Regarding control, viewing goals as outcomes that I can influence is changing my life. An objective is "Be the greatest programmer of all time". The outputs ar

Regarding control, viewing goals as outcomes that I can influence is changing my life. An objective is "Be the greatest programmer of all time". The outputs are things like, "Find and read the top 3 most important books on programming." Those can then be broken down further until they are actionable. I find control in the difference between an objective and an output. A nice habit I can recommend from the article is keeping a notebook of people you want to thank. I keep the notebook so I don't get distracted and don't forget if I remember someone suddenly. If you do engage in that habit, the idea of output/objective is important to keep in mind. Some people don't respond to gratitude well, or at all. That's not the point though, that's focusing on the outcome which you can only influence not control. You can control the action of writing a note of gratitude to someone you care about. Imagine how nice it feels to receive an unexpected thank you note.