jbrains

Mostly self study from a variety of sources. I lived part time in Stockholm for four years, but it was far easier than I'd expected to speak only English, so although my reading and writing improved, my speaking and listening didn't. Every time I tried, they switched to English on me. I don't blame them.

Now I'm a bit stuck: I can't find much to listen to that's at my level. I'm past the beginner stuff but can't keep up with Swedish spoken at full speed.

• I have spoken English since birth.
• Je parle français depuis l'âge de 7 ans, parce que je l'apprenais à l'école.
• Estudiaba el español en la escuela secundaria.
• Jag lär mig svenska i fler än tio år.
• Ich kann etwas Deutsch lesen und verstehen.

And thanks to my Swedish, I can read a surprising amount of Danish and Norwegian.

I would call myself proficient in French, passable in Spanish, barely functional in Swedish, and I can get by in German in a very banal emergency. 😉

I believe that if you faced the judgment and self-hatred, the rest might fall into place. I have two general strategies to suggest, which you could use together.

1. Practise looking at the thoughts like "I'm lazy" and "I hate myself of for being so lazy" and seeing them for the empty things they are. They're just thoughts. They're not even yours. They mean nothing. They consist of nothing.
2. Look into the reasons for judging yourself lazy and hating yourself for it. Is there a voice you hear in your head saying these things? Whose voice is it? (Is it a person from your past or a part of yourself you can identify?) Maybe you're reacting to something you were told or taught very young, which was helpful at the time, but not helpful any more.

Your body wants to conserve energy or it's afraid of overinvesting energy in practising the piano. If you saw that more clearly, you might more easily identify what to do next.

I stopped studying piano when I realized that I wasn't prepared to put in the practice needed to develop the raw finger strength and dexterity to play even medium difficulty Bach fugues. I saw what it took and the effort didn't interest me enough to stick with it. I have invested that practice energy into something else instead and I feel much happier for it. I have a facility for music, but I'm just not that into it as a technician. I have enough to appreciate virtuosity in others and that's enough for me. Maybe you can find something similar.

Peace.

"Delightful".

I use copyq for this purpose. It doesn't do exactly what you've asked for, but it solves a very similar underlying problem.

Not always. Sometimes one feels miserable, fears the reactions of others, and still doesn't do the task. Sometimes we call this "depression". Not recommended.

In your shoes, I'd want to understand more about what makes me miserable about not finishing things. In fact, I was in those shoes a decade or so ago. I take a much more measured view of that now. If I genuinely want to finish it or need to finish it, I'll finish it. The rest is noise.

Everyone gets there in their own time. Meantime, you're welcome, good luck, and peace.

Aha, so that's something in the way: it might be more work than it's worth to you. Either the uncertainty interferes with you or the certainty that it demands much more effort than it's worth interferes with you. Does one of these hit you more than the other?

I'm certainly familiar with both feelings with regards to different projects.

So... Let me address each of those, just in case.

• Can you just do some of it and then stop and be satisfied with the part you've done?
• Can you start, figure out that it's more trouble than it's worth, then undo and go back to where you were before?

I don't merely mean "Are you able to?" but also "How would you feel about those outcomes?"

Peace.

Is there also something you don't want to happen that seems likely to happen if you try?

For example, I work with many folks who struggle to leave projects unfinished, so they resist starting for reasons they don't quite understand.

I relate to these patterns, which is why I have tried to learn about the fundamentals of motivation.

What is the relationship for you between my prior suggestion and your clarification above?

One of these is likely to be true for you. Maybe more than one.

• You don't know what to do, at least some part of it.
• You know what to do, but you don't know what will happen if you do it.
• You know what to do and you know what will happen, but you don't want that to happen.

If any of these resonate with you, then that might give a clue about what to try next.

In addition, you can act without feeling motivated. Some people like starting with 10 minutes of effort or a single step, because sometimes doing anything is enough to sustain energy and focus. It's a way of using inertia to work for you, rather than against you.

I know this joke as about a German mathematician giving a lecture. Tension grew as he spoke. Finally, he drew to a close. After nearly two hours, he said twelve consecutive verbs, and then the audience finally understood what the hell he was talking about.