Well known author and blogger Steven Pressfield wrote a piece recently called “Three Kinds of Self-Training”, where he breaks his own creative discipline into six categories:
- Self-motivation
- Self-discipline
- Self-reinforcement
- Self-preparation
- Self-belief
- Self-command
It’s a short piece, but it’s stuck with me since I read it, because it names something most songwriters do without ever putting words to it. We talk ourselves through the writing life constantly. We just don’t usually call it training.
Here’s what those six categories look like when you point them at songwriting instead of prose.
Self-motivation is the reason you sit down with the guitar or open a blank Logic session when nobody’s waiting on a song. Not the version where you’re chasing a sync placement or a co-write deadline. The quieter one. The reason you wrote your first song all those years ago and the reason you’re still doing it now.
Self-discipline is finishing the second verse on the day the melody isn’t coming. It’s the difference between a songwriter and someone who likes the idea of being a songwriter.
Self-reinforcement is how you talk to yourself after a song gets zero response. After a co-write goes quiet. After a gig where three people showed up and one of them left early.
Self-preparation is rehearsing your reaction to the bad thing before it happens. Gear fails mid-set. A collaborator disappears for six weeks. A song you were sure about gets passed on by every publisher you sent it to. If you’ve already run the scenario in your head, you’re not improvising a response while you’re standing in it.
Self-belief splits into two kinds, and it matters which one you’re actually running on. There’s the belief that comes from having written forty bridges and knowing you can write a forty-first. And there’s the belief that has nothing to do with your track record and everything to do with the fact that this matters to you regardless of proof. Both are real. Neither should be mistaken for the other.
Self-command is what happens when the plan breaks and you have to decide, right now, what you’re going to do about it. This is the one that actually carries the piece, because it’s the one you only find out you have when something goes wrong.
A Situation Most Songwriters Know
Here’s Pressfield’s example: he’s got two finished books he can’t publish right now, for reasons outside his control. His instinct, and the one he’s fighting, is to ease off until things return to normal.
Swap that for something a songwriter runs into constantly: you’ve finished a song you’re genuinely proud of, and it’s stuck. Maybe you’re waiting on a co-writer to sign off on the split. Maybe a sync agent said they loved it and then went silent. Maybe the studio time you needed to finish the production fell through and got pushed six weeks out. The song is done, or nearly done, and there’s nothing left for you to do on it. It’s out of your hands.
That’s the moment Resistance shows up. Not as a dramatic collapse, just as a small, reasonable-sounding voice: You’ve done your part. Take a break until this sorts itself out. Maybe write less for a while, you’ve earned it.
Here’s what the self-talk sounds like if you catch it:
This is out of my control right now, and that’s fine, that’s just where this one is. The problem isn’t the wait. The problem is what I do with myself while I’m waiting. The easy move is to slow down until this resolves, tell myself I’ll get back to full output once there’s news. That’s the wrong move. The right move is to start the next song today, with the same focus I’d bring if this one had already come out clean. Waiting on one song is not permission to write fewer songs. Pick up the next idea. Go.
That’s the whole trick. Not pretending the setback isn’t real, just refusing to let it set the pace for everything else you do.
The Point of Naming It
Most songwriters already do some version of this self-talk. The value in naming it is that you can start doing it on purpose instead of only after the fact. Next time a song stalls, a co-write goes cold, or a rejection hits you, you’ll recognize the moment for what it is and already have the script ready.
The songwriters who last aren’t the ones who never hit a wall. They’re the ones who’ve already had the conversation with themselves about what they’ll do when they hit it. That’s the whole idea behind self-training.
You’re not waiting to feel ready. You’re just rehearsing the version of yourself that shows up anyway.
Source: https://stevenpressfield.com/2026/07/three-kinds-of-self-training/
