Setting goals and working to achieve them is an inherently optimistic exercise: You want more and better, and you believe that you have what it takes to do the work and reap the rewards. But sometimes showing your pessimistic side can help you achieve your goals faster.

“The most successful things I’ve done have one thing in common: I’ve done them at least 100 times,” says writer Josh Spector. He turned this observation into a principle: If you want to start a project, commit to 100 iterations, however you can.

How many people set intentions for the New Year, ready to get up at 5:00AM and head to the gym, or quit drinking alcohol cold-turkey, or spend two hours every weekend learning to play a new instrument? And how many of those people fail?

The harsh truth: A goal will start to dissipate when stuck inside a brain for too long. To move from that comfortable space of “I wish I could do it” to the thrilling realm of “Holy heck, I’m actually doing it”, it needs to be put out there. Spoken aloud. Shared with trusted friends. Given legs.

While there are countless ways to get your finances in order, it all starts with learning what’s important to you and your family: What are your priorities, what are your values? Once you’ve established that, the steps you need to take should become more clear.

There’s something about spring that seems like a fresh start. It’s still a second chance at a new year, a time to get everything in order and set some goals.

What’s the biggest goal on your to-do list? Is it a cross-country move to your dream city? Opening a business? Starting your own blog?

Balancing your financial goals, wants and needs isn't easy. There always seems to be something else popping up, keeping you from setting aside the money you intended to save at the beginning of the month. If you're trying to reach a money milestone - like saving up $10,000, for instance - here are some strategies that can help.

If there’s one truism when it comes to your money, it’d be not to let your emotions get the best of you: You don’t want to sell when the market’s tanking, splurge on something you can’t afford when you’re in a bad mood, or continually give money to a loved one with no strings attached.

But giving into your emotions can actually be a boon to your finances in the right circumstances. Here’s why.

A job isn’t just a job for many people — we want to be fulfilled, and often we want to be working toward a greater good or some measure of personal growth.

What is it you'll regret most about your life when your time is up? Failure to fulfil your duty and obligations? Or the failure to follow your dreams? New research from Cornell University suggests our biggest regrets have nothing to do with our responsibilities in life.

We like to say that people should "find their passion" to experience success in their careers and therefore, in their lives. If you really love something, it will feel easy and right. Right? That may actually be the worst possible way to approach new ventures.

I'm very good at wanting to buy things. I want to buy a new sound system, for example. This would mean ripping five speakers out of my walls, patching up the holes, and buying a $900 soundbar. My wife points out that the current system works well, and asked me why I want to replace it. And I had to admit why: I have to control the sound system with a second remote, which I hate. My wife pointed out that solving this is not worth $900 and a weekend project. So instead I'm buying a $60 universal remote. This is a better way to reach my real goal, which is feeling in control of my gadgets.

We're just about half-way through the year, so let's take some time to do a check-in on our 2018 money goals.

Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations, Lifehacker's weekly dip into the pool of stoic wisdom, and a guide to using its waters to reflect on and improve your life.

Actors have a saying: You don't get 100 per cent of the parts you don't audition for. If you're an artistic type, or a writerly type, or even just someone who's looking for a job, you may have found rejections to be so painful that you've just stopped applying for things. Social media and streaming TV is so soothing - why would you put yourself out there for stuff you aren't going to get anyway?

When you realise you need to get something done, you probably think to yourself, "I have to do that soon." But that type of thinking disrupts your motivation in two ways: by messing with your sense of time and robbing you of urgency.

When you're going about your day-to-day, it's easy to put important questions about your career - what you really want to do, how you get there - on the backburner as you complete the tasks you need to get done now. And who wants to think about work in the few hours we have off?

Do you feel as though your social life is out of control? Maybe you (or your kids) have events every evening, when all you want to do is spend a quiet night at home. Maybe you feel like you're spending too much time "touching base" and "picking brains" with people you aren't close to, and not enough time with your friends. Maybe your in-laws want you to spend every Sunday having dinner with them, and you... don't.