How do I make my life more realistic?

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What I meant to say in the thread title, what can I do to increase the chances of reaching my goals in life. Because most "goals" I have are not realistic right now, and I have executive function issues with goal planning. I can't plan ahead. What are the intermediate steps in order I have to get to from point A to point Z, for example. I feel like I need to ask questions about everything.

I hope this makes sense...

I used to always be in the mindset of needing hard goals and working towards them, but not until just recently has this thinking been completely changed with me.

My goals always used to change and always used to make me feel like a flake for not being able to stick with things, but what I realized was that the reason my goals did change was because I learned more and more things by continually asking why.

For example, when I was 14 and living in a new country at the time, I kept saying to myself that I was going to learn technical language (meaning things further than every day conversation etc. I already spoke fluently as a 14 year old might, but had no idea regarding difficult subjects.) Anyway, I studied technical language for about 6 months before I realized that not only did I not know technical terms (terms like engine parts for a motorcycle, medical terms for sickness, scientific terms like gravity etc.) but that NO ONE knew those terms either, no one except for experts in their areas. So I gave up trying to use technical language because the goal was useless itself. No one knew what I was talking about, and it would have done me no good to keep at it unless I wanted to be a mechanic or a doctor or something.

So I dropped the goal.

Some people look at this like a failure of commitment, I look at it as being realistic.

So in answer to your question, to keep life realistic for me, I accept the fact that the world around me always changes and that because of that, my goal will have to adapt or change altogether as well, otherwise I'll become obsolete in my thinking.

Also one thing to note, as a person, we are going to have imperfect knowledge on every subject we think about. So our goals are going to be based on imperfect information, therefore if we continue to ask why and continue to learn, we can make goals better tailored to the world and ultimately, better tailored to us.

So in essence, learn to choose a direction and then go in that general direction, but be open to change and goal revisions. That would be my first step.

Write your goals down
Sort them out, short term and long term

Break your long term goals down into smaller steps - make checklists and tick them off as you complete them on the way to achieving your long term goals.

Lists are the answer!

The only thing I would do is add this: Keep the list manageable if you set daily goals. Too many times people underestimate the amount of time and effort to accomplish tasks.

This can set up a negative feedback loop if you're not careful. This would be not getting 2 things on the list done. Then trying to do those two things in addition to the next day's things. By not getting things done, and then adding to the next days burden, people can get overwhelmed and also start negatively viewing their progress. Then it can start to feed on itself......

Start of with simple goals to begin with. Then you either make them simpler if they are too hard or harder if they are too easy.

Which kind of questions are on your mind?

How do you break the big goals down? I can't seem to break them down into more steps because I am bad with planning.

That's where writing them down comes in handy.

I've even got a checklist of things I need to do (lock things, turn things off, a checklist to make sure I've got everything I need) before I leave the house.

I'm curious, can you guys follow your lists? I sure can't. I make a list, hang it up somewhere, follow one or two things, get distracted and then fail to complete the list.

Then I make a list saying to follow the list. I forget about that one too.

Then I soon pile up a huge amount of lists, so I have to do something about it.

Finally I try and consolidate into one master list. That fails too.

I throw all my lists away and clean house. Rinse and repeat, I've been doing this 10 years or so.

While I have not experienced anything to the degree you describe (Lists of lists of lists....), I have done the space out on the list thing many times. Just not enough to worry about. It's outside distractions that cause the most distress.

I'm very bad at this too. I'm often focused on end results without knowing or being motivated to take smaller steps that might get me closer to them. I think it comes down to a difficulty accepting reality the way it is, and that the path to things often has as much to do with very non-optimal nitty-gritty things as it does with the perfect picture in my head.

Take scientific research, for example. I have a really good idea of what kinds of problems I'd like to solve in science. On the other hand, I've had major issues getting a PhD. At this point, getting one means moving to another part of the country, out of my comfort zone. Even once I'm in a PhD program, it isn't clear how to get to the point where people trust my ideas. So while in my head it's just a matter of sitting out in the woods somewhere and thinking about problems until I discover something, in reality it's much messier.

Since so much of my emotional life is centered around the stuff in my head, I will probably never be really attuned to the realistic. What I eventually hope to find, though, is enough "signposts" and "crutches" in the world that remind me how to keep my realistic world from falling apart, so I'm reasonably happy and secure and can use the remaining time to be in the "unrealistic", dreamy world where I think best.