Motivation or discipline alone will never be enough to fix your productivity challenges - commit to a 3rd way with us

When we talk about productivity, the conversation almost always lands on two familiar ideas:
Motivation or Discipline. 

Motivation is the spark that makes us feel excited about a goal, and discipline is the muscle that keeps us moving when the excitement fades. It’s easy to see why these two have become the headline pillars of every productivity article, podcast, and self‑help book for years. They fit neatly into a cause‑and‑effect story; find a reason, then force yourself to act. Such a narrative kinda feels empowering, and it aligns with a cultural obsession with self‑reliance. Do this, get that. Good deal yeah?

But the more closely we examine this pair, the more cracks in their logics appear. Motivation is notoriously fickle; the dopamine rush that fuels a new project drops off as soon as novelty wears thin, leaving us staring at a half‑finished masterpiece. Discipline, on the other hand, draws on a seemingly finite reserve of mental energy. After a long day of meetings or a worrying about a stressful decision, the willpower needed to sit down and write from an inspired place simply isn’t available.

When both of these forces are relied upon in isolation, they often lead to a roller‑coaster of bursts of energy followed by periods of stagnation, burnout, or outright abandonment of the task. Moreover, the emphasis on personal drive can mask the real obstacles that sit outside the individual — poor tools, chaotic environments, unclear goals, or a lack of social support. In short, motivation and discipline work best when they can exist in a context that supplies clear targets, immediate feedback, rest, and an environment that reduces friction.

​And if you don't already have those things to help you succeed, just buckle up and grind some more right?

For decades the self‑help industry, business schools, and countless productivity blogs have taught us that the secret to getting things done lies in manufacturing and sustaining those two simple ingredients: a compelling “why” (motivation) and an iron‑will to keep going when that why is hard to feel in touch with (discipline).

The story has been so seductive because it fits into a neat, linear narrative: identify a goal, find that inner fire, and push through obstacles. That narrative has persisted for three reasons.

First, the observable successes of this mental model are real. When a salesperson lands a big deal after a burst of enthusiasm, or an athlete breaks a record by grinding through grueling training sessions, the causal link looks obvious; Do A get B.

Is it causal or just more survivorship bias? There's no shortage of anecdotes for those who “found their drive” and then “never looked back.” Those cases are easy to publicize, easy to celebrate, and they reinforce the assumed belief that the formula works. And it implies, ALL you need to do is A and then B happens. Is that everything tho?

Second, this mental model matches a culturally dominant view of what agency is.
Western societies prize individualism and self‑determination; the idea that you alone can summon enough motivation or discipline to overcome any barrier is enmeshed with the myth of the “self‑made” person. When someone fails to meet a target, the default interpretation is that they lacked enough willpower, not that the environment was hostile or that the goal was mis‑aligned. This attribution bias makes the two‑pillar story self‑reinforcing: success validates the model, failure is blamed on personal deficiency, and the model stays unchallenged.

Third, the psychological tools that accompany the model are concrete and cheap. Goal‑setting worksheets, habit‑tracking apps, and “visualize your success” exercises give people something tangible to do. The simplicity of “write down your goal, set a schedule, and stick to it” feels actionable, even when the underlying assumptions are shaky. Because the tools are low‑cost and easy to distribute, the model spreads quickly and becomes entrenched. People build entire careers on these assumptions and tools.

These strengths, however, hide an underlying but crucial hidden assumption: that the external conditions surrounding the individual are already suitable. The model presumes clear goals, reliable feedback, sufficient rest, a workspace that minimizes friction, and a social climate that supports risk‑taking. When those conditions are present, motivation and discipline can indeed produce impressive outcomes.

When they are absent - when a person is over-worked, burnt-out, works in conditions that prevent them from getting their needs met, lacking clear metrics of feedback/success, or feels socially unsupported - then that same internal drive sputters out to a damp smoulder of passion lost, and the individual is left with the false impression that they are “lazy” or “undisciplined.” The model therefore works well for a subset of people whose circumstances already align with its invisible prerequisites, while marginalizing those whose environments are mis‑matched.

If we accept the premise that motivation and discipline are necessary but not sufficient, the next logical step is to identify the missing condition that turns necessity into sufficiency. Systems thinking tells us that any process needs a feedback‑controlled regulator to stay stable; Bayesian reasoning tells us that we must continually revise our expectations based on observed outcomes; reconstructivism tells us that the regulator must be socially and culturally legitimated, not imposed from an abstract ideal.

In short, the long‑standing belief that motivation plus discipline equals productivity is a partial truth that survived because its hidden assumptions aligned with the lives of a subset who was already set up for success. Today we have the conceptual tools to surface those assumptions, test them with feedback in our own lives, and replace the fragile duo with a sturdier, more context‑aware third pillar of productivity.

By doing so we not only improve performance for those who previously fell through the cracks, we also create a richer, more humane narrative of achievement—one that celebrates collective adaptation as much as individual grit.

What do you think this third-pillar could be?
There's two ways that I've been developing it which addresses all of these problems;
1) a theorectical tool that brings forward the history of contextual behaviour in psychology to extend 3rd-wave therapies such as ACT - to help you learn and apply an advanced tool to map out your contexts and cycles
2) a shared journey, a group coaching, where you do gamified self-experiments on your productivity, along with a cohort to keep you motivated and accountable.

This is what I've been working on in the past few years, and I'll talk more about them in up-coming posts. But if you cannot wait, apply for coaching and you'll be ahead of the crowds.