I have exhausted myself thinking of this. Why should I invest time in x if I don't even know what my y is. Traditional teaching or mentoring approaches objectives by defining what a student must fulfill to truly understand and grasp a topic(s) thoroughly. This can also be translated to "end of term" projects, things that combine the fundamentals that underlie the subject(s) or exercises at the end of sections. Most of these examples are situated in a academic environment, where one feels comfortable enough to be guided and bound to deadlines. Whereas, this is tough to translate outside an academic environment.
My own experience: I recently was interested in learning... (read more)