What Shiels said on the thread about self-discipline has stuck with me.
He's right really - you have to tap those reward mechanism centres in a productive way. Get addicted to doing things that 'improve' you.
Gamification could be the way.
lots of apps already developed working on that assumption
Gamification
The main thing is I think it's more about environment than mindset, knowledge or force of will. If you want to give energy and attention to things that matter to you it sometimes helps if you have stake in the every day practice, when its bound up in your nervous system and pulse and groin, so you're getting social feedback, support, validation and feel the weight of expectation from others. there's stuff to lose and gain, rather than some solitary and idealistic quest... plug into a network of people who care about the same stuff, learn, compete, get jealous etc.
DuoLingo is a good example of an app that makes learning fun.
I'm not sure how effective it is because it evidently wasn't fun enough to make me persist with it.
But i imagine if I desperately needed to learn basic French Duolingo would be just the ticket.
Because we believe in it, though, polling tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly on social media – where each new poll is eagerly shared by supporters of whichever party appears to be surging this week. Like older forms of divination, the numbers give form to our desires and fears. They authorise our beliefs, legitimise our candidates and generate little waves of excitement. They allow us to blow attention bubbles around issues or parties, boosting the ratings further, and spawning yet another squee of excitement and feverish sharing of numbers. In moments of crisis, this can even allow small parties to game the system and generate attention and support as if from nowhere. If it weren’t for this, it is difficult to see how the Brexit party, a corporation with no members and a relatively small budget, could have won the European elections in May.