How do you stay motivated to play the game?

Something what helps me is writing family bios. It keeps the magic of story telling in the game while helping you facilitate game play ideas. Once a bio is done it makes that sim more entertaining to play with because they have an plot/purpose/goal you've created. Another thing that helps is incorporating a Sim that's referenced in game, kinda like he's a cannon Sim. For example there's a poster that references DJ Suuuuul. I took that reference/poster and created a character based around the whole concept. Now it feels like I have a Maxis curated Sim in my game. Similar to what a Landgraab Sim is. The Landgraabs are referenced all the time. Everyone knows who they are.