In my experience, the best overall, top-to-bottom analysis of the psychology of doing hard things over the long term is Mike Israetel's breakdown [0]. I don't

In my experience, the best overall, top-to-bottom analysis of the psychology of doing hard things over the long term is Mike Israetel's breakdown [0]. I don't normally drop competing links into discussions, but the source is maybe outside the usual range of HN, and it's a big step up in quality and usefulness from the posted source. Israetel breaks the psychology of weight loss down into different pieces that each have their own strengths and weaknesses and different roles they play in the process. The pieces in his breakdown are inspiration, motivation, intention, discipline, habit, and passion. For example, the first factor he breaks down is inspiration. Inspiration is the spark that gets you interested. It's the prime mover that helps you get the process started and allows the other factors to come into play. It lasts a few hours, maybe a day. What I like about Israetel is that he doesn't bag on anything. He doesn't say inspiration is worthless. He tells you what you can and can't expect it to accomplish for you. Passion is a cliché topic here, so here's what Israetel says about it: passion takes years to develop. But it's optional! Passion is being in love with the process. It's powerful if you can get it, but you can be extremely successful over the long haul without it. Nobody needs "passion" to brush their teeth every day. Habit is sufficient. Many people succeed, and not all of them fall in love with the process. Finally, a very relevant point he makes is that most of the people pitching you "passion" or "motivation" or "discipline" are really in the business of providing inspiration: a little spark of excitement that lasts a few minutes or hours. They may talk about discipline, or motivation, but they get clicks and get shared because people experience inspiration while consuming their content. Which is fine in the content is useful, but you should be clear about why it feels good. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKthx5LTbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKthx5LTbI