It goes without saying, but it’s always easy to forget:
Be explicit. But be especially explicit with your intentions.
Several years ago, I underwent a metarough transition from a worldview of “things will align by themselves” to “only yourself can possibly care enough to justify your alignment.”
It’s awkwardly phrased, but it wasn’t until I began being what you might even call meticulously explicit that I began seeing growth or results that I was contented with.
At any given point, one must be able to distill what they desire so precisely, that the resulting analysis is mistaken for a PhD dissertation.
If you can’t distill it, then the next step in store will probably not be some incidence of “Go Directly to Results and Collect $1M”—the next step will have to be you figuring it out.
That’s always the next step before the next step.