Feel like I've lost the ability to make worthwhile changes in my life...

[Lights]

What does one do in these situations?

 

It's as if concepts like implicative probability no longer exist in my life. Of course nothing is guaranteed to be successful, but what does one do when there doesn't appear to be any logic in one's life, and when one is left clueless about how to make real worthwhile changes in one's life?

[norajane]

Set goals, i.e., the changes you want to make.

Break them down into small steps.

Focus on one goal at a time, one step at a time.

 

You can't rely on probability, logical or not. Probability is chance; it's the wild card in your plans, not the plans themselves.

 

Do you know what worthwhile changes you want to make? That's where you need to start. You have to know what you want before you can go after it.

[Starry-eyed]

I have no idea what implicative probability is, but regardless, are there worthwhile changes you want to make but don't have the drive or energy to do? Or do you think you should be making changes just for change's sake?

 

Having a goal and setting small steps to achieve sounds like a good idea. But all of have periods where lie fallow, so to speak. It may pass on its own.

[dannykth8]

Maybe you ever heard about "the secret". It talk about law of attraction here's the step you can follow:

1. Understand what is your condition right now

2. setting your goal

3. use your tools

4. start to take action

5. find mentor

6. start to change

7. success.

[Lights]

Set goals, i.e., the changes you want to make.

Break them down into small steps.

Focus on one goal at a time, one step at a time.

 

Well, that's the problem. That paradigm stopped working in my life many years ago.

 

Breaking things down into smaller goals in a situation wherein it is obvious what will be a reasonably effective action to take for each step made perfect sense once upon a time. It makes perfect sense for a small high school science project, or when watching one's little cousin at his children's karate class progress through the belt rankings needing only to show a few movements of a predetermined syllabus each step of the way.

 

But it all seems to fall apart when one isn't able to identify what are small worthwhile steps, and what steps actually do lead to the goal in question.

 

For an example (I'm bringing this up purely as an example: I do not want to turn this into a whinefest or dwell too much on the past), many years back I once had a goal of interviewing for jobs in my field in various desirable cities around the world. Unfortunately, I didn't know what steps to take that are reasonably effective at achieving it (I naively went and spent my time doing things like university education, job-fair networking, and spending time at career centers, and predictably, that approach just didn't cut it), and failed pretty miserably year after year, not getting even one interview. Even now, were I to take up such a goal again, I'd still have little idea as to what is reasonably likely to be an effective step to take, or how to break that down into smaller goals.

 

Nor is focus on a single goal at a time necessarily feasible. (For an example, one cannot allocate one's nights to physical fitness training if one also desires to spend one's nights working later at a desk job to advance one's career, and if failure to maintain extra time allocation to one guarantees deterioration of the other.)

 

Do you know what worthwhile changes you want to make? That's where you need to start. You have to know what you want before you can go after it.

 

At the moment, I know of some that I'm sure I want to make, and others which I'm still questioning.

 

You can't rely on probability, logical or not. Probability is chance; it's the wild card in your plans, not the plans themselves.

By probability I meant that for any given plan, there may be some methods which are reasonably likely to succeed, and others which aren't. If one desired the ability to shoulder-press more than one could at the moment, practicing shoulder-presses in a weight room would be a reasonably effective tactic. It's not guaranteed of course--one could get unlucky and injure oneself. But through proper training and some luck, one could succeed.

 

But in many of the goals in my life, unlike in shoulder-pressing more weight, it just isn't remotely apparent what methods have a reasonably high probability of being effective.

 

Maybe you ever heard about "the secret". It talk about law of attraction

I haven't much use for it. I've seen some absolutely hilarious debunkings of "the secret", and they've done a much better job than I could.

 

 

are there worthwhile changes you want to make but don't have the drive or energy to do?

That's certainly a good point. I do lose motivation when the goals become less achievable or more costly in comparison to other things I'd like to achieve, or when the path to the goal becomes less and less apparent.