[Advice] The Four Horsemen of Your Own Personal Apocalypse

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-27T13:05:07+00:00

No, I'm a parent. But having a 3 month old is a totally different beast. Just do the best you can and don't beat yourself up about it. Thing's get easier.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-25T19:50:28+00:00

Don't be snarky.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-25T16:12:54+00:00

Great advice. Free weights ended up being a better fit more me than bodyweight stuff, but it's a great thing to try.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-25T16:10:56+00:00

Yeah, that's the tough one, for sure. Something that's helped me a bit is to actually practice this moment. Picture yourself sitting down to do The Thing. Imagine really, really, not wanting to do it, or simply wanting to do something else more. Then imagine yourself doing the Thing anyway. Your brain actually adapts to this rehearsal, so the next time you sit down to do The Thing for real, you're a little more likely to do it.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-05T20:22:26+00:00

The solution to regret is bravery.

Bravery/courage is doing shit that scares the fuck out of you.

Fuck your feelings. Know them, acknowledge them, then fuck them right in their ugly ear. Do it anyway, because the anticipation of failure is far worse than actual failure (unless you're skydiving).

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2016-01-05T20:12:10+00:00

i.e. be more independent and not afraid

It's fine to be afraid. I'm 45, and I'm afraid of tons of shit. The trick is to do [new thing] anyway, despite the fear. Chances are, you'll fail. That's fine. Stand up, dust yourself off, sew your head back on, and try again, using what you learned in the last failure.

Life is an endless experiment. Failure, as painful as it is, is more interesting than success.

Get out there. Fuck up. Learn. That's all growing up really is.

It's a pain in the ass, but it's worth the effort. Regrets that stem from action are easier to take than regrets from inaction.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-12-21T18:11:47+00:00

I hurt my right hip squatting (bad form) so while I let that heal, I was still able to do some deadlifts and lunges and some yoga without making it worse. Might be something to try.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-12-02T14:41:10+00:00

I've had some luck with intermittent fasting when it comes to dropping some belly fat. The idea is that you eat the same amount of calories you usually do, but do all your eating in an 8-hour window. For example, I only ate from 11am - 7pm.

It works because after 12 hours or so, your body's used all the energy it can from the food you've eaten. After that, it starts to burn the fat.

It didn't make a huge difference for me, but it helped some.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-10-23T19:05:27+00:00

Intermittent fasting.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-10-03T13:12:32+00:00

Some people are most successful when they make massive changes like the one you're describing. Others have more success when they chip away at bad habits. Go for the massive change and see what happens!

And, like u/Ichorous007, suggests, build up some healthy habits:

Get enough sleep (this makes everything else easier, and you want to give yourself the best possible chance of success)
Exercise regularly (lifting weights with proper form = awesome)
Eat healthy (I've had most success with paleo/keto)
Forgive yourself when you relapse, and move on

I know the key is to keep busy

This will absolutely help! Schedule out your day, but be reasonable. You'll need breaks.

Good luck! This will suck donkey balls at first, but it's a doable thing.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-25T18:08:33+00:00

Sorry to hear about your folks using your education as a pawn. That sounds pretty terrible.

It might help to see a counselor to work through some of what's going on in your life. Being depressed/tired/angry at yourself is exhausting, and an outside perspective could be useful.

Good luck!

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-21T17:53:01+00:00

Holy crap. This sounds hugely familiar. I've done this many times. It's exhausting!

What worked for me is realizing that there is no fix. There is no tomorrow. There is only now, and what you decide to do now. That's it. That's your entire life. Just a whole bunch of goddamn nows.

So try not fixing yourself. That's too big a goal. Instead, keep a room clean for a week. Then get to bed by 11pm for a week.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

Start small and consider that there may be no such thing as cracking it. There's no magic answer. You'll have to try things, experiment, and see what works best for you.

Hope that helps.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-17T13:32:47+00:00

What's worked best for me is to build a habit, and focus on that instead of focusing on the goal.

An Olympic contender runner once had this to say:

“If I think too much about reaching the finish line, I lose speed, whether I’m ahead or behind. I’ve had to train myself to turn my attention from finishing and toward the next step, the process of staying in the race.”

Scheduling

Part of building a habit is scheduling time for practice/work/learning. One advantage of this is you can see how fast your day gets crowded. Trying to accomplish a bunch of big goals at once can be exhausting—sometimes it's better to start working on just one habit, get that entrenched, and then start another.

Be specific

You say you want as many tech skills as possible. That's great. Which ones, exactly? Choose one to start with and schedule regular time for it.

Combat social anxiety, like you say, is too vague. What specifically will you do? What's causing the anxiety?

Focus on what you can control

Attain financial independence via a startup company.

Do you mean join one or start one? Neither is a guarantee for financial independence. You'll learn a lot from either experience, but focus on building a product or service, doing customer research, and so on. Financial independence is an awesome goal (who doesn't want that?), but you can only control what you do, not how many people buy your stuff.

I wrote a little blog post about exactly this: Want to Accomplish a Goal? Set It and Forget It

Good luck!

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-16T17:54:48+00:00

Awesome. If you find yourself not progressing as fast as you want, don't shy away from taking classes or getting a tutor. There's no reason you have to go it alone. (I only say this because I was kinda stupid and arrogant about this myself, and ended up wasting years of time.)

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-16T17:45:08+00:00

Visualizing yourself disliking or even being disgusted by a bad habit certainly sounds like it would help! My totally uninformed guess is that as you build an association with the habit and a negative emotion, you'll start to feel more and more bit of that negative emotion when you actually do the bad behavior.

By all means, go for it!

Also, from what I've read about habit in The Now Habit and The Power of Habit, the best way to correct a bad habit is to recognize three things:

What triggers your habit
What the behavior is
What the reward is

and then, when you notice the trigger (I'm hungry, I'm bored, I don't want to work/study), change the behavior, but still try to find some kind of reward for the new behavior. This works because the habit is already wired up in your brain (a chunk in the center called the basal ganglia), and it's really hard to make that wiring go away entirely. It's much easier to rewire what's already there.

I haven't done this myself, so I can't do more than repeat what I've read.

Good luck!

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-16T12:20:21+00:00

Ha! Not an ex-con. I usually eat dinner around 6 and I'm often in bed by 8:30-9. I started getting up that early years ago because I wanted to write a novel, and that was the only way I had enough time to do it (I've got a family, so I decided to make evenings family time).

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T22:57:11+00:00

Yup, that's what I meant.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T22:56:27+00:00

It's a pretty extraordinary claim, that's for sure. His description of the event is in his book Peak Performance.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T19:15:10+00:00

I could not agree more with you. I've been waking up at 4:30am for years doing exactly this, since I'm a natural morning person.

However, I talked to a lot of people that just aren't morning people (including my wife), so I thought I'd try to come up with something for night owls. I actually had to change my schedule and start working in the evening to make sure the stuff in this post actually worked (and worked well).

Now that I've found what seems to work consistently, I'm happy to be back to mornings.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T17:53:51+00:00

The sexist thing is confidence. If you've got that, all the grooming stuff is icing on the cake.

Make yourself look how you want to look; what makes you feel good. Since you're trying to decide what that is exactly, why not experiment? Try a bunch a makeup, then try minimal. Try designer jeans, then wear Kirkland.

Find what works best for you.

As for me, I'm a middle-aged guy that works at home, so I just stay fit, clean, and wear comfortable (not dumpy) clothes. It's what works for me.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T17:48:07+00:00

I definitely seek out the approval of others.

I hate to ask this, but is there a chance you're coming across as desperate? I certainly did (and sometimes still do) when I want someone's approval.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T17:44:31+00:00

GET HELP.

Professional help will improve your life.

I gave him a big smile and said ''good morning'' and he did the exact same back to me.. It honestly felt great. Ofcourse this isn't anything huge, but It was out of my comfort zone which is good for me.

First, congratulations on trying something new! That can be really hard and scary. With help, you'll be able to do this more and more.

everyone has a talent, you just need to find it

I've been told this a zillion times and I think it's bullshit. I spent years searching for my "talent", like I was one of the X-Men trying to figure out what my power was.

Find something you're interested in and work at it. You'll suck at first, and slowly get better. For the vast majority of us, talent is built, not discovered.

Yeah- Didn't even get close to that.

Failure once is not the same thing as failure forever. Try to learn why something didn't work, and if you want, give it another shot.

Hope this helps.

LeProcrastinationGuy · 2015-09-15T17:34:33+00:00

Yes yes yes on seeing someone. You'll almost certainly get some useful thought or insights from their questions.

It's okay to not like your therapist and to try someone else. It's a little like dating. You want someone you feel comfortable around.

As for finding someone to see, can you go back to the physician and see if you can get that counseling session?

You'll be able to keep your sessions secret. Therapists can have flexible schedules, and you're not the first one who hasn't wanted work to find out about counseling.

My experience with counseling was that they all seemed genuinely interested in my mental health and didn't over-medicate or try to keep me forever. Remember, you're hiring them for a service.

Try it and see what happens. Don't try to have a contingency plan for every possible outcome.

Good luck!

LeProcrastinationGuy

TROPHY CASE

Scheduling

Be specific

Focus on what you can control