When the work gets boring, your reason is the only thing left in the room. Pick a good one.

Excitement carries the early part of anything, and then it leaves. What remains on the flat, repetitive stretch is whatever reason you gave yourself at the start, and a thin one collapses right there. Reasons built on impressing someone or beating someone tend to be thin.

Say your reason out loud and listen for whether it would survive a dull Tuesday in month seven. If it would not, dig for one that would: someone it helps, something you want to be able to do, a standard you hold. Keep it somewhere you can reread.