E58. Think You Need More Self-Discipline? You Probably Actually Need Less

Does this sound familiar? You start off a creative project full of enthusiasm, and in the beginning you're able to regularly put in the work needed to reach your goal, but over time your motivation fades, you have to increasingly discipline yourself into doing the work, you start slacking off, and then finally are unable to make yourself do any work at all. You've failed, and you castigate yourself for being lazy and undisciplined.

Good news! You're not lazy or undisciplined, you just haven't figured out how to develop motivation for long-term projects. Self-discipline works well in the short term, but for long-term goals it works better to use LESS self-discipline, not more. This is because human beings have a limited capacity for self-discipline in the absence of motivation, and we are not taught how to generate and maintain motivation for long-term goals that require a process-oriented practice. That's where I come in. In this episode you'll learn about the two different kinds of motivation and how to use them both to develop a consistent and productive creative practice to reach those long-term goals.

You can find the blog post this episode is based on here.