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~mellita

One basic, helpful tip (it's worked a little for myself, a lot for others besides) is to model more specific aspirations on inputs rather than outputs. You can aspire, for instance, to study French very consistently for a year, or you can aspire to become fluent in French; but whereas the first aspiration is always doable, regardless of the concrete results of your studies, the latter can be frustrated by things outside of your control. Perhaps French proves more difficult than you expected—perhaps you haven't quite got the hang of how to study a foreign language—perhaps your access to a native speaker for practice fell through—and so on. Outputs are imperiled in a way inputs typically aren't. The more specific an aspiration, the more you need to factor in your own control and inputs, I think.

On the other hand, if an aspiration is fairly abstract—I want to be physically healthier, I want to feel more comfortable in my own skin, I want to read more novels, etc.—it's probably wise to treat these not as concrete goals but as guiding 'themes' of activity. (I lifted this idea from CGP Grey, if I remember correctly.) For instance, if you commit to the themes of "Health", "Self-esteem", and "Reading", you can allow these to subtly guide your future behavior without needlessly tightening the screws on what is and isn't permissible, and I suspect that the likelihood of achieving these abstract aspirations to your own satisfaction significantly increases.

Even still, aspirations overlap; a balance of input-based, specific aspirations with theme-based, abstract aspirations would seem advisable.

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~zampano wrote (thread):

I think this is all good advice, and is similar to changes I've been trying to make for myself. The difficulty comes in framing things in a "theme" way and having them still seem satisfying.