Basically I'm in a shitty place in my life and I need to do better. I know I can do better. I need to work out, be more social, and get a job. I think having some sort of narrative or at least "system" would make things easier because I face a lot of procrastination and laziness. I also know I can accomplish a lot though and I'm in my prime right now. I know it would be easier to get up early if I had something to blame it on, or a reason behind it other than myself. It would be so much easier to work out if I had a reason behind it beyond myself.
So does anyone have any suggestions for how to establish this, how I can make one or if there are ones I can search around for? I'm not looking for anything religious (I'd try something spiritual though) and I'm not interested in jordan peterson's stuff.
The best motivator is accountability to another person. Whether it's a workout buddy or a romantic partner or even just a close family member, involve someone else in your plans. It's way too easy for a person to let only themselves down, so don't go it alone.
Matthew Perez
I don't have other people to hold me accountable. i want to be dependent on my own, it's something really important to me. I essentially want my life to be like that american psycho morning routine. I have a really good work ethic but it doesn't translate to myself and I think that's a sign that with some dress up or context around my personal life I could probably get a lot more shit done. It's insane that the person who is able to impress his boss and get a bunch of work done early is the same person waking up late and eating pizza in the morning. This is why I think I need some sort of system to keep me together outside of work, because my relaxing outside of work is ruining my life. I essentially have no life besides work.
But if I had some sort of narrative or purpose or system in place it'd be like a philosophical boss. I feel motivated by having done stuff and it can act in a positive manner to getting more done but I need to get to there first.
Bale's character in American Psycho was driven by an insane narcissism that was obsessed with validation from other people. I admire your personal drive to make positive changes in life but I can't agree with your need for it to be done solo. Find other people to hold you accountable. No man is an island.
Landon Lee
I'm not alone by choice lol I had to move back home with my parents and I recently got out of a breakup from a relationship that led me to isolate myself. I can't exactly walk out into my suburban hometown and find a community of 20 somethings. I need to meet my own basic needs before growing out if that makes sense. I don't want to construct this based on the validation of others because it relates to how I want to operate as a person. It's the difference between "I won't do this bad thing because it's bad" and "I won't do this bad thing because others might see"
Juan Roberts
It doesn't make sense. Having some kind of social connection, even if it's just one or two people, is a basic need. I'm not saying you should depend on the validation of others like Bale. I'm saying that people operate in a society. People don't do bad things because they have a holistic viewpoint of "bad" that is partly motivated by prevailing trends and values around them.
Here's the upshot of what I'm saying: if you don't connect to the people around you, your hard work will ultimately have no relevance. Other people are not the purpose of your goals but they are the context. Look where you are right now.
Henry White
I'm not saying I do not want friends, I desperately do. I need more social connection. I'm saying that this has nothing to do with that, like this is about how I operate as an individual. It's like how your own religious belief will be stronger than the religion you signed up for because your friends were a part of it. What you're saying to me sounds like "go out and make friends that have a religion and follow their religion" when I'm asking what religion to follow. I'm just using this as an example though because I'm specifically not looking for a religion.
Oliver King
I'm going to stick with your analogy because you're misunderstanding my advice, but I think the analogy will help fix that.
You're asking what religion to follow. Here's what I'm saying: you need to create some kind of motivation to go to a library once a week and research different faiths out there. Right now you sound like you don't have a system in place that drags you to the library every week. I want you to go find someone who will go to the library with you every Saturday (maybe they like reading romance novels), or who will at least visit you every week and talk to you about what you read at the library this weekend.
I'm not saying you need a partner in the journey to find a religion. I'm saying you need another human being who is even tangentially involved with your weekly routine. Hell, I don't care if that person is just the librarian that you make friends with. But the one thing you cannot do is have NO ONE ELSE involved in this religious research of yours. If you keep on doing it solo--not doing it with anyone, not talking about it to anyone, etc.--then week after week you're going to keep skipping the library.
Other people are the system to avoid procrastination and laziness. They are a critical context for any personal projects you undertake.
>It would be so much easier to work out if I had a reason behind it beyond myself. The "reason behind it" I'm suggesting is "someone else cares about the thing I'm doing."
Logan Reed
>Procrastination, laziness, lagging life
Mild psych educated well managed ADHD fag here. This sounds vaguely like ADHD, doesn't mean it is of course, but the goal is "treat the symptoms individually" so I can help anyway regardless.
You procrastinate because for whatever reason your brain doesn't see any incentive to do what you want it to do. Incentive revolves around dopamine, endorphins and executive function n shit. Most brains will reward people for accomplishing things as simple as doing the dishes or dressing well or shaving, weird as it sounds, so they don't have a problem keeping on task with that. Some brains (like ADHD) do not. They reward other things in huge excess so there becomes a huge prioritization problem.
Your brain has proven to you it will not cooperate in providing motivation in doing the things you need to do. You need to explore why. Analyze your thoughts and feelings. When you think "I should go out today" where is the failure? Is it a thought that occurs? Is it a distraction? Is it a feeling? You need to identify the point of failure, and modify it.
If it's a distraction, make a rule. For example my tv, and computer stay off, and my phone stays plugged in by my bed on a weekend until I've done my things for the day. I've eliminated the distractions. I can only stare at a wall for so long before my brain is like "ok fine let's clean the house" and I get the motivation.
If it's a thought, like you start going through the steps in your head and something daunts you, then write down the steps in extremely simple terms and find a way to simplify it. Sometimes even writing it down makes it look less daunting. When the dishes pile up I won't clean because a particularly dirty pot is in the way and I don't want to clean it. I'll talk myself through the fact it's easy, takes a few seconds, and then it's fine. Then everything falls in place.
Ill answer any question you have for a bit.
Blake Campbell
I know I focused on productivity because that's my trouble area, but it's still relevant across everything. In social skills, your point of failure seems to be "what if it doesn't work out." It's a useless thought, because it keeps you in. You need to really zero in on that. You have no idea how it will go. It might be catastrophic, and that's ok, it might be excellent. Go on meetup, find something you want to try, and just go. People can be very accommodating and meetup people are not cliquey. You don't have to be like them, operate like them or act like them to be liked.
And really just stop the thinking that leads you to not do it. "What ifs" are extremely useless and illogical. I know you can understand that. They'll stop you every time, and there will never be a day you see something and think "hey actually that'll be great I'll go do that". You do not currently possess that mental foundation. And you won't until you dive in. It will never be better until you put away the what ifs and just go.
Gavin Martin
Ok I can really tl;Dr all this. >I need a value system No. You don't have a value problem. You have a functional problem. Tell your car all about why it needs to help you. The alternator isn't going to start working again. You have to make physical changes to it. Same with your brain. Thoughts are not going to make the mechanisms turn. Actions and environments will.
Noah Johnson
It's called you're a victim of boomers shitty eugenics war.
Cameron Howard
How am I supposed to find people to do that from my home? Do I have to meet with these people in person or can it be someone who I just text about my journey with? This also really doesn't help me with my main question of finding something to help me in my personal life, because my life will continue to decay as I look for this thing with someone else.
The timeliness of this matters a lot because I have a job that's ending soon and I can't bring myself to apply to jobs anymore.
>The "reason behind it" I'm suggesting is "someone else cares about the thing I'm doing." This would not be good for the philosophical system, but would work for something like continuing a gym program. My issue with this is that I need to get started by doing it on my own because otherwise I'm dependent on that other person rather than myself to get it done. If they're sick one day I will fall off track, or if they do not want to do it anymore I will stop. I also do not have friends to do this with right now.
Ayden Cooper
I think I'm having an issue with attention due to either lack of sleep or spending so much time on the computer. I spend almost all my time on my phone or laptop, and I'll even browse my phone if I'm watching a long video (10 minutes) on youtube. It's bad. I do get that endorphin rush from doing things, like "hell yeah look how clean my room is" and it'll motivate my other actions. It's just very hard to start on the weekend, which is why I need that philosophy to get me out of bed. If my rules are made by me then I can just decide to not follow them because I don't want to. If the rules are not mine or if there is a thing behind the rules and I want to follow that system then I can decide to get pissed about the rules but I'm so much more likely to do them while being pissed off at the thing if that makes sense.
Like if I had to mop a floor at work, that's easy. If I have to mop a floor at home, I wouldn't wanna do it and that would overrule anything else because it's me telling myself to mop.
Dylan Hernandez
I'm saying I need something like a narrative to get me out of bed because I don't have the habits or brain structure yet to push me there. So using my own laziness wired brain does not work, but having a magical belief system will get me to go outside and eventually I'll have the wiring to do that on my own once I'm more used to the habits. I'll develop the intrinsic motivation because working out and doing stuff will feel good to me, but I need to use a belief system as the training wheels to force me to do these things first. It's like how people find it easier to talk shit anonymously, if I had a role to play I'd find it easier to fill that role rather than telling myself to just do something because I want to.
Joshua Thomas
Yeah that's also ADHD stuff. At work I'm a neat freak. At home it's squalor if I don't keep on it. All goes right back to everything I said. The environment is different, the incentive is different. Your brain will give you the motivation here but not there.
So you can't will yourself to mop at home. You need to add some kind of system or incentive, or identify and remove or eliminate barriers or it won't happen. Like I said it isn't necessarily ADHD, I'm just relating to you because this is my daily reality and I have the education and experience to at least objectify it for you and give you the real answer, and even if you don't have ADHD our symptoms are the same so the approach is the same.
It's at it's core an incentive and motivation problem. The fact youll do it at work and not at home should prove to you aren't lazy. Your brain just isn't finding the reasons to do it at home so it won't activate the systems and brain apps if you will to make your ass move.
Actually scary how much like a computer your brain is... And only some of your brain is actually you. The rest is an animal organ that does it's own thing and has it's own thoughts.
Kevin Anderson
>solo autist t virgin Asian
Camden Stewart
Damn dude you just described my entire life holy shit
Dominic Nguyen
Yeah. Psychology. Hate when people call it pseudoscience or say dumb stuff like "we only understand a fraction of the human brain". It's a computer. It's predictable. You'd be amazed how much we actually do now about how it works. It's an organ like your liver or pancreas. You can manipulate it if you understand how it all works. I know all this with like 2 semesters of uni psych. All it takes and I'm not even anywhere near close to an expert and I can lay you out haha.
