Developing Intrinsic Motivation. Oxymoron Anyone?

I'm usually good about getting done what I say I'm going to do. Unless it is an accumulative work that builds up to what I need to happen. You see, since there is only one deadline (the very end of the tunnel, just before the light) I often will procrastinate the gradual daily investment until I'm past the point of no return.
I've tried many forms of extrinsic motivation such as treats, movies, time with friends, campus social activities, etc. Nothing really works though. Finally realized that I just don't have the intrinsic motivation to take me day to day to accomplish it. Cool. Now what do I do? I decided to google "develop intrinsic motivation" and see what happened. Most of the sites that popped up were ones talking about how much value there is in having intrinsic motivation. Fail. I kind of already knew that.
Luckily I didn't give up and I eventually found a link named "Developing Intrinsic Motivation"! It's actually a link about running and learning how to motivate yourself to run every day. Sounds like a pretty good article right? So I keep reading and eventually get to the "12 steps in bullet form that will empower you to be better." They are listed as follows:

• 1) DISMISS DISTRACTIONS
  Cool principle, if you can motivate yourself to do so.
  
• 2) OBSERVE YOURSELF AND ACCEPT WHAT YOU SEE
  I am the way I am because I am not intrinsically motivated. Ok.
  
• 3) CONTINUOUSLY RE-CENTER YOUR STORY
  Re-center my story about myself on myself, just so I can remember I'm not motivated.
  
• 4) ALLOW OTHERS TO OBSERVE YOU
  Be myself (the person who doesn't want to change things) around other people (so they'll know how inept I am too)
  
• 5) NO EXCUSES
  If I'm motivated enough to ignore my own excuses
  
• Etc...

As you can see, I was feeling a bit frustrated because it seemed like I needed intrinsic motivation to develop intrinsic motivation. Why not let the blind lead the blind into a pit? So I decided to look for a different resource. I went to LDS.org and looked up motivation. This led me to talks on Dependability (specifically this one). It was through reading these talks that I realized most people have to work at intrinsic motivation. It's more of a discipline problem than a motivation problem.
I decided to try taking a different look at it. Instead of saying, "I have to practice my clarinet for 12 hours a week" I made up a practice goal spreadsheet. I list the warm-up/etude/solo excerpt I'm working on, the measures I decide to tackle, a metronome starting bpm, an ending bpm, and a spot for the time taken to reach that bpm mark for that segment.
It was then I realized the being intrinsically motivated means breaking down your goals to a manageable size and then finishing them. Therein lies your dependability. And finishing one goal naturally motivates you to finish another because you can see the progress you've made.
Don't you just love epiphanies? I, for one, have now figured out how I can get around my inhibitions and start developing myself into exactly who I want to be. And, if I'm lucky, maybe I've been able to help you too.

[Insert fun signature sign-off phrase]
Shawni