Trouble applying the Meaning of Life series to myself - thoughts?

[lister]

I've recently read the meaning of life series and tried to fit that model to my life, but my conclusions don't feel right. I'd be grateful for any second opinions that forum members could offer.

First, my life story condensed into two paragraphs

Every few months since I was about 14 - whatever I've been doing - I've become frustrated with how little of my potential I've fulfilled, tried-without-really-trying to improve by setting goals too hard and too fast and become disillusioned. Rinse and repeat. I'm lucky to be blessed with just enough intelligence that I got through academia anyway and got a good degree (took three whole years! ) despite doing almost no work outside scheduled hours. Got a decently paid job, but fourteen months ago I quit and started draining savings to pay living costs.

Three months ago I tried a bit harder than usual and came up with something that worked just a tiny bit better when setting goals. It didn't work, but it gave me just a little self-awareness and taught me the value of experimentation. My self-awareness has slowly improved since then, and I think I might finally be ready for change.

Back to the blog article, and some similarly condensed reasoning. First step: know your context. "Actions reveal beliefs." Applying that to my life, although I thought I believed in fulfilling my potential, I really believed in displaying zero self-discipline (since age 14) and preserving the status quo (the last two years). A little hard to come to terms with, but, alright. So let's call those previous unpractised beliefs my "ideals", and accept that I currently believe that loafing around the house all day accomplishing nothing is fine. Append "personal growth" too, because that's the context shift I'd like to try out.

Next up: purpose. My beliefs should give me a purpose. Emotionally, I'm still clinging to my ideals, so that method gives all sorts of things that are inconsistent with my demonstrated beliefs. Rationally, my purpose is to keep loafing around like always, except that I'm trying to personally grow as well. Slightly inconsistent, but let's just say that personal growth takes priority over loafing where they clash.

Next step: goals/actions. Loafing about doesn't really require or deserve goals (right?). I've set three modest personal growth goals, all addressing self-discipline:

• run a 10k in a set time; this should be pretty easy because exercise is one of the few things I can naturally muster self-discipline for.
• spend N minutes a day learning; this should be medium difficulty because while I love learning, I find it hard to stick to doing something every day
• face the dentist; this will be hard because it's a phobia for me, but it needs doing!

This feels really wrong, though, because my goals feel extremely unambitious compared to my ideals. That emotional/rational inconsistency won't lie down - it's as if, having smelled a whiff of change, the emotional version of my context wants my complete attention. I'm gonna try to stick to the goals anyway because 1) poor goals beat inaction, and 2) I suspect that adding anything more would be like "packing 300 pounds on the bench press".

I guess what I'm looking for here is:

• some sort of validation of my reasoning
• some sort of validation of the lack of ambitiousness of my goals
• any similar experiences people could share that might tell me how I can expect this jarring inconsistency to change as time goes on

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Cheers!