Trying to work out ‘what I want’ or ‘where I want to be’ has been my biggest challenge for some years now. Without some target to aim towards though, there’s little motivation to push through the dull days. The dull days are nothing like the dark days, and for that I should be grateful. There’s no major existential angst, nor any acute emotional pain. There’s simply an absence of any driving force.

So my solution for today – rather than trying to envision some ideal future far into the distance, I’m going to create micro goals – where do I want to be next month? How do I want to be feeling? What do I want to be doing. And to make this even simpler, I can at least start with the things that I dislike now, and set my target as improving upon those i.e. I want to feel less ‘X’ this time next month or more ‘X’.

I’m actually thinking about an Eisenhower Matrix like approach, where I keep a list of the things that stir negative emotion for me, and label each item with either ‘fix’ or ‘ignore’. Or perhaps, rather than ‘ignore’ I should use ‘accept’ as there are some negative emotions – I believe – that come and go as a function of the human condition. Others, however, are within my control to fix, and it’s these I should focus on and come up with practical solutions for.