I saw your message in my thread and thought I'd reply in yours for continuity to what's happening with you.
I was able to refine, reframe, and refocus my goals thanks to advice from Vanilla in particular. I see that she has given you excellent pointers. How you write out your goals is extremely important and the choice of words.
Where I can contribute is more on strategy I guess. I've always had goals, but my problem was that I tried to do all of them at the same time. Very unrealistic.
So, I have still set big goals for myself, but I have prioritized them. I also started with goals that I could achieve quickly so that I could build confidence in my ability to execute them and also develop self-discipline.
Take a look at your goals and see which ones you immediately want to tackle. Then think about phasing other goals in. So, I recently rehauled my goals, and I started with a basic one - I want to wake up every day at 5AM. I will do that for a week straight and see how it goes. And then I added in meditation for ten minutes.
Next week, I am going to add in journaling my day plan. So, I want to write down three things I want to accomplish at work that day and three personal things that I want to be mindful about.
And so build on small successes that will exponentially grow. This process has helped me a lot. I also break up my larger goals into smaller pieces. And the larger goal has an outcome associated with it, followed up by smaller goals and commitment to the process. If you commit to the process and keep the larger outcome in mind, then that will help you to be mentally strong.
I strongly believe in committing to the process and following through. And making the decision about you do this because you are this person - for example, I don't miss my workouts because I am a healthy person. the key word there is - don't. Many people say - can't. That gives you the wiggle room to get out. The previous sentence is about your identity.
I also love Michael Jordan's take on decision-making. He was once asked how he was able to train so hard and be on top of his game all the time. He said, and I am paraphrasing - I always think deeply about why I want to do something. After that, once I make the decision to do it, I never think about it again.
So, think about your 'why'.. and then have it crystal clear and make a decision. And then don't look back.
Anyways, I have learned a lot of this from just reading and trying things out. Main takeaways - commit to the process; think and make the decision; make big goals; start with the easy low hanging fruit to build confidence.
