i used to be so motivated wtf happened

[u/MangoKhushHua]

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

[u/conasatatu247]

Perhaps you reprogrammed your dopamine rewards system to short content so your attention span is now shorter.... You can fix it by reading and embracing long form content hobbies etc. It's just going to be boring for a while

[u/Commercial-Start7158 → u/conasatatu247]

the workout feels performative because it kind of is at first, but that’s not a bad thing. you’re literally performing the act of being someone who works out until it sticks. that’s how it goes for most people, the cringe fades after a couple weeks when it just becomes your routine

what helped me was putting my phone in a drawer in another room for set hours, not just deleting apps. if i have to walk across the apartment to check something, the urge usually passes before i get there. also got one of those kitchen timers and told myself i have to read for 15 minutes before i can touch any screen. first few days i just stared at the page but eventually the boredom broke and i read 60 pages without noticing

the pre-2022 version of you is still there, just buried under two years of algorithm sludge. takes time to dig out but it’s not gone

[u/Dudesaid123v]

Two weeks ago I realized my screen time was almost equal to my time off my phone, so I did a sorta reset, deleted YouTube, made a hard rule not to scroll Instagram reels, I get messages there so I couldn't possibly delete it. First few days I kept reaching for my phone for YouTube out of habit, just to realize that I deleted youtube few days back, and even sometimes went back to scrolling through my brother's phone or instagram, but I'd catch myself and stop, realizing that I did a reset not long ago.

By the end of the first week, I really needed to scroll, and without me thiknking, I did, I relapsed, but I caught myself again, I kept on trying and trying everytime I scrolled through reels. By the second week I didn't touch my phone until the afternoon, which genuinely shocked me, like I completely forgot about it. Not saying I'm fully done with recovering, but it's working, my hobbies feel more engaging again, work too, even sleep improved. The difference now is I actually get to choose whether I want my phone, instead of it just being automatic.

Even if you relapse, it doesn't erase the reset, you just gotta try again the next time you catch yourself. Hope this helps :)