Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some time ago there was a post on HN about the difference between a system and goal driven behavior. A system driven behavior applies a strategy over and over endlessly with improvement at each iteration. The goal driven behavior is a sprint based evolution. What the OP describes is a system which he acknowledges improves his expertise in the studied knowledge. My opinion is that system has the advantage over goals i…
Sounds like a fair summary, but you haven't addressed what (I believe) is the key issue: OP feels bad . pain [...] consistently high [...] don’t have the energy or enthusiasm I think a huge turn off for "goal-setting" is that corporations do it, and also that they do it for the purpose of productivity. However, I'm not suggesting it for productivity, but for satisfaction. The satisfaction of completely something. Of…
Another aspect, however, concerns motivation vs. commitment. When it comes to hobbies I am quite driven by motivation. Unfortunately, motivation often doesn't last long. That's why many people point out that commitment [doing something despite a momentary lack of motivation] > motivation.
And this gets me back to square one as commitment is something I rather associate with corporate culture than leisure time. [Of course, you could make being commited x times a week a goal to get some satisfaction out of it but I doubt that would work for me. It probably also depends on the activity: I can commit myself to regular exercise but I can not force myself to sit down and write some music 3x/week]