You know, this had been working so well, but then I seem to have lost the knack in recent months and I don't know what went wrong. Somehow I need to figure out how to rebuild this fury from scratch.

An observation I have made from my own experience is that fury is powerful fuel that is best used as a trigger for self awareness. It is best used to develop an observing ego and give myself direction that can then be used with a calm sense of purpose. Fury is not for long term consumption and our minds will tend towards homoeostasis even if that means sabotaging all our good intentions to get to that balance.

I think I have experienced something similar repeatedly in the past; and some of my friends experienced it too. It works like this:

I do something very stupid, such as waste a lot of time procrastinating and therefore fail in some important goal. I decide to never make the same mistake again. I feel anger and lot of energy. I read some book or article on motivation / will / planning / whatever way to improve your life. I will make some plan, based on the book, but also tailored to my specific needs. For the first few days (exceptionally: months) the plan works perfectly. I am very happy that I have discovered such perfect method. I feel desire to tell everyone else, but usually people don't care. And then... somehow... the strategy stops working, and never works again. I simply don't have the energy to follow it anymore. (A few months or years later the same thing repeats with another strategy.)

So, what does it mean?

First, despite my strong belief that I have found the right method, this effect is probably method-independent, or at least works with a large number of methods. Because I have experienced it a few times, with different methods. It could be prayer, meditation, "getting things done", writing a list of priorities or life goals, weekly and daily plans, installing a web-blocking software, writing an agreement with myself, setting positive and negative rewards for myself, telling other people my plans, etc. Now I think the exact method is unimportant, but the belief that I have found the best method could be a key component in the process.

Second, after initial success I feel a strong desire to tell other people about my successful method. (Just like you did now.) And I somehow expect to be admired and followed, if the method is proven to work. Now I think, maybe this is the part that makes the whole process work -- expectation of social reward. And when this fails; when the method is temporarily successful, but no one except me cares about the details; then the method stops working. (This may be a coincidence, but only once I could follow some system for months: it was a system of regular physical exercise I found on internet, called "5BX". Also, only for this system I have received positive social feedback; many people asked me to send them this plan.) Sometimes I think that following my method would be easier if I knew some other people are following the same method.

So now it seems to me that when I follow some cool methods, I am actually expecting two kinds of rewards: improving my life, and getting social reward for using the right method. When I don't get the social reward, I lose energy to follow the system, even if the system improved my life in other aspects. Possible fix? Perhaps, don't forget to use the system for things that generate social reward quickly.

OK, this is how it works for me, maybe not for you, but I felt like I noticed some similarities.

retarded retarded retarded retarded