I recently came across a diagram online that explained the difference between motivation and discipline. If you wait for motivation, you might not get very far as motivation is based on when you are feeling the inspiration to keep going. Your motivation fluctuates over time for various reasons. However, if you use discipline to get yourself going, you will continually get ahead in your work without needing motivation as demonstrated in my diagram below. I agree with this message for the most part, but not entirely. Let me explain.

There are times where I have zero motivation. Most of the time, this is due to exhaustion or burnout. I have noticed that people tend to confuse this with disinterest, though. Just because you don't have motivation in that moment, doesn't mean you're disinterested or have given up or you don't want to work hard. You simply lost motivation in that moment.
When you take motivation out of the equation and use discipline to get the task done regardless, you will achieve that task. However, there have been times where I have disciplined myself to keep going without any motivation to the point where I faced burnout. In fact, I faced burnout 3 times in a 6 month span last year. I had so many important responsibilities to focus on all at once that I pushed myself too far. Once I reached burnout, I knew I needed a break but the guilt started to set in. Knowing I had a lot of important tasks with some running out of time to complete, I couldn't allow myself to have a break. The more I kept trying to discipline myself to keep going through the burnout, I pushed myself further and further into burnout.
I felt all of my responsibilities piling onto me and thought that the solution was to over micromanage my time. I tried to schedule every hour of my day. This was just too overwhelming and not helping. Finally I realized I had to do the hardest thing: let go completely. I had to allow myself to let go of everything and take a long break. I completely disconnected from life and relaxed. It took almost a week, but after that week was over, I bounced back with motivation and felt ready to pick up where I left off.
That experience made me realize several lessons. Yes, discipline is important to achieve your goals, but you do need some sort of motivation along the way. Even if it is the slightest amount of motivation, that will help you stay disciplined to keep going.
The other thing I learned is that consistent breaks are necessary when you have a great amount of responsibilities to achieve. This way, you avoid the need for a long break to bounce back from burnout. Allowing yourself regular breaks will help you decompress in between, almost like a reset button. When you've taken a break, it is easier to feel the motivation come back to you. Use motivation as momentum but rely on discipline and remember to give yourself breaks.

Give yourself as many breaks as you need! Allowing breaks when needed will prevent burnout in the long run, help your motivation to come back, and you will be more disciplined overall. This has helped me tremendously, and since then I have avoided burnout while achieving all of my responsibilities one right after the other.
Thanks for reading! Hope this helps you too!

Disclaimer: These diagrams were drawn by me in Canva, I did not use anyone's image.
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