[Epistemic status: mostly confident, but being this intentional is experimental]

This year, I'm focusing on two traits: resilience and conscientiousness.  I think these (or the fact that I lack them) are my biggest barriers to success.  Also: identifying them as goals for 2017 doesn't mean I'll stop developing them in 2018.  A year is just a nice, established amount of time in which progress can actually be made.  This plan is a more intentional version of techniques I've used to improve myself over the last few years.  I have outside verification that I'm more responsible, high-functioning, and resilient than I was several years ago.  I have managed to reduce my SSRI dose, and I have finished more important tasks this year than last year.  

First, I want to talk about my criteria for success.  Without illustrating the end result, or figuring out how to measure it, I could finish out the year with a false belief that I'd made progress.  If you plan something without success criteria, you run the same risk. I also believe that most of the criteria should be observable by a third party, i.e. hard to fake. 

1. I respond to disruptions in my plans with distress and anger.  While I've gotten better at calming down, the distress still happens. I would like to have emotional control such that I observe first, and then feel my feelings.  Disruptions should incite curiosity, and a calm evaluation of whether to correct course.  The observable bit is whether or not my husband and friends report that I seem less upset when they disrupt me.  This process is already taking place; I've been practicing this skill for a long time and I expect to continue seeing progress.  (resilience)
2. If an important task takes very little time, doesn't require a lot of effort, and doesn't disrupt a more important process, I will do it immediately. The observable part is simple, here: are the dishes getting done? Did the trash go out on Wednesday?  (conscientiousness)
3. I will do (2) without "taking damage."  I will use visualization of the end result to make my initial discomfort less significant.  (resilience) 
4. I will use various things like audiobooks, music, and playfulness to make what can be made pleasant, pleasant.  (resilience and conscientiousness)
5. My instinct when encountering hard problems will be to dissolve them into smaller pieces and identify the success criteria, immediately, before I start trying to generate solutions. I can verify that I'm doing this by doing hard problems in front of people, and occasionally asking them to describe my process as it appears.  
6. I will focus on the satisfaction of doing hard things, and practice sitting in discomfort regularly (cold tolerance, calming myself around angry people, the pursuit of fitness, meditation).  It's hard to identify an external sign that this is accomplished.  I expect aversion-to-starting to become less common, and my spouse can probably identify that.  (conscientiousness)
7. I will keep a daily journal of what I've accomplished, and carry a notebook to make reflective writing easy and convenient.  This will help keep me honest about my past self.  (conscientiousness) 
8. By the end of the year, I will find myself and my close friends/family satisfied with my growth.  I will have a record of finishing several important tasks, will be more physically fit than I am now, and will look forward to learning difficult things.