Use your potential

Everyone has undiscovered potential. Oftentimes, people don't even know that they have more potential than they think. Everything around you is made by humans. Those humans weren't necessarily more intelligent or "better" than you, whatever your meaning of "better" is. Those people recognized opportunities and used their potential and time accordingly. Most of those people had motivation and discipline. In short: they had drive. You weren't born with drive. They weren't born with drive. They developed that drive, and so can you. What's really stopping you?


Use your time

Time. The only thing you can't buy. Often, people tell you that you should invest your young years in building a life, essentially. Well, I think it has to do with the compounding effect. Let's say you are 18, and you want to learn a skill and dedicate a week to it. So now, the week is over, but the knowledge and experience persist for the rest of your life. Now you can benefit for the rest of your life from that knowledge and experience that you gained in that week of dedication. But most importantly, you can build on top of that. Time passes all the time. You can't stop it. But you can use it more wisely. Who knows which doors this knowledge will open in your future life?


Use your motivation

Let's say you have a vision and you are really motivated to achieve a goal. Motivation alone won't get you there. But you can use your initial motivation to discipline yourself. Often times, the hardest part is starting to work. Without motivation, this part is especially hard. Now you could use the motivation to start working. Now, the thing is, if your goal is big enough and you really, like really want to achieve it, you kind of have a superpower: endless motivation. If you are capable of motivating yourself whenever you think about your goal, you have it a lot easier. All beginnings and the journey itself become filled with joy and happiness in the form of "moving towards the goal.". Dopamine is crucial for motivation and "reward-driven" learning/working. It plays a key role in the brain's reward system, being released in larger amounts when we move towards and achieve a goal, reinforcing goal-directed behavior. This dopamine (in contrast to social-media dopamine) isn't cheap dopamine. You only get it when you move towards your goal and not while scrolling through mindless Instagram reels, or worse, TikTok videos (although they are both mostly trash). Use it to build discipline, then you are unstoppable.