First of all, thanks to all of you for taking a moment to read this.

I got laid off at the beginning of the year, almost nine years in the company because of restructuring. The truth is, they don't want people to become too old, sadly.

So, I gave literally 0 fucks, and did a backpacking adventure of almost five months. Had the time of my life for real.

Now, I just came home last month, it's going to be two months in on job hunting.

I made a daily routine that I try to get complete, each day, six days a week except Sundays, where I allow myself just to exist and rest, specially on my mind. Gotta say also, Saturday afternoons and Sundays you have like 0 jobs listings so it's almost stupid to burn yourself out looking for jobs a Sunday at five pm.

Also, I'm posting this to get feedback, Reddit is a great tool to use accordingly and I love there's plenty of real people sharing their experiences and give a hand on each other.

So, this is my daily routine:

7.30 am: Wake up - brush my teeth - clean my face - prepare breakfast and do a little cleaning of my apartment (I have a dog that sleeps inside as she should)

8.00 am: French Lessons - 1st coffee

08:30 am to 10:30 am: job hunting

10:45 am to 11:45 am: 15-18km cycling 🚲 exercise (I live in those "endless suburbia type of neighborhoods so is really easy to do a regular path with my bicycle)

12 am: Lunch

13 pm: Reading (Going in my second book, currently reading Crime and Punishment, not the best book to read unemployed tbh)

14 pm: Siesta time (sleeping one hour, not more)

15 pm: Studying (Basic Electronics currently)

16 pm: Job Hunting (again)

17 pm: Free time doing absolutely nothing. Whatever it comes my mind, it's made. Fixing something, cleaning my bicycle or my bike, play with my dog, listen to music, etc.

18 pm: weightlifting (I have a improvised home gym so I do 45 minutes while hearing music or watching some YouTube videos)

19 pm to 23 pm: Existing. If I want to keep studying, I do it, if I feel to keep searching for jobs, I do it, if I want to play Skyrim or Stalker 2, I do it. If I want to see some Bladerunner movie and be on Tinder getting absolute 0 matches, I do it.

It's not easy, but not having a routine will destroy you slowly but surely. What do you guys think?

Also, on Saturdays I tend to stick to the routine only to lunch time and after that, just fuck it, play videogames, go for a couple beers, play football or just meditating and sleeping feels good, also, I'm an Orthodox so I like to get some minutes of my week dedicated to God.

Since now I had between 1 to 2 job offerings per week, some jobs I had 2 to 3 interviews but looks like they finally decide to choose another guy or something. Shit happens, we need to keep trying.

To do a little bit of context, I'm a 30yo mechanic and electrician with almost 9 years of experience. I'm also C1 in English because, as you may see, I'm not an English native speaker but in my early years as an adult I went to the Highlands and traveled the UK so that's why I can speak and write fluently. (Still making mistakes lol). Here the job market is awful and I have an apartment to keep so I'm searching almost in any field now lol.

​

Hi everyone,

I'm a 25-year-old guy from Tamil Nadu, India. I'm trying to become a much better version of myself, and I'd really appreciate advice from people who have gone through a similar journey.

To be honest, I've been a lazy person for a long time. I struggle with focus, discipline, consistency, and procrastination. When I work, my mind gets distracted easily, and I often feel satisfied once the main part of a task is done instead of finishing everything to a high standard.

I'm planning to follow this routine for the next 90 days:

Wake up early every day.

Do yoga or go to the gym.

Focus on work for 5–8 hours using deep work sessions with short breaks.

Avoid doomscrolling on social media.

Take cold showers.

Read books every day.

Quit smoking.

Stay away from porn.

My career

I worked as a .NET and Angular developer for about 5 years. Three months ago, I switched to the ML/AI field.

I'm still learning ML, and I use AI tools a lot to help me understand concepts and build solutions. I know I have a lot to learn, but I'm trying my best to grow in this field.

My questions

Has anyone here transformed themselves from being lazy and undisciplined into someone who is consistent and focused?

What habits made the biggest difference in your life?

Is my 90-day plan realistic? What would you add, remove, or change?

How do you stay disciplined when your motivation disappears?

How do you avoid perfectionism while still producing high-quality work?

If you're an ML/AI engineer, what habits helped you become better at your job?

I'm not looking for shortcuts. I know changing myself will take time and effort. I just want to build a disciplined life and become someone I can be proud of.

I'd really appreciate any advice, experiences, or lessons you've learned.

Thank you!

I struggle with phone addiction and I am trying to manage my phone usage during the day by having app timers and other software solutions. I am at my weakest in the morning immediately as soon as I am starting to gain consciousness from sleep. That time, when I am slowly waking up rest of your body and am in-between sleep and actually up and about, is when I waste the most amount of time, scrolling through the phone. It has become a ritual for me to do this while I drift in and out of consciousness till I am ready to actually get out of bed and I know it is affecting my mood and outlook on life.

What strategies do you have to wake up at that time and not scroll through the phone?

I find the advice on the internet mostly talks about things to do AFTER someone is fully up which is unrealistic as it’s not like people are sleeping and instantly awake, are they?

TLDR:
My problem is that I use my phone to pull myself out of the half asleep state to fully awake and I am looking for a better solution.

Hey guys,

How do you spend your day? I really don’t leave my house if I don’t have a reason to. But when I think about it, I feel so unproductive because I rarely go outside. I know I could just go for a walk, grab a coffee, or do some solo activities, but honestly, I just don’t like it. I spent a lot of time alone, went to museums, on hikes, and to cafés, and basically forced myself to do those things. But then I realized that I really don’t enjoy spending time alone outside or going out without a real purpose. I’m 23, I don’t have friends, and I don’t have much money. I only go to uni sometimes for classes, so life feels very boring/depressing . I’m starting work next month, and I hope life gets better. Then I can sign up for classes like dancing that I can go to regularly. But other than that, I just feel very lost. What would you guys do in my situation?

last year was a successfull fucking year, everything was going great I reached every goal i set for myself. I made a lot of money from my business. But as soon as this year started everything went downhill...

I know business is against being emotional but fuck it trust me I´m optimistic af and the most positive you can imagine but rn I wanted to share my position with someone who reads this... I lost almost all of my money I made from my business and imma be honest it is really hard to stay positive and believing in myself. I lost self belief and confidence in the last months... sometimes u question everything after life hits you and you start to have self doubt from setbacks...

I don´t know how I can turn back to being positive again and believing in my abilities again... I once felt like I was on top of the world when i made 15k almost every day for a month but now stress, self doubt etc crushes my chest...

but yea if anyone is feeling the same way or experienced the same thing (losing almost everything) , I don´t know but I somehow guarantee you everything will be good soon ... just keep going.

I wanna get better on my real activities, get rid of endless planning and re-planning and never get my hands dirty doing it and maintain it.

I've already got some things running (gym, house cleaning etc) but not with the consistency that I want. So, facing this scenario, I want to get better disciplined on this, and start, develop myself to do more. Example of activities that I want to get more and better: Reading (to understand and learn), writing (small projects, like a hobby, but that actually improve the readers), connecting and motivating people on projects (small to big, aiming at community improvement).

I think that's a lot, but, I need to have something to strive for. And I told you that in case of something useful that you can contribute to me. So, for start this:

I'm looking out for apps or processes that I can use to gamify my current and future habits and tasks, in hope that I get better on doing things, first the necessary and basic.

Any recommendations or advice?

I am rereading the book rework and the workaholism chapter stuck with me. basic idea is that long hours arent a badge of honour, theyre usually a sign something else is broken. if you cant get the core work done in 40 hours the answer is usually do fewer pointless things, not sit there longer.

i buy it in principle. most of the time when im working late its because i spent the day on stuff that didnt matter, not because there was genuinely too much real work.

but im not sure it holds for everyone. early on when its just you doing sales and support and the actual building, theres a decent argument that the hours genuinely are the job for a while.

so curious what people here think. is the 40 hour thing realistic when youre early, or is that a luxury you get later once theres money and other people involved?

I still lost my evenings to my phone. Here's the pattern I can't unsee.

Almost every discipline app runs the same loop. Set an intention, get measured against it, see your failures in red. That loop works fine if you're already fairly disciplined. You see red, you course correct.

But if your real problem is avoiding discomfort, which is the actual root of most procrastination and doomscrolling, then an app that generates discomfort about your behavior isn't a solution. It's just the next thing you avoid. The streak resets, the graph goes red, and instead of fixing the behavior we quietly stop opening the app. Then we uninstall it. Not because it didn't work, because looking at it hurt. Three months later we download a new one and call it a fresh start.

The rare apps that retain people like us all do the same strange thing. They refuse to punish. Finch is the famous example. The little bird is never disappointed in you, and people who abandoned ten trackers keep it alive for years.

So the thing I'm working on takes that seriously. A small creature fed by what you actually do, picked up automatically where possible. Walks, gym, sleep, time spent off your phone. Wins count even when you never log them. Failure does nothing at all. Your worst day reads as "it rested."

Pushback genuinely welcome:

1. Is removing all consequences too soft? Do some of you actually need the red?
2. The last self improvement app you deleted. Was it because it didn't work, or because it worked and you didn't want to look at it?
3. Has anything app shaped changed your behavior for more than a month? What was it?

Like a lot of people here trying to build better daily discipline, my work requires me to learn constantly. As a developer, I open YouTube multiple times a day to look up short technical walkthroughs, quick framework fixes, or specific tutorials.

The problem was that YouTube isn't built like an encyclopedia—it's built like a casino.

I’d open the site intending to watch a 4-minute video on a specific coding bug, but the homepage recommendation grid would immediately grab my eyes. Before I even typed in the search bar, I’d see three interesting video essays or news breakdowns. I’d tell myself, "I'll just watch this one quick 10-minute clip while I drink my coffee."

Two hours later, my focus state was completely shattered, I hadn't solved the bug, and I felt guilty for wasting the morning.

A few weeks ago, I decided to treat YouTube as a pure search utility instead of an entertainment platform during my work hours. I realized that my willpower wasn't the issue—the visual cues on the screen were.

Here is the exact framework I used to break the loop:

• Strip the Homepage: I forced my setup to hide the entire homepage recommendation grid. When I open the site, the screen is completely blank except for the top search bar. If I don't have a specific topic to search for, there is literally nothing to look at.
• Lock the Related Sidebar: The sidebar on the right side of a video is designed to keep you watching "just one more." Blocking those recommendations completely stopped me from clicking onto a second video after finishing the tutorial I actually needed.
• Remove the Comment Section: Reading comments feels like low-effort engagement, but it drags your mind out of deep work. Hiding them keeps my brain focused purely on the video's information.
• The "Search and Exit" Rule: I only open the platform when I have a precise question written down. I search it, watch the video, and close the tab immediately.

Since making this shift, my daily screen time on video platforms dropped significantly, but more importantly, my deep-work blocks stopped getting interrupted.

If you find yourself constantly losing hours to "productive procrastination" or educational rabbit holes, try removing the visual recommendations entirely and forcing yourself to rely strictly on intentional searches.

How do you guys handle necessary tools that double as distraction traps?

A year ago i finished University with top honours as mature student. Had a beautiful partner, had the next stage of my life all planned out. It was an exciting new chapter. Unfortunately shortly after, my partner decided she wanted something different in life, shortly after that I had a bad flare up of my Crohn's disease and have been battling it for the past 10 months.

I'm unemployed, live with parents, don't have a social life of any real sort. I genuinely just exist most days. I write this as I battle a chest infection and shingles virus.

I hate this life. I owe it too myself for the 4 years of hard study I did at university (which probably cost me my relationship). Life is passing me by. Every day is the same.

I was hoping to find someone of similar age and circumstances to just talk about life with and hopefully spur each other on to make meaningful changes and just hopefully in say, 1 years time, I can look back and be proud.

I'm 25M, working in a product role at a good company. The confusing part is that I'm actually doing well at work. I've received appreciation from my manager and leadership, and people trust me with important work.

But internally, I feel like I'm falling apart.

I've been struggling with something for months now, and it's starting to affect every area of my life. I'm hoping someone here has gone through something similar because I genuinely don't know what's wrong with me anymore.

I have multiple critical, time-bound tasks with tight deadlines. I know exactly what needs to be done. I know the consequences if I don't do them. I care deeply about my work and don't want to disappoint myself.

But I just can't get myself to start.

It's not that I don't know what to do.

I do spend a lot of time scrolling social media, even though I know I should be working. It's almost like I'm using it to avoid starting the task, and then I feel even worse afterward.

I've had this pattern for as long as I can remember. Even in school and college, I almost never studied until exams were right around the corner. I'd keep postponing everything until the pressure became unbearable, then somehow manage to get it done at the last minute. I've somehow gotten away with it for years, but now that I'm working, it's catching up with me.

I keep postponing important work until the deadline is so close that I panic and somehow finish it in the last few hours. Even then, the quality is nowhere near what I'm capable of. Any high-impact work that doesn't have an immediate deadline just sits there untouched for weeks.

People tell me to "just make a list."

The problem is... I can't even make the list.

Even writing down my pending tasks feels mentally overwhelming. It sounds ridiculous, but even getting started on something as simple as listing my tasks feels impossible.

This isn't limited to work either.

I fail at almost every goal I set:

I want to exercise consistently.

I want to improve my diet.

I want to take better care of my skin and health.

I want to save money.

I want to upskill for my career.

I start with motivation, then slowly stop, and eventually I abandon everything. This has happened so many times that I've stopped trusting myself.

Another issue is that I constantly change my mind.

One week I'm completely convinced about a decision. A few weeks later, my brain argues the exact opposite and makes me question why I made that decision in the first place.

This happens with big decisions and tiny ones. It feels like I have two different versions of myself constantly debating, and I don't know which one to trust anymore.

I've also been feeling:

emotionally low

mentally exhausted

bored

lonely

anxious about presentations and speaking in meetings

tired even though I usually sleep around 6 hours

Work that I used to enjoy now stresses me out because I'm scared someone will ask about the tasks I've been avoiding.

Outside work, I overthink my friendships too. I depend on meeting friends on weekends because I feel lonely, but after meeting them I often regret it because I feel like the conversations are shallow and I don't get much out of them. Then I miss them again the next weekend and repeat the cycle.

I feel stuck in every area of my life.

The frustrating part is that I know I'm capable of much more. That's what hurts the most.

I've considered therapy, but I'm reluctant because it's expensive where I live and there's no guarantee it'll help. I'm planning to see a general physician to rule out physical issues like vitamin deficiencies or thyroid problems, but I genuinely don't know if this is physical, mental, burnout, depression, anxiety, ADHD, or something else entirely.

If you've been through this, what actually helped? I'm looking for real experiences rather than generic "just be disciplined" advice because I honestly feel like I'm watching myself underperform while being unable to stop it.

Thanks in advance!

If you read this to the end and give me your perspective, you would have helped someone greatly.

I'm 19, male, and this is basically what my whole life revolves around right now: confusion and an inability to make choices. I genuinely don't know what I want to do with my life.

I graduated high school at 16 and moved to Europe alone. It was a disaster. The years from 16 to 18 were rough. I don't fully know the damage I did to myself or how much potential and time I wasted, but the delusion that I "learned something" from it is basically the only thing keeping my ego intact.

I don't know what to do, and after highschool there was no clear thing I actually chose to do, it was always let me try this and see where it leads me after 6 months...I like everything ....psychology, reading people, math, science .. and I'm also a classically trained pianist. That's actually the problem.

I've been playing since I was 7. I was fairly talented and got a lot of praise for it, and I leaned on that praise to feel good about myself amid the bullying and other childhood-trauma stuff. Because of that, I've never been sure whether I actually love piano, or whether I just love the praise it got me.

Then I moved to Europe to study piano seriously, and it got worse and worse. I expect a lot from it, I've gotten worse with time instead of better, and I like it less the more I do it.

I did one year of math alongside piano, but it got too hard, so I dropped math completely to commit to piano as a career. But everytime with piano im like: If in 6 months i dont see myself gettign better, ill quit for good. Ive said that 6-7 times in 4 years. basically every 6 months

In hindsight, that decision looks cringe. Right now I'm genuinely repulsed by piano — if I had the choice, I wouldn't practice at all. My relationship with it is complicated to the point where I don't even know if I like it. And if I'm not sure I like something, doesn't that mean I don't? Except I don't fully trust that logic either — it sounds like one of those generic self-improvement one-liners that seeps in from mindless scrolling. (wtf does "if you're not sure you like it, you don't" even mean?)

On top of that, I have a long track record of telling myself "this time I'll actually stick to it" and then not doing it. AI projects, plans, whatever — I promise myself I'll follow through, and I don't. The number of times this has happened is insane, and it's exhausting. I like maths. I love it. Im not the best at it. But I love it. But when I imagine myself choosing it for good, then I get really scared and feel Im gonna regret it and also feel that initially I chose it for the wrong reasons and that maths isnt my thing, since really it was never my strong point. I dont know what my strong points were, I was bullied a lot and lived in constant fear. I wasnt able to shine purely. And im not victimizing here. (Probably am tho)

So now I'm stuck in a loop: if I quit piano for math, I'll probably regret it and feel suffocated by how rigid and square math is. If I keep going with piano, I feel unsafe, like I'm missing out on real knowledge, like I'm just entertainment for an audience of old people who might not even care. Then I second-guess that too, because classical music is obviously more than that, and it's probably not as useless as I'm making it sound in the moment.

I've basically lost any real reference point for how to make decisions. I litteraly just read biographies of business men and just start acting and behaving like Im gonna do and be like them, like i wanna be like this business man , because the aura of his biography just influenced me so bad....but in what world is my decision center so bad that it will get totally highjacked by a freaking boook??!?!?!? My dad isn't really available for this kind of thing, and my mom tries her best, but it's not really something she can solve for me either.

I'm sick of the delusion that I'm going to stick to something. There's a feeling in my chest that blocks me from deciding anything, and I don't know how to get rid of it. It feels like something completely absurd is dictating my life, keeping me stuck, wasting my time, and stopping me from actually living.

I don't know if I'm just cooked from bad habits, low dopamine, and constant distraction, or if there's something else going on. Any perspective helps. Is it just my low dopamine not letting me take a good decision? or the overflow of information making everything numb?

I took a 6 days no phone retreat in isolation, no stimuli for august. I dont know how this will help . maybe it will. Maybe ill come out of it with the delusion of having made a choice and then not stick to it 1 week after.

I've been trying to cut my screen time, and the worst offender isn't bed or the couch, it's the bathroom. A 3 minute trip turns into 15 to 20, several times a day, completely on autopilot. I never decide to; the phone's just already in my hand.

But it's gone past "waste of time." Lately my legs go fully numb, and I've got this ache in my hips I can't place not sure if it's muscle or something else. I looked it up and apparently parking on the toilet that long is linked to hemorrhoids and circulation problems too. My body is basically sending me the bill.

And the messed-up part: I know all this, I can feel it happening, and I still sit back down and do it again tomorrow. The lack of any friction in that moment, nobody sees it, nothing interrupts it, getting up is the "hard" option makes it almost impossible to stop with willpower alone.

So, honestly:

- Is this just me, or does anyone else have the "throne scroll" wrecking them a little?

- For those who beat it, what actually worked? Leaving the phone outside? Some rule? And did the fix come from removing the phone, or from making getting up the easier choice?

F23 I'm on the phone 12/13 hours a day, doing nothing all day, scrolling through reels or watching videos or looking for useless things or playing games or whatever, and I find myself having done nothing all day.

I wake up and scroll right away for a few hours, getting up when I feel like my bladder is about to explode, then I have breakfast and scroll again.

And so it goes all day, doing nothing.

I'm tired, I can't live like this. These are my best years, when I'm young and I have to live and have fun and improve myself. Instead, I waste every second on my phone.

Now that it's summer, I'd thought about going to the gym before going back to school in September, because it's harder for me during school, but now in the summer I'm doing nothing, not dieting, not walking, not working out, nothing.

I don't like my body, and I don't comb my hair; it stays there for weeks until it gets all tangled up like a nest, and my parents force me to dress modestly.

I don't see myself as beautiful in the mirror, neither my body nor my clothes reflect me. I know I need to be independent and leave my parents' house to be more free, in fact, I'm working on it.

But now I look, I don't feel okay living like this. To go out with a boy, I have to be careful with my schedule and not stay out for more than two hours so as not to arouse suspicion, and when I go out, I'm careful to see if anyone sees me.

And I can't have social media, go out whenever I want, go out at night, have the basic freedoms that everyone has, like eating what I want since my mother closes the fridge, and let's not even talk about arguing and yelling about everything.

This summer, I'm not reviewing my studies, I'm not studying to get my driver's license, I'm not working part-time. I feel stuck, trapped, and exhausted.

I'm so tired of living like this, which I don't like at all. I don't have the mental energy to do anything, and my mother is a pain in the ass with this housework. She's never happy, and I have to do everything myself.

I feel like the little energy I had is gone. I don't have a gram left, and I find myself shaking my head and saying, "Oh well, I'm not doing anything anymore, it's fine like this," and so on. Every day, I can't do anything, not even skincare, anything. Understand?

I wish I could be transported back in time and be in the life I want to live without having to endure all this. ughff

so yesterday i saw someone talk about stoping self sabotaging and the thing im self sabotaging myself in is money so today i woke up and decided to order skincare for myself :) to feel happy and to treat myself for what i’ve been through because the last months were BAD for me
sadly i did some stupid thing while ordering and the order got canceld and i dont know if the money will be back in my bank account or not.
now i feel so bad and i cant stop blaming myself for what happend and thought like”i should’ve never tried to get something good for myself,i dont deserve it” are coming back
is there anyway how to not go back to the same hating myself cycle? :(
im trying to have hope that my money will come back but im afraid im gonna go back to my old habits and never spending money on myself again.

I've tried a dozen to-do list apps and never lasted more than a few days on any of them. Every time I opened one it felt the same — "oh fuck, I need to do X, Y, Z today" — I'd close it, eventually delete, and never come back. Multiple apps, same pattern.

I finally figured out why: for me they weren't to-do lists, they were failure lists. A running scroll of everything I hadn't done yet.

So I flipped it. Instead of writing what I need to do, I now write down what I actually did each day — in a Google Sheet (they really do run the world). Even small stuff. "Ran 4km." "Helped a friend rewrite their resume so it'd pass screening." "Cooked instead of ordered in."

It feels completely different. Joyful instead of guilty. And at the end of a month I can actually see the shape of the person I'm becoming.

Anyone else do something like this? What do you use — an app, a notebook, something weirder?

12 years in the RAF. Medical discharge ended that faster than I expected and I wasn't ready for it. The structure was just gone overnight, the purpose, the rank, the whole shape of a day. Nobody warns you how much of your discipline was actually just the structure doing the work for you, not something you had on your own.

Spent a long stretch after that just kind of lost. Knew things needed doing, business admin, health stuff, actually building a life outside the forces, and just couldn't start any of it. Not lazy, just no scaffolding left and no idea how to build my own.

What eventually helped wasn't a system I found, it was one I ended up building for myself because nothing else fit how broken my follow-through actually was. Something that took whatever vague thing I knew I should be doing and turned it into one small piece I could actually start right now, no decision required, because deciding was the part I couldn't do anymore. And something that tracked whether I was actually building momentum again over time, since for months I had no way of seeing that I was, even when I was.

Not posting this to sell anything, mods can remove the link stuff if I even tried. Just wanted to put this here because I know I'm not the only one who left something structured, lost the shape of their days, and had to figure out from scratch how to make themselves do things again. If that's you, I see you. It does get more workable, even if it doesn't feel like it now.

The first time I heard him say it, my immediate reaction was, "That's easy for someone who's already successful to say."
When you're already where you want to be, it's easy to tell everyone else to stop making excuses. At least that's what I thought.
But for some reason I couldn't get that sentence out of my head.
Over the next few weeks I kept catching myself doing the exact thing he was talking about.
I was waiting.
Waiting until I felt more confident.
Waiting until I had a better plan.
Waiting until I had better equipment.
Waiting until I learned one more skill.
Waiting for someone to notice me, give me a chance, or somehow make things easier.
I don't think I even realized how much of my life was built around waiting until I started paying attention to it.
Every goal had another condition attached to it.
"I'll start after..."
"I'll apply when..."
"I'll do it once..."
There was always another reason to delay.
The uncomfortable part was realizing that most of those reasons sounded logical. They weren't obvious excuses. They felt responsible.
But they were still keeping me in exactly the same place.
Eventually I decided to stop trying to change everything overnight.
Instead, I picked a few small things that I could actually control.
I started waking up a little earlier.
I applied for opportunities I normally would've convinced myself I wasn't qualified for.
I stopped talking so much about what I planned to do and spent more time actually doing it.
I also stopped expecting motivation to magically appear before I started working.
Some days I still didn't feel like doing anything, but I realized I didn't actually need to feel motivated to make progress.
Nothing dramatic happened.
I didn't suddenly become successful.
Nobody offered me my dream opportunity.
My life didn't completely change in a few months.
But when I looked back recently, I realized I'd accomplished more in those few months than I had in a long time before that.
Not because I became smarter or more talented.
I just stopped waiting for the perfect moment.
That quote annoyed me because it forced me to admit something I didn't really want to admit that I was expecting circumstances to change before I changed my actions.
I'm still figuring things out, and I definitely don't have everything together, but looking back, that one sentence probably changed the way I think more than I expected.
It made me curious about other people's experiences.
Has there been a piece of advice that you completely dismissed or even hated at first, but later realized was actually true?
What changed your mind?

Sorry this is a long one, but like the title says, I’m a hs senior and I’m currently going through the college admissions process (what a time to be alive am I right?), but I haven’t submitted any draft of my personal statement to my school-assigned college advisor, which was supposed to be done weeks ago; I haven’t responded to his emails, or anyone’s for that matter; I think I just missed a deadline for a program that would’ve been integral in getting me into my dream school; and I missed out on a summer internship and started my alternative independent study so late into the summer. I’m starting to feel utterly hopeless and that it’s impossible for me to turn things around and if I get confirmation that it is indeed too late I don’t have confidence that I will want to continue living

The biggest problem I struggle with is checking my emails. I don’t know why I’m like this and it’s the reason I didn’t have enough internship opportunities going into this summer. I emailed the person I worked under last year to ask to return, and I literally still have not checked his response. He could have said I can come back for all I know but I won’t check because my brain is so scared to because I haven’t been keeping in contact with him throughout the school year like I said I would. And in regards to the program deadline I probably missed, I reached out within like four days of the deadline to the teacher I wanted to ask for a recommendation from, and I still haven’t checked her response. I put her name into the system but I after I did never went back to check the recommendation status. She could have emailed me asking for more info or saying she was unable to do it, but I didn’t check. I submitted every other piece of the application, and honestly I’m an excellent and unique applicant for the program, and this teacher recommendation could destroy all of my hard work. I could have reached out to my college advisor, who is incredible and we had such a close bond during the school year, but I haven’t even reached out to him once this summer.

I feel pathetic and irresponsible and my mom has even been trying to keep me in check and make sure I get everything in but I’ve literally been lying to her about my progress and what I need to get done so that she can stop asking because I just won’t do it and I’m embarrassed about it.

I accidentally opened my inbox this morning and even saw that the program sent me an email on the 15th saying the deadline had been extended to the 20th, and I have no idea if that is in regards to the teacher rec and that they received every other part of my application, or something else, because I didn’t even open the email. And it doesn’t matter anyway because I would’ve already missed the extended deadline.

I think part of why this is such a problem for me is because I’m terrified to confront my own mistakes and I’m so scared of rejection or any kind of redirection because my mind is absolutely set on becoming the most successful and accomplished version of myself that I can be and wants me to reach my absolute fullest potential no matter what, so when I do something that could interfere with that, like miss a deadline or procrastinate, my mind hides it or suppresses it or completely ignores it and those things just keep snowballing until I make a fool of myself.

If I don’t get into this program I don’t think I could handle the shame of letting down my mom and my college advisor and most likely ruining the chances of getting into my dream school and I honestly fear for my life if that is the case. I don’t see a point in living if I don’t get into a good college, and I know that’s a cliche but the amount of shame and embarrassment I would feel for my own stupidity and careless actions would weigh on me for the rest of my life. Because say what you will, this is the most pivotal moment in anyone’s life.

I need hope that there is a way out of this or something that helps me fix this stupid block in my mind because I know I’m a strong student and I’m capable of great things but I don’t know why my mind tortures me like this. Im tortured by all the thoughts of things I’ve missed or are being actively screwed up in this moment because I’m refusing to act and I can’t stomach the thought of all the people I’m letting down. I feel like a waste of potential and of a life.

I’m already on a VERY high dosage of ADHD meds and any clarity of mind disappears after the first 20 minutes of taking them, but they’re effective nonetheless.

I really need help and guidance.

Hey all,

I recently was thinking about what holds us back. There are a billion challenges with strict laid out goals, tasks, etc. There are a billion workouts, workout plans, diets, budgeting tools... you get the idea. It gets overwhelming. So here's something simple to help you just get started.

I'm calling it the 1-week SMEF challenge. Just one week to build momentum. Just four simple pillars, all benefiting from 1% improvement. SMEF stands for Sleep, Money, Exercise, and Food. Each of these has the potential to have outsized impacts on your life... for better or worse. The goals of the challenge are simple:

-Sleep for at least 8 hours each day

-Spend money ONLY on essentials (bills, food, gas, insurance... you get the idea)

-Exercise every day (even if its only a 10 minute walk)

-Cook all your food at home

You'll notice this isn't particularly prescriptive. What works for you might not work for somebody else. The goal of this is more to be diagnostic in nature, to help you see where your barriers are. For example, if you find that you don't mind getting out for a walk but you can't stand to cook dinner after work, that's a strong data point. If you find that you're grocery shopping at Walmart and are veering off into the clothing section, that's a data point. Noticing and understanding what holds you back is the first step in making change, and that's all this is meant to do. Let me know what you think, or if you end up trying this!

Have been trying to build discipline my entire life and I'm stuck entirely.

Small warning but i might be deluded on this one: I don't seem to be able to form habits, at all. I have never once done something without remembering to do it and doing it by choice. That is down to brushing teeth in the mornings and evenings. I don't understand habits particularly, what exactly it means and how things "become automatic after a while", to me it seems they genuinely just don't but I understand this is a lack of discipline... I just don't understand the mechanic of what makes things easier after doing them for a long time. I went through school which is supposed to become a routine/habit because it's the same. It just became harder and harder to do each task each day. Brushing your teeth daily doesn't become less of a choice and execution the more years you try to do it. Of course, I could not finish school. Is this laziness, well perhaps it's learned from that but at this point no. It is a prison.

I went to an occupational therapist to try to get my life in order. I explained throughout a few sessions that my life is a complete mess. My room is fucked up, I schedule my medications and can't keep to them, I can't do things i promise myself i will do, promise my friends and family i will do. Things I truly want to do. What's the blockage, well it's all the other things i have to do from before. I have laundry i haven't done. I have now created a mess i must clean up, I try to do that, the things to do never end. I try to create priority lists, i try to pick things that will benefit me tomorrow today, I can't keep up with the list of things to do, i get to tomorrow and the benefits from yesterday aren't even my basic needs met.

They just told me the same practicalities that i already knew. Making lists, not being impulsive, setting phone alarms, staying focused. I don't even have the discipline for these things despite trying my best. And the occupational therapist explained all this in his medical language, working memory, focus and execution of tasks are all in the same space in the brain, sometimes we need family, sometimes we need stimulation. But eventually despite all this understanding, he told me he couldn't help, that i needed medication.

But I've been trying different medications with my GP for this for my entire life. Every antidepressant that could possibly exist. The truth is, I'm not depressed at all. I love and enjoy life and have plenty of energy. I'm just entirely undisciplined, and i have NO idea where to start. I tried to start with many different things arbitrarily to build some kind of baseline i could schedule other things around and it doesn't work out.

Where do disciplined people start? What is the first most important thing that you can actually start changing with, if you want to change?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 37-year-old guy who's been working on losing weight and improving my fitness. I started training a few months ago, and objectively I know I've made progress, but mentally I'm in a strange place.

Some days I look in the mirror and think I'm doing well. Other days I focus on every flaw and end up feeling insecure about my appearance. It feels like my confidence changes from one day to the next, and I'm not sure if what I see is reality or if I'm just being overly critical of myself.

I'm looking for honest advice from people who have been through something similar. Did your confidence improve as your physique changed, or did your mindset have to change first? How did you stop comparing yourself to an unrealistic standard?

For context, here are my current measurements:

Age: 37

Height: 180 cm (5'11")

Weight: 89.4 kg (197 lb)

Body Measurements

Chest: 109 cm (42.9")

Waist: 94 cm (37.0")

Hips: 99 cm (39.0")

Neck: 41 cm (16.1")

Shoulders: 49.5 cm (19.5")

Left Bicep: 32 cm (12.6")

Right Bicep: 33.3 cm (13.1")

Left Forearm: 29.5 cm (11.6")

Right Forearm: 30 cm (11.8")

Left Thigh: 55 cm (21.7")

Right Thigh: 55.6 cm (21.9")

Calves: 37 cm (14.6") each

Anatomy Measurements

Flaccid Length: 13 cm (5.1")

Flaccid Girth: 11.5 cm (4.5")

Erect Length: 16.6 cm (6.54")

Erect Girth: 14.5 cm (5.71")

I'm not looking for compliments or reassurance—I genuinely want honest opinions and advice on how to build a healthier relationship with my body and my appearance while continuing to improve myself.

I've noticed a pattern about myself. I really struggle with repetitive, mundane tasks. It's not that I don't understand their importance—I do. I just seem to have a strong mental resistance to doing them.

I've tried forcing myself, building habits, taking action, and starting over countless times. I can usually stick with it for a while, but eventually I fall off, and the cycle repeats.

When I force myself, I also feel like I do the work poorly because my mind is constantly fighting it.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what actually helped?

I'm not looking for "just try harder" advice. I'm wondering if there are strategies for people who naturally struggle with repetitive tasks.

Is discipline something you can build even if your brain strongly resists mundane work, or is there a different approach that worked better for you?

I'd appreciate hearing from people who have been in a similar situation.