I have noticed this kind of effect on myself—I start doing something… the improvement is very slow… I convince myself that the improvement is zero… so I stop doing it… so I never finish it… which I take as a proof that my improvement was zero.
Having unrealistic expectations makes it even worse, because the higher expectation the more disappointment with slow progress.
Probably the correct solution would be: just record your improvements. I imagine something like beeminder, just without the deadlines: create a graph for something, enter data points, see the visualization, celebrate when you reach some goal.
I have noticed this kind of effect on myself—I start doing something… the improvement is very slow… I convince myself that the improvement is zero… so I stop doing it… so I never finish it… which I take as a proof that my improvement was zero.
Having unrealistic expectations makes it even worse, because the higher expectation the more disappointment with slow progress.
Probably the correct solution would be: just record your improvements. I imagine something like beeminder, just without the deadlines: create a graph for something, enter data points, see the visualization, celebrate when you reach some goal.
Beeminder without the deadlines is Beeminder with the weekly rate set to zero.
Or even just a text file and a gnuplot script, for that matter.