Funny how much sheer pleasurability and inspiration matter for habits. Ever since I got a new piano, my old practice time goals (which I often struggled to meet) feel comically low. Now somewhat effortlessly 3 months ahead of target… gotta ratchet up the goal!
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Making the habit more pleasurable is an oft-suggested strategy. I think it'd be pretty enabling to assemble a wiki-style database of per-habit pleasure/inspiration-increasing strategies!
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If you can find a way to make me enjoy playing my scales every day I will donate a couple of eth to a charity of your choice AND come to SF to perform a *very* ropey version of the Aria from the Goldberg Variations
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:) Wish I had a great answer for you here. Some things that have worked (somewhat) for me:
1. Creating a clear sense of progress by tracking max-smooth-BPM for each scale and watching it go up; also by moving through levels of RCM technical requirements. files.rcmusic.com/sites/default/
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2. Playing different scale figurations every day, so that it's less repetitive.
3. Playing with different articulations: legato+pianissimo is a good challenge; staccato; accent every 2nd, 3rd, 6th, etc; aiming for beauty.
FWIW I can't play the aria to my satisfaction either! So tricky to phrase well.
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This is wonderful advice, thank you!