The two most long-term projects of mine have been learning Japanese and learning the guitar, and the further I get into each the more I realize the similarities between the two.

Justin Sandercoe is a guitar teacher on Youtube who is such a great teacher that I have a semi man-crush on him. He made a video recently on setting long term and short term goals in your guitar playing, and I think it's perfectly analogous to language learning. So even if you don't play guitar you should check it out.

Here's the link:

Long Term Goal: Create the first Full Brain Machine Interface (BMI) system aimed at the general public.

Short Term Goals:
1) Work at Google [Japan].
2) Create a program that I'm proud of that is both large-ish in code base and complex in what it does. (Which might get me that job at Google)

Everyone should have goals. How else will they know where to go in life.

Edit: Just realized this probably wasn't a "what are your goals" thread. Shouldn't post when tired.

@Tzadeck Oh thanks!! I've almost missed that not checking my subscriptions yesterday.

@vix86 Are you involved in Neuroscience research? Cool topic. I've been thinking about cyborgs for some time, but if I finally decide on pursuing a career in research I should probably go for control of underactuated dynamics, which covers replacing the motor control part of the brain for living beings-like robots. I've just realized that I've gone completely off-topic O_o

That was really interesting. Thanks for the link Tzadeck. Before I started studying Nihongo with some direction, these are the sort of videos, speeches, etc. I spent a larger period of a month taking in everything I could for motivation. His mini-goal orientation reminds me a lot of the Kaizen-Toyota method- of which I found out about thanks to AJATT. In fact, most of my initial motivation came from the various insights and references Khaz came across from various professionals and posted on his blog.


Method is great and all but drive and motivation make or break a person. In that clip, where the guitarist was discussing how he felt that he was trying to inspire his students to continue with their practice, more importantly than what he was teaching them, I've come to understand the sentiment inside-out. The autodidactic approach to learning can be incredibly effective with a bit of inspiration, motivation, and mini-goals.

Thanks very much Tzadeck, this really helped me. This is exactly what I needed. I came here today to post a thread about not having goals or a set method, and here's the solution lying right before me. Bravo, man.