You give several examples of consciously deciding goals, so you don't need any help from me there :-)
I think what you're actually finding problematic are goals that you set but that you stop pursuing, or that you can't even really get yourself started on pursuing.
The brain likes to imagine itself to be a single entity, a unified command, but actually it's kind of mess, and the cerebral cortex -- our conscious "I", more or less -- doesn't have nearly as much control over what we do as it likes to think it does. Most of our actions are habitual. We receive a cue, and we do whatever we usually do in response to it, and we get the usual reward, and the cortex is barely in on the game at all.
Overriding habits is really hard. You have to identify the cues, substitute the *new* action in response, and (usually) figure out some new reward. It takes a lot of doing, and the old habits are always there ready to reactivate.
I find that usually I can work on changing exactly one thing at a time, and that for the really ingrained habits it takes about a year. After that the new habits are pretty established and they start to run of their own accord: you don't have to monitor them so closely and expend so much energy on them. Then you can redeploy that energy on the next habit you want to change.
But basically, your life runs on habits: there's no escaping that. That's just how we work. And changing habits takes lots and lots of oomph (self-regulation, will power, whatever you like to call it.) I think the main reason people fail at changing habits is that they overestimate the amount of oomph they have available, and try to change too much at once. If you're trying to diet AND habitually exercise AND change your dating habits AND quit cannabis... yeah, you're probably going to fail at all of them. You'll run out of oomph, the usual cues will come along, the old circuits will activate, and there you'll be, doing the old habitual stuff.
You've already proven you can do really hard stuff -- changing spending habits is damn hard, serious physical training is hard, quitting a habitual drug is hard. So you have all the equipment for doing it. There's nothing wrong with your will power. You just need to deploy it skillfully, knock off these things one at a time, and replace them with fully functional alternative habits. If you really feel you've got the spending habits rewired, then -- pick the new thing you most want to change, and do that first. Totally doable. But really, it takes months, sometimes years, to really replace some of these habitual responses. So we're probably talking several years' effort for all the things you've mentioned, not a month or two.
Is attempting to consciously decide goals possible or does all change occur in the feedback-loops arising in our daily experience?
If you've have any success in actually deciding, please share how.
Some examples of feedback-loop driven progress in my life are:
*Getting assaulted at middle school-learned fighting and got way too muscular for a teenager. After I realized I was finally safe at around 17, I lost all motivation to workout or fight competitively. I haven't worked out consistently for a straight month since despite multiple efforts.
*Quitting cannabis: I tried quitting many times and failed. Longest was around 6 months when trying my damn hardest, Then I moved to Asia, I stopped instantly. What the hell. I'd tried getting rid of all cannabis, paying someone every day I got high, counseling, support groups, even cutting the window of when I could get high every day until I would binge on pot for 1 hour a day then stop, only moving overseas worked. I went to Europe for a short trip and was right back to the daily habit. Back to Asia. Nothing. Tiny urges once in a while. Not enough to visit the hippy town a few hours (and 1 Euro) away once in 9 months.
*FIRE: I hated working, hated college, and wanted an automated business to fund a lavish lifestyle. I randomly found the FIRE community web-surfing one day and it felt my life changed that day. This stupidly simple solution solved so many things and a huge puzzle clicked instantly for me. It inspired me to quit college, focus more on my boring but very good job and move abroad to live my dream of seeing the world with remote work. I cut my expenses down to the bare minimum for a few years as I saved to move abroad.
FIRE is the only goal in the last 5 years where I have made consistent progress on a trailing twelve month basis.
Life aspires to minimize Adenosine-Triphosphate dephosphorylation and when a part of you realizes a goal won't change everything, it seems the natural laziness eventually drains all momentum from a goal.
My savings have shot up, I'm on the path to retire before I am 30. I never thought that was possible. I remember reading about 2-5% safe returns on financial instruments and laughing it off in my teens since I thought it was impossible for that to cover my expenses. 10 years later, I'm almost there.
In my gut, I feel the spark for creating a healthier body and more fulfilling romantic connections but I haven't managed to consistently fast if I don't have health problems from my weight or date until I find a dime inside and out if I'm cultivating intimate physical relationships with some emotional connection.
Am I doomed to being fat and jumping from relationship to relationship with a girl I find super hot but am psychologically misaligned with until I reach FIRE and the energy for shedding the fat then changing my dating habits naturally arises or is there a way to consciously direct this process?
