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I see a lot of people here having success with goal-setting and gamification, but sometimes it's a struggle to come up with concrete goals. This is especially t

I see a lot of people here having success with goal-setting and gamification, but sometimes it's a struggle to come up with concrete goals. This is especially true if there's no obvious problem to solve at the moment (OK weight, good body image, stress managed, just not exercising). What's a good goal, then, for someone who simply wants to increase useful lifespan? "Run at least X miles every Y days" feels like "write X lines of code every Y days", which feels arbitrary unless you're training for a distance-running event. How much is enough? Where are the diminishing returns? What do you even measure? Gamification is basically a way to substitute fake goals for real ones, which works for some people but not all.

Timpy 7y ago
If your goal is "increase useful lifespan" the list of of fitness goals is nearly inexhaustible. You're optimizing too early, and your target goal is too abstract. Consider grabbing some more near-term goals (ones that will also contribute to "increase useful lifespan") and pursue those. To share a personal example: signing up for a long race gave me concrete goals with a deadline, I could measure my progress in distance and time, and by the time I completed the race I began to enjoy running for the sake of running. Now I have an enjoyable hobby that also contributes to "increased useful lifespan".