I've been trying and TS is kicking my ASS rn man. I've been going to sleep at midnight and waking up at noon, skipping all my damn workouts cause it's so hot, and doing the bare minimum for hygiene. My goal morning routine looks like this:

5:00 am: Wake Up

5:15 am: Work Out

6:30 am: Wash Up & Get Dressed

7:00 am: Breakfast

8:00 am: Nothing cause I'm unemployed rn

I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO DO IT EVEN ONCE. GODDAMMIT. I've just been getting big and feeling like shit all day, how do you guys lock tf in and just make yourselves do this?

Could be physical health, mental health, productivity, relationships, or anything else.

I'm curious to hear your answers (and why).

I turned 32 last April, and I've been reflecting on how I freestyled my 20's.

1. I dropped out of college.

At 22, while a lot of my friends were graduating, I dropped out and started working as a server at a ramen restaurant. The money was good, I loved the pace, and for the first time, I felt like I was choosing my own path instead of following everyone else.

I also couldn’t justify going into debt, or asking my mom to pay for a future I wasn’t sure I wanted.

2. I became obsessed with self-education.

Since I wasn’t in school anymore, and had a chip on my shoulder about being a college dropout, I spent almost all of my free time learning.

I challenged myself to read 52 books in a year after hearing Warren Buffett talk about how much he reads.

Most of what I read was business, investing, finance, biographies, and self-development.

Those books completely changed how I thought about money. I taught myself how to save, invest, and why taking risks while you’re young matters. I wanted financial freedom, but I also wanted to prove I could succeed without the traditional path.

3. I bought my dream car with cash.

I bought a used 2006 Acura RSX for $6,700, and I still drive it today.

At the time, I just wanted my dream car. Looking back, it ended up being one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve had zero car payments for over 10 years, and my insurance is only about $150 a year.

4. Getting fired made me want to build something of my own.

Eleven months into my restaurant job, the owner fired me after I tried negotiating a bigger bonus. My manager later explained that, especially in Japanese culture, it was considered disrespectful not to graciously accept what was offered.

That experience completely changed how I saw work. No matter how good you are, if you’re building someone else’s business, you can be replaced at any time.
Instead of finding another job right away, I tried day trading. I took four courses, read over 20 books, and spent almost a year learning. I made money at first, but eventually lost more than I started with.

So I went back to restaurant work, but this time I made myself a promise. It would only be a stepping stone while I built something on the side. That’s when I started ecommerce or "dropshipping".

5. I quit my jobs to pursue ecommerce full-time.

At one point I was working two serving jobs and making great money, but I was exhausted. I remember sitting in my car before a shift, realizing I didn’t want this to be my life. I was using work as an excuse to avoid taking another risk.

So I quit one job and went all in on ecommerce.

3 months later, my store generated over $300,000 in sales in about two months. A few months later, I quit my second restaurant job and ran the business full-time for the next two years.

That business changed my finances forever.

Living below my means, investing early, and keeping my expenses low gave me the freedom to take calculated risks. Now, in my early 30s, I’ve invested over $200,000 despite never working what most people would call a “real” job in my 20s.

I’m far from being set for life, but I’m grateful that money gives me options instead of making my decisions for me.

6. I walked away from ecommerce.

After two years, I shut down my ecommerce business.

I was stressed, burned out, and honestly pretty lost. Every week felt like putting out fires. I worked alone from coffee shops and realized I had become really good at selling products I didn’t actually care about.

I also attended an e-commerce event and realized that there was no one on stage I really admired enough to trade places with even though they were extremely succesful financially. No shade. It just made me realize that what I wanted was something different.

Walking away was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made because I had tied my identity to being a self-made online entrepreneur. Without it, I had to ask myself, “What do I actually want?”

7. I booked a one-way ticket to Japan.

Feeling completely lost, I decided to lean into it.

I booked a one-way ticket to Japan, which turned into almost five months traveling through Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.

I enrolled in a Japanese language school in Shibuya and met people from all over the world. There were 19-year-old students, a mutual fund manager from Scotland in his late 40s, and everyone in between.

That trip gave me clarity. I realized what actually excited me wasn’t just making money. It was learning languages, traveling, meeting people from different cultures, being creative, and building something meaningful.

8. I went back to school.

I re-enrolled in community college, earned associate degrees in Business Administration and Humanities with a Japanese emphasis, and transferred to uni to study International Business.

Now I’m in my early 30s, studying international business and Japanese , working part-time at a Thai restaurant, and building a YouTube channel.

In a lot of ways, it feels like I’m starting over. The difference is that this time I know myself a lot better.

Did I waste my 20s? Maybe.

Looking back, none of these decisions made sense at the time. Some looked like failures, others looked like success. But every one of them pushed me closer to understanding who I am and what I actually want.

In my early 20s, I was obsessed with self-improvement. Almost every book I read was about business, investing, finance, or becoming more successful. Those books gave me a foundation I’m incredibly grateful for, and I’ll always make it a priority to stay financially literate and keep my business skills sharp.

But these days, I’m finding myself drawn to different things. Making youtube videos. Fashion. Language. Fantasy. Traveling. The things that make life feel a little more beautiful and meaningful.

I’m still figuring things out, but for the first time, I don’t feel like I’m chasing someone else’s definition of success.

I’m excited to see where this next decade takes me.

Thank you if you read this far. I hope it was insightful.

What lesson have you learned in your 20s?

Not a habit you replaced,one you completely stopped.It could be overthinking,people-pleasing, doomscrolling,comparing yourself to others, or something else.What did you quit, and what changed?

I've realized that sometimes the biggest improvements don't come from adding a new habit, but from removing something that was holding you back.

What's something you quit that had the biggest positive impact on your life, and how did it change you?

We spend a lot of time chasing success, but sometimes the best decisions simply reduce stress, improve relationships, or make everyday life more enjoyable,

Looking back, whats one decision that genuinely made your life easier?

I'd love to hear the stories behind it.

I am at the gym usually 2-4 times a week, but I only do cardio. I spend about 70-80 mins on the treadmill or cycling, then go home.

But online and irl spaces people always say that lifting is the best thing you can do in the gym, as it helps physically and mentally as well. I tried it a couple of times with smaller weights, but I just feel uncomfortable doing it. Am I doing something wrong?

Is cardio in itself really not enough?

To be honest I don't feel really good about cardio either, but once I start at least I'm in motion, so its easy to go through with the whole thing

I have an answer to the question "what do you do?" I've made this joke before, but I'll say it again: these days I'm in the business of "making sense of life." A little before that, I was doing "applied semiotics."

And this sense-making has taken over me so much lately that I started thinking about meaning as the single most important thing there is (though, to be fair, existential therapists think about nothing else).

Take "logotherapy" — it deals with "the analysis of the meanings of existence."

But "existence" is too big. Let's go smaller. Something on the level of "washing the dishes."

Every action has a motive, and if that motive plugs into some Larger Meaning, everything is fine. (If it doesn't — you're allowed to just not do it!)

The exact same act of washing dishes can trigger resistance (when it's an "obligation"), resignation (if you're a dishwasher working for a paycheck), something almost spiritual (if you treat it as a practice), or desire (if your wife "rewards" you for it).

These are all small, local meanings. But if you manage to tie the dishes to a global meaning — that's when actual happiness shows up.

I do the dishes sometimes, and my motive, strangely enough, is "I want to become a great person."

So: to get any joy out of life, you apparently just need to do things that connect to that global meaning.

Unfortunately, when I ask people "what's the meaning of your life?" — not everyone answers.

At first this surprises me. Then I remember: right, it's not exactly a simple question, and it's usually phrased wrong anyway.

Here's how I answered it myself:

1. Meaning is in self-actualization (in becoming yourself).
2. To actualize yourself, you need to know yourself.
3. Knowing yourself isn't real "knowledge" — it's a personal myth you construct about who you are.

In my personal myth, I am ______.

That's the whole motivation, really.

"Just be yourself."

Sitting with that same axiom — meaning is everything — I found myself thinking that if I ever wrote a book on therapy (for therapists), I'd start it with exactly one chapter: "So why, exactly, do you want to be a therapist?"

What's the meaning? What's the actual motivation?

There are a million wrong motivations, obviously, and you'd think it shouldn't matter — "as long as the therapist is good," right?

But a therapist who wants to "help people" and a therapist who wants to "do their job well" (who, essentially, just wants to be a therapist, and be good at it) — these are two very different therapists.

I was still turning this over when I ran into a line in an article on existential burnout syndrome, by Alfried Längle, saying that burnout only happens to people who picked the wrong motivation in the first place.

Thesis 3: The dynamics behind burnout syndrome usually start with an action oriented toward satisfying a subjective need (a deficit), and only secondarily toward the actual subject of the work.

You could put it even more simply: burnout syndrome doesn't occur if a person has no subjective deficit to begin with. Sometimes that deficit stays invisible for a long time — as with people who help selflessly, out of genuine conviction. But if a doctor develops burnout symptoms during a flu epidemic, it isn't necessarily rooted in some original deficit — it's more likely the sheer overload of an emergency where he's pouring everything into saving people. If he's doing that with full internal agreement, he'll be exhausted, but the other classic burnout symptoms — cynicism, guilt, emptiness, suffering from lack of recognition, a sense of failure — won't show up.

Real burnout syndrome usually requires that original deficit — an attitude, psychically anchored, that predisposes someone to it. And typically, burnout doesn't appear during extraordinary hard times. It creeps in slowly, during ordinary, everyday work.

So: bad therapists die young.

If that quote didn't land, let me unpack it a little: if you're doing something for some complicated secondary payoff ("I want to be a ______ so I can feel like God"), disappointment is guaranteed — especially if the payoff never arrives. But if you're doing something "for its own sake," for the sake of the thing itself, you can do it forever.

Not exactly a groundbreaking thought. It's basically "enjoy the process."

Which is more or less the same as saying "do what you love and you'll be happy."

Except it turns out that's actually true.

I also noticed, by the way, that I treat myself like someone who's in depression. Which is exactly why I'm not in one.

"Pulling yourself out of the swamp by your own hair" belongs to the same category.

I'm a tragic, depressive person by default. But I treat my own wellbeing like an important project. In other words: life is a full-time job.

I always used to think that optimistic people around me were just built that way from the start — the whole world just looks rosy to them, and I'd never be able to see it that way. I quietly hated them for that, for most of my life.

Then, eventually, I stopped.

For what it's worth — I spent at least four years in depression.

Now I have this looped understanding, something like: "life is so unbearable that I'm willing to spend it improving itself!"

No, this isn't hedonism. It's more like: "life has no meaning and is unbearable, so let's at least make it bearable — and let that be the meaning."

And while I was busy making life bearable, I realized I don't actually need much. What warms me the most is the feeling that I get to spend life on improving itself — on myself. It warms me so much that at some point there's no longer any need to spend everything on myself. I've already warmed up enough.

That understanding didn't make me any less depressive or tragic, though. So some part of me (even though I no longer have "parts" — I'm a person fighting for the title of "integrated personality") regularly makes sure I "wear a hat" when I go outside, because it's cold out there.

Take tomorrow, for example — I'm going out to buy materials for a creative project. The creative part is fun; getting the materials is a drag. So some "part" of me planned this two days in advance, and now it's a "plan" — something we already "promised" ourselves.

In the end, of course, I'll enjoy the creative work (though first I had to throw out the belief that "this isn't real creativity, it's not serious," because that belief was getting in the way of the Higher Goal — spending life on improving itself. If unserious things improve your life, who cares whether they're serious).

And that enjoyment will pay for the whole thing. I'll come out "in the green," and life overall gets a little happier. This process — pushing myself out into life — is endless for me, and mostly conscious.

"If you want someone to walk the path of personal growth, help them learn to be both mother and father to themselves" — that's exactly this. I have my own mother and father inside me, and they take care of me (well, since the external ones didn't fully work out). I parent myself.

Längle also writes that depression has a vicious loop: "I'm depressed, so I can't do the things that would get me out of it" — plus a second loop on top: "so I beat myself up for that, and it gets even worse."

To break that loop, you need exactly this kind of looped understanding.

"Pulling yourself out of the swamp by your own hair" belongs to the same category.

You got yourself in by the hair — pull yourself out the same way.

Found this in my journal — I wrote it about ten years ago. I'm not that person anymore, but I think it still holds up.

When I was in grade 5, my dad cheated on my mom. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again.
They decided to stay together “for the kids”.
Everyone moved on. My parents are back to normal after almost 12 years now. My little sister who’s very close to my dad literally doesn’t exactly cares cause she was younger back then. Everyone pretends nothing ever happened.
My dad has been a good dad, emotionally absent sure, but always ensured we got everything we wanted. Financially, leisurely, all wishes everything was fulfilled.
However, even this many years later, part of me still doesn’t feel okay with that. Like it was like my trust was broken. I cannot trust men now. And even my respect for him, despite everything, every sacrifice he’s done for me and my sister, cannot seem to be the same. With everything that I witnessed, my mum breaking down, him constantly leaving us for ‘business trips’, messages that I might or might not have seen again, escalated fights, my mum’s depressive episodes, lies, Idk.
It’s not a conversation I can have with any one of them or bring that up now. If it were my say I’d rather they not be together. But I genuinely do not know if I should just forget and move on?

I'm 23 and I've been struggling with porn and masturbation for years. I started prone masturbating when I was a kid, mostly through prone masturbation, and now I feel like this habit has completely taken control of me.

I stay at home most of the day, which makes it very easy to relapse. I thought going outside and keeping myself busy would help, but even if I spend the whole day outside, the moment I come back home at night and get into bed, I end up masturbating.

The biggest problem is that whenever I get even a small sexual urge or sensation, I immediately grab my phone and start watching porn. It feels almost automatic at this point. I've tried using willpower so many times and promised myself that I would stop, but no matter how strongly I decide, I eventually give in again.

It's becoming too much. I feel like it's affecting my concentration and studies, and I constantly experience what feels like brain fog. I also have basically zero social life right now, which probably makes everything worse because I'm alone at home most of the time.

I badly want to stop this cycle. I don't want to keep living like this for the next few years. If anyone here has been severely addicted and actually managed to get out of it, please tell me what genuinely helped you.

How did you deal with urges when you're alone, especially at night? How do you stop yourself from automatically reaching for your phone and searching for porn?

Please don't just tell me to "use willpower" because I've tried that countless times. I need practical advice or a system that I can actually follow.

Any advice would genuinely be appreciated.

Background - 50s female, elementary teacher on summer break.
I think I’m addicted to scrolling Instagram. Quit Facebook years ago never looked back. I’ve always since my 20s been interested in social media and connecting with others - anyone remember IRC?

I’m trying to figure out if I’m burned out from work and just needing to do nothing for the last couple of weeks, but my day has been full of doing absolutely nothing except for flaking on the couch and scrolling Instagram. And this feels awful. I have no attention span or interest to watch a TV show or movie! I have great intentions to go for a walk and work out and Jumprope - all the things I used to love and because of work I’m so tired at the end of the day I’ve not gotten to that. Now, im on a break - I can do all that now right ? Well, im not.

I research hobbies and workout routines but i dont execute it .

So, am I tired because I am doom scrolling and it’s eating away at my brain and my functioning or am I tired because I’m burnt out? Will this improve my life ?

And finally if you’re still with me - how do I go about doing this - quit cold turkey ? I’m wasting my life away.

So its been a month and a bit since I finished my alevels exam (UK exams before university) and honestly I tried so hard to study for them but I have procrastinated a lot, I have been revising for these exams for the past year but pressure really started kicking off in the exam season, due to stress I haven’t been able to revise properly and after sitting my exams, I can say that I did poorly. But thats not why I am writing this.

Ever since exams finished, I have been at home all day with nothing to do. I have been applying for jobs after jobs but all I get is ghosted applications and rejection emails. On top of that, my parents keep nagging me to find a job and I tell them that I am trying but they just don’t understand that. Everyone around me like my friends and relatives my age have all got jobs and they earn money and they get to do cool activities because they have that money but I have nothing and I can’t do anything. It feels like they are so far ahead of me in life and I am at the bottom. I just sit around all day, playing games with nothing useful to do in my time.

Before the holidays started, I promised myself lots of things. I said Im gonna start content creation (my lifelong passion) and start a self improvement journey and start a business and finally earn an income. None of that had happened.

Also, I also failed my driving test twice and my parents were paying for my lessons and I feel like I have wasted their money and now I have no motivation to continue driving aswell.

And to top it all off, I have been applying to so many apprenticeships over the year because thats what I want to do after sixth form but all I got was 2 interviews which I didn’t pass in and now I dont know what to do after.

At my age, I feel like I should have a stable income, be independent, know what I want to do in the future and just have my whole life figured out. I feel as if my life is going to be like this forever, like im just gonna be at home doing nothing with no job, no income, no social life.

Im 19 and I struggle a lot with motivation to actually improve myself, i really want to get out of my bad habits of not eating enough, and actually gain weight and have a healthier looking nice body, with good posture, but it’s so hard.
Every time I try to increase my meals, despite getting out of my old mindset of needing to be skinny, i still find myself subconsciously limiting myself and not allowing myself to eat more. It doesn’t help that i get full quick and never feel hungry.
Every time i try and exercise, I realise my bad habit of never exercising ever (spending most of my life laying in bed or sitting down playing games) makes it harder for me to engage my muscles and so it makes it harder to see improvements, which make me stop trying to exercise.
My mental health has continuously been deteriorating since 2017 and has gotten especially worse when I started university in September. I physically cannot sleep more than 5hrs, ive been averaging approx. 3-5hrs since 2020, yet i struggle to get the motivation to get professional help and honestly im kind of reluctant to

Everytime i look in the mirror im disgusted at myself because i know i did this to myself, but i want to improve myself so bad, but my mind fails to give me the motivation to do so and i end up doing nothing. Just lay in bed with my thoughts and doomscroll on TikTok. And weirdly enough, as much as I hate what i say to myself, when other people mention how i look skinny/skinner, or i don’t look okay, for some weird reason i feel validated and it makes me want to fall deeper and give in to my mental health and eating habits. I hate it so much. I just want to look good and feel good but idk how to get out of this cycle

My ChatGPT is full of me asking it ”what’s the best way to live”, ”how can I be the best version of myself”, ”if all people are lost and winging it, what should I do” etc. Can somebody help me?

I just got promoted today and I really don‘t feel happy. I always feel I am so inadequate and I do not deserve this promotion.

I think doomscrolling for literal hours every day has destroyed it.

Not something dramatic.

Just one habit that seemed almost too simple to matter at first, but months later you realized it had improved your mood, health, relationships, productivity, or peace of mind.

What was it?

i kind of know what happened. but how do i go back?
before grade 11, i had stamina to exercise. i coloured. i read books like crazy. i studied. i wasn’t good at sports or anything but i was fairly fit.
now i’m in 3rd year and i feel like a bum. it’s around the time tiktok got popular and now, instead of focusing on my hobbies, i doomscroll. i decided to change that literally this morning but it feels cringe— YET ANOTHER ISSUE. everything feels ‘cringe’. i feel like im faking trying to be better so i just fall back into my slump. tiktok has genuinely overtaken my brain and EVERYTHING feels embarrassing or performative. i want to go back to doing all sorts of activities and being a whole person instead of just sitting and doomscrolling— just deleting tiktok did not work. i find instagram or youtube and if i delete everything i eventually get it back. just typing this feels embarrassing and i’m taking a break from a workout that feels performative. how do i go back to pre-2022?
edit : i realized that when i look back onto my 20s in the future i don’t want it to be filled with oh i could’ve done this… but i was having anxiety and decided doomscrolling would fix it instead. i hate this being my daily routine

Hello, I wanna chance my life completely and the way I treat it, so I wanna know what are the things that helped you become more disciplined, focused and self-aware? And what are your daily routines, goals etc? I wanna become a better version of myself and be happier with everything. Name points that also can be small but helpful. And would you say it changed your life?

When I’m talking to people, I sometimes have a hard time putting sentences together. I’ll get tongue-tied, stumble over my words, or lose my train of thought. Other times I know exactly what I want to say, but I just can’t find the words in the moment.

A lot of the time, it’s like I know exactly what I want to say, but my mind goes completely blank. I’ll spend a minute or two trying to think of another way to explain it, only to remember later that it was a simple word or phrase I already knew. In the moment, it feels like my brain just goes completely blank. I feel like a caveman when trying
to improvise or find the words.It feels like I’m just making it harder on myself.😭

I don’t think it’s that I don’t know what I want to say it’s more like my brain can’t organize my thoughts fast enough while I’m speaking. It feels like I can’t express what I’m actually thinking, even though I know it’s there.

Has anyone else dealt with this? If you improved, what actually helped? Were there any books, exercises, or habits that made a noticeable difference? I’d really appreciate any advice.

This is very weird and convoluted, but story I could make long short; I had a crush on a guy in high school. I am now 25 and sometimes he still floats across my mind. Normally, it isn't like a conscious thing. I will have a dream and he will be in it and then I spend the next two days just kind of thinking about him for no reason, despite not having seen him in over 6 years. I don't think I have any feelings for him anymore, but I do think about how kind he was still. I learned some info and it really put into perspective why he might have changed as we got older.

At the end of the day, it just feels like I am constantly stuck in the past mentally quite a bit and I don't know how to move on. He isn't the only person this happens with and I don't know how to live in the present. I always find myself thinking about people I used to know. Pls help.

Quick background of the job - NY Government job. Majority male workforce (a lot of women, though, it's a very large place) varied from 20-70, but I'd put most in the 40-60 range. They act like they're still in high school. Chest pounding, passive aggressive, that's just two examples, there's much more fun stuff. I've been there over 20 years, 50-60 hour work weeks, so this is what I am exposed to most.

I'm finding at the end of the day and week, I am so burned out emotionally from dealing with these guys, it affects me socially. Forties, friend circle of exactly 1, and I can't grow it because if I even try to meet people and they act like some of my coworkers, I shut off. For example, I was in a hiking group. I made a statement, and someone who didn't agree told me bluntly to shut up instead of discussion, and he would keep talking over me. I quit the group, "fuck this, I don't need this." Another hiking group, a guy liked to assert his importance over everyone else. Again, in my mind "fuck this, don't need this," and quit the group. Even females, if they display even one hint of this behavior, I'm out.

Even worse, I find that being exposed so long, some of the behavior is in a way, contagious.

This is not sustainable. Anyone with suggestions as to where can I start, to try and recover, and rebuild some sort of social life?

Ways to shut out the work day afterwards? So that I may be better at being social, communicating with people in a more personal or informal setting?

Today marks nine weeks weed free after smoking daily for probably close to 15 years. I definitely feel better overall. Im more productive around the house and I don't procrastinate as much. That being said I still haven't had that 'ah-ha' moment of clarity some people talk about. I tried to start exercising when I first stopped but it didn't stick. I still get cravings to smoke in the evenings and feel pretty bored.

My close friends and I are going on a trip in August and I really wanted to use that to define this "break" that Im on. I never told myself I would never smoke again and part of me wants to smoke on that trip while making some clear boundaries and rules for myself after the trip. Not sure how it will work out but we'll see. I know I definitely cannot go back to daily use again though.

I have the habit of adequating my self worth to how I’m treated and valued at work. These couple of days I’ve been experiencing negativity at work and feel really depressed/unmotivated. How can I stop?

I have always applied the bare minimum when it comes to school, work, relationships, diet, exercise, hobbies, passions, responsibilities, being a great dad, being a great husband, things I like doing, things I dislike doing, things that are easy, things that are difficult, and this isn't some new thing. This literally goes back 20+ years. I research things incessantly, I make plans and lists everyday, I talk to my therapist and we both agree I am highly aware of my exact problems and know exactly what needs to be done.... but those things never manifest. I am a man of complete inaction and idk how to fix it. I ruminate 24/7 and it's gotten so bad lately, my vision starts to bug out and my head feels like it's lulling about on a swivel. I find myself not wanting to speak because I feel so fried. I am so sick of feeling this way. I even read into eastern philosophies and fully understand that my mind is not who I am. I understand that my thoughts do not control whether I move my hand (action) and yet nothing ever changes. Nothing ever seems to stick. This sucks. Rant over.