As long as you have a habit of being discouraged when there is no instant pay-off for your efforts, when you tend to focus on negative aspects and when you don't really believe you're able to change anything (which would make you an interesting object for scientists to study as there is no scientific explanation why you wouldn't be able to change your behavior or mindset) you are basically reinforcing neural pathways that make it indeed take longer for the desired changes to occur.

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A couple of mindset changes logically make any other process of growth, issue resolution or self-knowledge easier:

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1. Meta Mindset #1: Believing in your ability to change
   It takes a few days or even weeks before your perception changes. Until then, it will feel like nothing is changing. After your first mindset change, you have a reference experience that can help you to persevere when such feelings arise. Once you can trust on your innate ability to change your mindset when the process is taking its natural time, it ironically takes less and less time for mindset changes to happen as you're no longer fighting your limiting belief that keeps the old mindset in place.
    

2. Meta Mindset #2: The ability to shift your focus to preferred aspects of your reality
   The moment you fail at something, it's also a moment you learn something. When you're annoyed by a traffic jam while it's also your favorite type of weather, it's up to you what you focus on. Even when things go badly while you know you're being authentic, you could derive happiness from the latter. Similarly, by zooming in or out from something, you will see that on some levels of magnification your impression will be positive and on others it will be negative. For example, your body might be in a healthy condition while you have a small infection on your hand. Are you then healthy or not? It depends on how far you zoom out, which is a matter of choice as well as habit. Many people have a habit of focusing on the aspects that are negative. While this can be helpful to spot things that require attention and resolution, it's not a realistic perception. By practicing to shift your attention to aspects you're happy with, grateful for, excited about or the items you would prefer to focus on if you weren't distracted by something or someone, you quickly build the skills to have a wholesome picture of any situation – both the pleasant and unpleasant aspects.
    

3. Meta Mindset #3: The ability to visualize circumstances or outcomes
   For many types of self-development, the ability to visualize circumstances or outcomes so vividly that you can feel the sensations (usually excitement) as if those circumstances were real is considered essential. We provide free detailed instructions on our page about mind over matter, as superhuman skills are often associated with this skill as well, although these require much more practice than what can already be helpful for general self-development.

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Practice these skills to a reasonable level and see to what extent this might already empower you to deal with the problems or ambitions at the core of your desire for self-development. ​​

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