When I try this, it often backfires - I decide that the "worst case" isn't so bad, and then decide not to try to avoid it. For example, suppose I'm taking a college course and really don't want to do the homework. If I don't ever do the homework, I won't pass the course, so I'll have to drop it. If I drop it, I'll then feel a great relief at not having to do the work for that course any more, and spend more time playing video games and surfing the Internet. This seems like an acceptable outcome, so I decide to abandon the goal of passing the course.
Short answer: So what?
Expanded answer: the fact that you think it's bad that this was the resolution, indicates that you have some additional criteria in play, that you haven't surfaced or brought into active consideration in your decisionmaking.
IOW, if it's not an "acceptable outcome" to you now, but it "seems like an acceptable outcome" when you make the decision, then obviously there is some additional criterion for what's "acceptable" that is not being included in the criteria you're considering at the time. Make sense?
I'm going to pretend I didn't write the other response I wrote, because I thought up a much better one some time after writing it. That other response was a cached thought that's probably just something I picked up from my parents. Repeating it now would just be a form of bullshit.
The actual problem is that, when I start giving up on goals, no matter how stupid, I soon find myself running down a psychological slippery slope. I start thinking that everything I do is pointless, and end up lying in bed, miserable, and thinking about what it would be like not ...
Ok, let's face facts. The Internet has fried my brain. I'm a terrible hedonist and procrastinator. I have a very important test in May -- I am not exaggerating when I say that the outcome of the test matters to the future direction of my life. There are situations where failure is just a temporary setback, and there are situations where failure would be a real problem, and this is the latter. No fooling.
My Problems
1. I don't work enough. My primary distraction is the Internet, though occasionally novels happen too, and I'm capable of just staring into space and daydreaming.
2. I fall asleep during the day. I've tried getting more hours of sleep at night and it doesn't solve the problem. When I'm bored or confused, my body says "Naptime!" It can be quite embarrassing.
3. I often feel too tired/demotivated/bummed to do errands. A lot of stuff, some more important and some less important, slips through my fingers. The most important, to my quality of life, are buying necessities and cleaning my room -- I tend to put these off much too long for my own good.
4. I don't have enough measures of how well I'm doing as a student. I get confused by some abstract concepts, and sometimes I don't even notice that I'm confused.
5. I like being happy and entertained better than being stressed and bored and confused. This makes me want to work less. Not proud of this character trait but not sure how I can rewire my preferences.
Planned Solutions So Far
1. Work in a cubicle, with no computer, with a kitchen timer to keep me mindful of how many hours I spend working.
2. Plan out the material I have to learn and the time I have to learn it, and make a kibotzer.com account to see if I'm on track for my goal.
3. Track various measures of productivity (hours worked, concepts learned, problems solved, percent correct) with a Joe's Goals account. Have thresholds that I don't want to drop below.
4. Use Self Control to block all my entertainment internet sites during "working hours" (I'll leave early mornings and/or late nights free.)
5. Accumulate diverse library books relevant to coursework, and various sources of practice problems, and more notebooks and paper than I need; don't let lack of physical resources limit my progress.
6. Set aside a regular occasion for clean-up and errands.
Any other advice?
In particular, I don't know what to do about my sleepiness problem. I'm not a very regular caffeine drinker; I've started to drink Lipton tea, but I don't think I've reached the quantity sufficient to keep me awake yet, at 2-3 cups a day.
Any advice on the psychological front would also be helpful. How to stay motivated. I know what my motivation is (the consequences of failure in my situation are not pleasant) but how to keep focused on the importance of my goal, without spending all my time being miserable and frightened because I'm visualizing the worst-case scenario. I know I can fuel myself on guilt for a short time, but I don't like it much and I don't think it's practical long-term.
Yes, of course I'm aware that adults know how to work to achieve what they want. Somehow I've reached adulthood without really developing all the personal capacities that I should have. It's lousy of me, but this is where I am, and I'm ready to change and willing to take advice.