Hi Mathew,
I have "to do" list, which is a distillation of years of planning. If I follow objectives in several areas of my life, I'll slowly get closer to the goals, which I've broken up, into that list, as routine as it seems.
My enthusiasm comes from any feedback from reviews with important people, on how they see me moving towards those goals, as mundane as they are.
Sometimes, i don't listen though. Recently I was watching a physician describe something called the "empathic" response, which is how that physician would expect candidates for medical school successfully empathize with situations during screening scenarios. I grasped the concept, I thought.
However, during an actual visit with a physician, who asked me "how are things at home", I couldn't understand that he didn't want me to read from the laundry list of concerns I had brought word processed, but he wanted to hear how I was managing emotionally.
Live and learn, I say
