This feels extremely valuable. Adding this as a goal myself.

So I now have a double commitment: to act in each moment out of a sense of purposeful discipline, and also to not waste my energy fighting myself.

And, as Dogen recommends: “to practise the Way as though saving my head from fire.”

This means that if I notice myself feeling aimless, or I notice myself feeling stuck or oscillating, dealing with that immediately rather than acting from it. Focusing on addressing internal conflicts might yield less short-term output than if I were to stay focused on the object-level and push through with “willpower”, trying to win my internal conflict. Focusing on staying purpose-driven in each moment will almost certainly be less comfortable than a more calm spaciousness, but if I don’t then I can’t actually trust myself to resolve my conflicts in service of what I care about.

Conflict is inherently wasteful, as energy is spent by both sides but the effects cancel each other out. Tiago Forte points out in The Throughput of Learning that Toyota’s production line aims for zero waste. They don’t expect to reach literally zero, but having that as a target makes it clear to the whole system that they’re playing a totally different game than mere waste mitigation or waste reduction.

Malcolm Ocean
http://malcolmocean.com/2017/06/towards-being-purpose-driven-without-fighting-myself/