cooked I am. I still am far from being disciplined enough to do the hard things everyday to become the person I want. But first comes recognition, then we can work on being disciplined. Which is what I'll be working on! If you got advice lmk because I haven't worked out consistently since fukuoka

But yeah thought I'd share but unfortunately I haven't figured it all out yet. Contrary to popular belief that I do and that I'm the favorite child (I am) I unfortunately do NOT know everything☝️

Highlights

-Dendou w/ branch Prez

-Miyajima pday

-Transfer week

Dendou w/ Branch Prez:

So we were gonna do inactive visits with the branch president again but he came in the church and was inspired to go OYM and housing with us. Lowkey was attacking us before we went out saying how every week we talk about the same friends in our missionary meetings and saying it's fine if that's our “best” but to make sure we were giving our best. We also happened to be doing social media work when he came in so he made a little gesture like he was typing in a keyboard and laughing, then talked about how he hears about success in other areas and how we should do what they are doing. Anyways I was a little frustrated but I let it slide (I know crazy right) then we went OYMing and the branch president got a nice spoonful of reality. Talked to some people which was super fun as always but he kinda realized even if we do or say things that work in other areas it doesn't mean we will get the same results. Big respect because even when he got rejected a ton he still managed to stay positive and said it was a really good experience for him. 

Miyajima pday:

We hit Miyajima today and it was fun to go again (with hair and a fit). Awesome to see the tori gate and all the Sakura on the island and to go with the district too. Ate a ton of ice cream and hitting some udon for dinner honestly just a fire (potentially last) pday in Hiroshima Zone.

Transfer week:

Got transfers this week. They announced they gonna do Transfer calls through mission wide zoom which will be interesting. I'll probably get Transferred so I'm a little worried about where I'll be going but don't know yet so no use stressing. Keep on the lookout for moved post on Facebook though.

Aight Das it

Shoots!

愛してるよ！

エリス長老

TheRisingSon