Saw that quote from Olympic runner Alexi Pappas, and it’s so true.
Want to run tomorrow morning? Set your running gear out.
Want to record some music first thing in the morning (ahem, Seth)? Put your bass on your desk, so you actually have to pick it up, and if you pick it up, well, may as well write something.
It’s not about goals (“I want to write a whole song!”), it’s about systems (as James Clear writes in Atomic Habits).
So instead of banging away at one song, I just write something everyday: a riff, than another riff on top of that, oh wait, I hear something else let me write a second part.
Perfect? No way. But listen to some of your favorite musicians and you’ll hear how some of their songs on recent albums were taped together from ideas a decade earlier.
Song titles, lyrics, melodies, business ideas, work outs, whatever…
Day after day, for years, and then you end up somewhere.