@Jesse Yao, This is something I'm quite familiar with, and have experienced through multiple cycles of training. This is just my perspective, so understand that this can apply to your path, but may not. Starting out was not about fun, it was about learning and growing in skill. Learning discipline and realizing that at times fun isn't what's important, getting better is. There is a lot of value in being able to sit down, whether you want to or not, and start drawing/painting or working on a skill. I would say that attitude is required to the process. Realizing that you want to get better, and making a plan. The issue that I ran into many times, and still do occasionally, is the idea that "Where I want to be isn't here" or "I'll be happy when..." and projecting your happiness/success into the future at the expense of your current experience. It's important to set goals and track your progression, but this can quickly become more important than the artwork you're doing right now. If you are physically/mentally exhausted, you are ignoring your natural rhythms and aren't listening to your body. You can do this a few times, but it's inherently unsustainable. If we want to take on a craft and have it be a lifelong endeavor, we have to embrace periods of rest. Set aside time to draw/paint. When you sit down to draw something you scheduled to work on, but the idea doesn't excite you that much, or worse yet, you're bored or uninterested in the subject altogether. Stop and ask yourself what would be fun to work on just because it feels good. You may not always get to indulge on a whim, but sometimes its really refreshing to do that. When I was heavily working on figure drawing from life, and was really just bored of the fundamentals of anatomy and figure drawing, switching to animals was enough of a fresh subject that I was able to keep drawing, but enjoy it much more. There a lot of truth in these phrases like "Do what you love". I can also say that the drawings/paintings that I create that are purely for personal enjoyment, almost always turn out better. I can engage with them for longer hours and because I'm having fun, they don't burn me out. Drawing for the sake of drawing is so vital to being able to sustain your skill over the long term. You need to be able to enjoy what your are doing somewhat to be able to actually work through the struggle of getting better. Learn to embrace the periods where you are struggling with improving, because eventually you will get better and move onto the next subject of interest. As @Irshad Karim posted, You may not burn out now, but it will come. Take time to reflect on why you are pushing yourself so hard, take time to rest and reset. Then come back at it from a new angle.

Hi Jesse, I think I get where you are coming from - I am trying to get going with this art thing from a low level, and get frustrated with trying to plan my "lessons". I have got to the point where I think of this in two ways - there is "Art School" and then there is the "After-school Art Club". Art School is the proper stuff - the box drills, the shading practice on the eggs and spheres, the anatomy course - Stan's stuff - but if that is all I did, I think I would go mad - that is all input. Every so often I take a little vacation - and go to art-club and just do other stuff - watercolour, pastels, birds, a random hand or fan-art portrait, a few sketches from books, listen to some podcasts or look at other random videos about digital art or lighting for example. This does a few things for me - it keeps me happy, because a few of these things turn out really well which keeps motivation high, but also it is helping me build a much broader skill set - how to stretch watercolour paper, playing with a set of watercolours to see what colours you can create, realising that birds are really fun to draw... and in the long run this helps me concentrate when I go back to "Art School"

So as far as the Drawabox 50% rule goes, you're misinterpreting its purpose, and who it's for. The idea behind the 50% rule is that most people who are searching for lessons and courses to help them improve their drawing skills are probably doing so because they've become keenly aware of the fact that their drawings aren't as good as they'd like them to be. It tends to promote a mindset that focuses entirely on the results one is able to produce - on ensuring that the time invested is invested well, and that there is a return on that investment which validates the time spent. A lot of people tend to look at themselves as having a particular personality type, particular inclinations, and a particular way of doing things - but in focusing on ourselves as the unique variable in the equation, we end up opening ourselves to the temptation to decide "oh that part doesn't apply to me" - when in fact, we're just like everyone else, and those parts are specifically designed for the tendencies we exhibit. The 50% rule is there to drag students, kicking and screaming, to draw for the sake of drawing. To "waste" their time, to invest it like stacks of cash tossed into a smoldering oil drum on a warm summer's day. Students tend to hate this, because they're forced to draw things that dissatisfy them. It feels like the complete antithesis of why they want to draw - they want to get good, after all. But none of what we draw is good! That's why we're studying! But as the student's struggling diminishes, and they accept their lot (or at least those that actually follow the instructions as strictly as they're expected to), they eventually find that maybe the development of skills, and the picture at the end to pin to our refrigerators (or launch out into social media for all those delicious likes) aren't the *only* things one can gain from the activity. They find that maybe - just maybe - drawing itself is actually kind of enjoyable. Maybe playing pretend, imagining that we're actually competent artists, and exploring all of the things we otherwise insist we're not ready for, is actually kind of fun. As the frustration abates, you find out that there's more to drawing than the end result. And *that* is where one can derive the most reliable motivation - because none of this is easy, and we face challenges at every turn. The desire to impress yourself, to impress others, and to be popular, simply isn't enough to withstand it all. You may not burn out now, but it will come. Drawing because you genuinely love drawing, garbage results or not, will carry you where everything else fails. When it comes to "getting good", it's not a sprint - it's a marathon, a cross-continental journey, and it's endurance that will see you through.