‘Can’t hurt me’ is an inspiring story told by David Goggins about how school bullies and an abusive father made him the weakest piece of shit on the planet, a worthless and helpless person with victim’s mentality, and how he transformed himself into the hardest man God ever created.

But, it’s really a book about making peace with routine and monotony.

In bookstores, there are entire sections on motivation, but not that many on discipline. But motivation on its own changes exactly nobody. When you count on motivation only to get your dreams fulfilled, you will likely fall short. Sure, we all need sparks in our lives, but the thing that keeps you on the course isn’t motivation as it’s only a feeling which comes and goes. It’s discipline.

It’s the small things done consistently, that make significant changes in your life. Motivation, passion and obsession, skills, knowledge, education, or even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.

Over years, I learned to enjoy things I might not always feel like doing, because I knew I’m going to spend much more time on often boring prep works than with those all too brief moments of happiness or triumph at the end. When I finish one travel project, I ask myself – ‘what’s next’? And I do it all over again, and again. There are same things happening day in and day out, repeating patterns and ongoing tasks – reading about new destinations, doing researches, sending emails, looking after logistics and so on. In some ways it’s a monotonous process. But the mantra is to keep moving forward.

I no longer count solely on motivation. I’m focusing more on discipline. It wasn’t really motivation or money that allowed me to travel around the world. It was discipline – the driver of daily execution, the core principle that overcomes laziness and excuses.