The keys to lucid dreaming are:
Motivation: Never give up, even when you fail. Keep at it and cherish the successes. Reading about other peoples’ experiences can help. It’s also helpful to have a clear reason why you want to LD. What are your lucid goals?
Confidence: Belief in yourself is huge. I always say that techniques are the stepping stones to confidence. You take a lucid pill in a dream to help you because you believe it will work. And the whole point of MILD and autosuggestion is repeating something until you believe it. People feel confident when they have techniques and tools to assist them but you have the power to LD without them. Your confidence is what makes them work.
Awareness: Finally, awareness is most important in all aspects of LD’ing. The point of a RC is to make yourself aware that something is off. In MILD you are aware of your intentions and in my case my strong will and excitement to LD, and in WILD you must be passively aware of your forming dream as you fall asleep. It’s the basis of the lucid mindset which Robert Waggoner discusses in his “Secret to Frequent Lucid Dreamers” which, instead of a RC, focuses on a critical question. ‘What was I just doing? How did I get here? Does this make sense?’ This enables the dreamer to become more aware of the world around him and develop a more questioning nature. Doing a RC without awareness kind of defeats the point.
Lucid Living is a step beyond that. If life feels like a dream, you will always be lucid. You are very aware of what you are doing, why it makes sense, your senses, and most importantly, your emotions. Your emotions are what motivate you and enables you to be confident. See how this comes full circle? 
My Path to getting where I am was that I came here with about 1-2 LD’s naturally every 1-2 months. I was certainly motivated knowing there were techniques to induce this wonderful experience. I also came with a lot of confidence knowing I had had LD’s without the techniques, so surely I would no doubt get a LD with them. The first technique I used was WILD (which is not usually recommended for newbs), but it worked for me since I fell asleep fast and managed to keep aware.
I became addicted to LD’ing the first months here and got quite a few using any technique I could. I had success with them all with my confidence and never really let the failures get to me. Of course, this was also a chaotic time in my life so escape was a huge motivating factor. If I didn’t get a LD that night, I would sometimes nap. It became quite excessive.
I was under so much stress at the time that I had hallucinations and paranoia. All I could do was escape. After trying the techniques, I realized all I had to do was be confident and I was probably gonna LD. I started using the techniques only when convenient (eg. WILD naps or WBTB if I woke up anyway)
In an attempt to deal and sort out my life, I developed a questioning nature. Having hallucinations made me ask myself if certain things were realistic. “There’s are spiders all over the class but no one sees them… They must not be real.” I would ironically get dreams of dismissing things as hallucinations. Then it occurred to me that I could use the same questioning logic with dreams. I started developing the lucid mindset before Robert Waggoner even wrote about it.
I asked myself at dream signs, “Does this make sense? How did I get here? What was I just doing?”. As the frequency of my DILD’s increased, I added more and more dream signs to the list. Every time I’d miss something odd in a dream, I made a mental note to question it next time. Soon my list of dream signs grew so big, I became lucid every night because anything illogical would just tip me off that I was dreaming. In addition, I would also replay my day and search for gaps in my memory. This was excellent combat against false memories.
The real “Lucid Living” shift came when it occurred to me that anything could be a dream sign. The couch I was sitting on. It felt real, but it also felt real in a dream. The ground I was standing on, the air I was breathing, the emotions I was very much aware of. I could be dreaming. And then suddenly, it just all felt like a dream. There’s a certain state of mind that comes with questioning. This sense of lucidity and awareness. It never turned off after that. Life still feels like a dream. I’m lucid right now.
I stopped getting non lucid dreams. Now I just wake up in the dream aware. I’m not sure you can say that I’m one of the people who lucid dream “at will”. I don’t really know how to stop. 
Anyway, I hope this was helpful.
(No doubt it’ll be helpful for me as I can just link this post to everyone who asks me the same questions. XD)