Diana Hill, PhD: How to Discover Your Deepest Motivation

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October 21, 2025

Diana Hill, PhD: How to Discover Your Deepest Motivation

Diana Hill PhD October 21, 2025

Learn how to move beyond trivial, distracting goals and tap into your hidden (and most fulfilling) motivations and latent “genius gifts,” with clinical psychologist Diana Hill’s research-backed “Wise Effort Method.”

Have you ever felt on a gut level that you’ve been distracting yourself with “surface-level” goals—rather than being passionately pulled toward what truly fulfills you? In this episode of Insights At The Edge, Tami Simon joins Diana Hill, PhD, a leading psychologist and the author of Wise Effort. With them, you’ll learn and practice some of Diana’s most effective, research-backed exercises for discovering your heart’s deepest hidden motivations—and your overlooked “genius gifts” for empowering those desires.

Don’t miss this exceptionally practice-rich episode to explore:

  • The difference between surface goals and deep motivation.
  • “Deep Motivation” – Why willpower and discipline never win long-term, and how to let your true North Star values pull you passionately into your days.
  • 3 questions for getting unstuck from unhealthy relationships, work situations, and addictive behaviors.
  • How to identify your “genius qualities” (yes, you have plenty of them!)
  • An incredibly effective one-minute exercise: “To reveal your deepest values, just follow your pain.”
  • “Choice Points” – Tuning in to the daily crucial moments where our values and actions accrue a life of either joy or regret.
  • How to gain “psychological flexibility,” the one science-backed strength crucial to positive emotional wellness, and more.

Intrigued? Tune in now!

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Diana Hill, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and speaker helping people direct their energy toward what matters most. Through her Wise Effort programs and podcast, she helps people play big in their careers, health, and relationships. Her books include I Know I Should Exercise, But…The Self-Compassion Daily Journal, and ACT Daily Journal. NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and Mindful magazine have featured her work. She resides in Santa Barbara, California. For more, visit drdianahill.com.

Author photo © Esteban Leyva

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Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

Also By Author

Diana Hill, PhD: How to Discover Your Deepest Motivati...

Learn how to move beyond trivial, distracting goals and tap into your hidden (and most fulfilling) motivations and latent “genius gifts,” with clinical psychologist Diana Hill’s research-backed “Wise Effort Method.”

Have you ever felt on a gut level that you’ve been distracting yourself with “surface-level” goals—rather than being passionately pulled toward what truly fulfills you? In this episode of Insights At The Edge, Tami Simon joins Diana Hill, PhD, a leading psychologist and the author of Wise Effort. With them, you’ll learn and practice some of Diana’s most effective, research-backed exercises for discovering your heart’s deepest hidden motivations—and your overlooked “genius gifts” for empowering those desires.

Don’t miss this exceptionally practice-rich episode to explore:

  • The difference between surface goals and deep motivation.
  • “Deep Motivation” – Why willpower and discipline never win long-term, and how to let your true North Star values pull you passionately into your days.
  • 3 questions for getting unstuck from unhealthy relationships, work situations, and addictive behaviors.
  • How to identify your “genius qualities” (yes, you have plenty of them!)
  • An incredibly effective one-minute exercise: “To reveal your deepest values, just follow your pain.”
  • “Choice Points” – Tuning in to the daily crucial moments where our values and actions accrue a life of either joy or regret.
  • How to gain “psychological flexibility,” the one science-backed strength crucial to positive emotional wellness, and more.

Intrigued? Tune in now!

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

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Diana Hill, PhD: How to Discover Your Deepest Motivati...

Learn how to move beyond trivial, distracting goals and tap into your hidden (and most fulfilling) motivations and latent “genius gifts,” with clinical psychologist Diana Hill’s research-backed “Wise Effort Method.”

Have you ever felt on a gut level that you’ve been distracting yourself with “surface-level” goals—rather than being passionately pulled toward what truly fulfills you? In this episode of Insights At The Edge, Tami Simon joins Diana Hill, PhD, a leading psychologist and the author of Wise Effort. With them, you’ll learn and practice some of Diana’s most effective, research-backed exercises for discovering your heart’s deepest hidden motivations—and your overlooked “genius gifts” for empowering those desires.

Don’t miss this exceptionally practice-rich episode to explore:

  • The difference between surface goals and deep motivation.
  • “Deep Motivation” – Why willpower and discipline never win long-term, and how to let your true North Star values pull you passionately into your days.
  • 3 questions for getting unstuck from unhealthy relationships, work situations, and addictive behaviors.
  • How to identify your “genius qualities” (yes, you have plenty of them!)
  • An incredibly effective one-minute exercise: “To reveal your deepest values, just follow your pain.”
  • “Choice Points” – Tuning in to the daily crucial moments where our values and actions accrue a life of either joy or regret.
  • How to gain “psychological flexibility,” the one science-backed strength crucial to positive emotional wellness, and more.

Intrigued? Tune in now!

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Vanessa Bennett: Mothers and Wives

Tami Simon and depth psychologist Vanessa Bennett explore the psyche’s need to experience initiation in our key life transitions, using resentment as a focal point for healing, how to change our unhealthy patterns in relationships, and reclaiming personal agency.

What relationship myth causes us the most suffering? According to depth psychologist Vanessa Bennett, it’s this: “That if you’re not fulfilled by parenthood, sex, or your relationships, then there’s something wrong with you.” Why? Because it’s often the fault of our culture, and not you personally, that’s to blame.

This week, Tami Simon welcomes the author of The Motherhood Myth to discuss the hidden pressures and misconceptions surrounding parenthood and intimate partnership—and how looking at your resentments is a surprisingly direct way to discover the roots of the wounds that unconsciously drive unhappiness in your relationships.

Join us to explore:

  • At your life’s turning points, why your unconscious may invite chaos or trauma
  • The societal roots of discontent in parenthood and intimate relationships
  • How Vanessa’s own experiences—from her neighborhood’s destruction by fire to everyday life with her daughter and husband—illustrate how to grow and heal
  • “If you’re good, I’m good. And if you’re not, I’m not”—codependency explained
  • The “choose me” wound—how we abandon ourselves in relationships and how to reintegrate
  • The “Consent Tool,” a practice to help restore safety and intimacy in your relationships, and more

If you’ve ever felt frustrated about the demands of your relationships—obvious or hidden—this episode will spark a wealth of “aha!” moments and insights for change.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Acharya Shunya: The Five Phases of the Vedic Afterlife...

In the second half of Acharya Shunya’s talk, she shares her personal journey from tradition to transformation, offering practical tools and Vedic insights to help us embrace our greater purpose here.

Through her personal experiences, practical guidance, and teachings from her lineage, Acharya Shunya offers us a roadmap to awakening and living a more meaningful, empowered life.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

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