I used to wait until I felt motivated to start something.

If I wasn't in the mood, I'd usually tell myself I'd do it later. And then later would turn into tomorrow.

Now I just try to start, even if I only feel like doing 10 minutes.

Most of the time, once I get started, I end up doing more than I planned.

I still have lazy days, but I don't wait for motivation as much anymore. Starting seems to be what gets me motivated in the first place.

I am stuck in a loop and not able to get out of it. Can someone please help me?

RIP

Some early morning gym motivation for the ones getting after it 🙂

https://youtu.be/oPpMSxq4VCA?si=JxaUBD3KHhPf_e_o

10:20

Not my video

I just finished 50 different workouts this year alone and am a little under 200 lbs. Both are reasons to celebrate!

The issue is that I don't know how to do that.

I don't have much money to spend right now, I don't want to do/get something that will derail my progress (i.e. food) and I'm usually at home since I can't drive as I'm neurodivergent.

Any ideas for me? Thanks.

The list is never really empty, and I think that's something people know but still don't quite account for when they tell themselves they'll rest once everything is finished. Something gets done, another thing comes up, and sometimes you don't even notice how quickly the space you thought you were creating has disappeared again. There are always exceptions, obviously. Some weeks are quieter than others. But in general, there doesn't seem to be a point where life simply runs out of things that require your attention. Work gets replaced by more work. Personal responsibilities change rather than disappear. You deal with something you've been worrying about for weeks and, for a moment, it feels as though you've finally caught up. Then something else happens. The idea of resting after everything is done starts to look a little strange when you think about it that way. Still, it's an easy habit to fall into. You put off the evening you had planned for yourself because today is busy. The next day is busy too, although for different reasons. Then there is something you could probably leave until tomorrow, but since you're already dealing with it, you decide to finish it now. None of these decisions feels particularly significant on its own. Over time, though, they add up. You can go for quite a while without noticing that the only time you're willing to give yourself is whatever happens to remain after everything else has been taken care of. The trouble with that arrangement is that there often isn't much left. And when there is, you're sometimes too tired to do anything with it. That kind of tiredness isn't always fixed by sleeping more. Sometimes you've had enough sleep, technically, but you haven't really had a break. Your attention has been occupied for so long that even when you aren't doing anything, part of you is still thinking about what needs to happen next. Nobody is likely to come along and tell you that the list is finally short enough for you to stop. Most of the time, you have to make that decision yourself, which can feel uncomfortable if you're used to measuring whether you've done enough by how much is still left. Maybe you leave something unfinished tonight. Maybe it genuinely could have been done, but you decide it can wait until tomorrow. There will probably be another list tomorrow, and some of the things on it will be new anyway.

That's how it was always going to be.

You don't necessarily have to solve the problem of having too much to do before you allow yourself some time away from it. Sometimes the work is still there when you stop. Sometimes it will still be there in the morning. That doesn't mean you made the wrong decision by putting it down for a while.

Nelson Mandela. The work looks impossible right up until the moment it is finished. That is the whole job: keep going until the ridge is under your feet.

We had a small workshop activity. We did a skit on being scolded by the boss.

The scene: Boss is scolding. Normally, we react, we defend, we carry it home in our head for 2 days.

In the skit, I tried something different. I just smiled. Not out of ego, not to mock him. Just remained still inside.

And when the scolding happened in the skit, the same thing happened. The words came, but they didn't have to enter me. Scolding is his action, his karma, his state. My smile, my balance that is my responsibility.

“The way you are right now is because of the choices you made.” well said by Sadhguru. We always have the choice to not get entangled.

It was funny for the audience, but for me it was a small glimpse. If you are not compulsively connected outside, you become strongly connected inside.

We all are moving together like a family, trying to discover ourselves. This small act taught me more than a lecture could.

Has anyone here practiced staying conscious in such moments?

When someone is angry at you and you choose to stay joyful? How do you hold it?

I had a Math Olympiad today, and my performance was terrible despite months of hardwork, and my terrible score was all because of my silly mistakes. I correctly solved some (but marked them incorrectly), did some counting/calculation errors, and forgot to read words like an utter idiot.

That lost me 13 marks. I could have gotten 32 (and on my first ever Math Olympiad that would be genuinely very good and rewarding).

And this got me feeling...a little down, to say the least. To the point where I want to give up because if I cant even qualify with all the hardwork in the world that I could give, then whats the point? All I could do is work hard, and that I did, and I ended up here.

It's that feeling when a huge chunk of your intrinsic motivation just goes out, when you were betting on something (hardwork) so surely and that got you through so much just dies, then what?

So, I was wondering if y'all had similar stories to share, maybe some of them would lift my spirits:D

John A. Shedd. Comfort is a dock, not a destination. Leave the harbor on purpose.

Title pretty much.

[[Edit] GUYS!!! WTH I can't believe over 600 people have responded! This blows my mind. Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm still scared but have better information. Things I never thought of.

To answer a common question, I got the crappy roll of genetics on my heart. I've taken huge measures to get as healthy as I can, lost weight, changed my diet EVEN taken up roller skating (not blades). And I want to get back into it ASAP (which means next year with recovery time).

I promise to make an update post when I can on Saturday or Sunday. I'm leaving for my surgery as soon as I hit save for this edit. TTFN ans thank you all so much.]]

I could use some general encouragement and words of advice form anyone who's been through this themselves or with a loved one.

I have to go to bed and am posting this to wake up to a notification or 2 in the morning.

I'm staring at my ceiling just wondering what the hell I'm going to do.

Simple spreadsheet. Every night I score the day and write one sentence why. Pattern became obvious fast. My 3s and 4s aren't from bad things happening. They're from days where I "didn't have time" for the gym, or ate garbage because I was "too stressed to cook," or skipped my morning routine because I "needed the sleep." But my 8s and 9s? Those are busy stressful days where I did the things anyway. The difference isn't circumstances. It's whether I let myself negotiate. The rating forces honesty. I can't pretend a lazy day was actually self-care when I'm staring at a 4. And I can't dismiss a hard productive day as "just luck" when it's an 8. Two months in. No elaborate system, just the number and the sentence. It's brutal and it's working.

It has become clear to me just how much this practice varies in virtually every aspect, between one person and the next. But it's often an implied or unstated thing, as if there's one obvious way to do it right. How do you do it? How happy are you with it? What have you considered changing about it?

I'm interested in the high-level features and quantities, for example:

For about 15 minutes, about 3 times a day.

Consult longer-term lists and calendars for context but mostly focus on producing a good list for the short-term (the next few hours)

No more than 10 items on the list at a time, to make you think about what's most important.

Break things up enough to make allow realistic estimates for how long they'll (probably) take

Estimate at the generous end of realistic. Make slightly beatable estimates.

Actively try to beat these beatable estimates, to accumulate a buffer, feel ahead, and not be stressed.

How well does it work for me? Seems to save much more time than it takes as long as I don't half-arse it.

You do not owe the whole staircase today.

One step that is actually finished.

You do not need the whole day figured out.

Start with the thing in front of you.

There's this idea floating around that healing is supposed to look like something. new routines, journaling every morning, some visible upgrade you can point to and show people. and maybe for some people it does look like that.

for a lot of people it just looks like lying on the couch for three weeks doing absolutely nothing productive and feeling guilty about it the whole time because somewhere along the way you picked up the rule that rest has to be earned first.

you're not lazy. you're not falling behind. you're just tired in a way that doesn't show up on a resume, and your body is asking for the thing it actually needs right now, which isn't a new habit tracker. it's just quiet.

there's a specific kind of pressure to turn every hard season into a growth story. like you're not allowed to just be going through something without also extracting a lesson from it in real time, packaging it, having something to show for it by the end.

sometimes you just go through it. that's the whole thing. no lesson yet. maybe no lesson for a while. just surviving the stretch of time until it's not the stretch of time anymore.

you're allowed to not be productive about your own pain right now.

it's allowed to just be hard without also being useful.

I spent a long time thinking I lacked consistency, but I noticed something uncomfortable: I kept changing the rules right when I was finally starting to build momentum.

For example, I would have a week where I woke up early, worked out, and got my important tasks done. Instead of letting that become normal, I would decide the next week needed to be better. Suddenly a good day wasn't good anymore unless I added reading, meal prep, a longer workout, and some extra project on top.

I noticed this pattern one night around 11:40 PM when I was writing tomorrow's to-do list. I had already finished everything I planned for that day, but I still wrote down five more things because the list looked "too easy." The next morning, I felt behind before I even started.

After repeating this for months, I started testing a different approach. I stopped asking myself, "How much can I improve today?" and started asking, "What would make today feel complete?"

A few things I noticed:

- I began keeping a small baseline for ordinary days instead of designing a perfect schedule. If I did the basics, the day counted.

- I stopped adding new habits during moments of excitement. I waited until my current routine felt boring before changing it.

- I started measuring how often I returned to my routine instead of how long my streaks lasted.

The weird part is that most advice tells us to aim higher, but I think I was often failing because I kept raising the standard faster than I was building the habit. The problem wasn't that I expected too little from myself. It was that I kept moving the target before I had a chance to reach it.

I still have days where I overcomplicate everything, but I catch it faster now. Progress feels less like constantly upgrading myself and more like learning not to interfere with what is already working.

Has anyone else noticed that they make goals harder right when things start becoming manageable?

I was truly having one of those days where i didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s rainy and dreary and I just wanted to stay curled up and go back to sleep. Talked myself into it because I missed yesterday due to a chronic pain flair (from the rainy weather) and this was my view upon arrival.

So after a few weeks of improving my (20M) self, stopping porn, masturbation, bedrotting, doomscrolling, and unhealthy habits in general, today I threw most of it away by spending basically the whole day watching the porn I quit and not eating anything in that time...

Now I feel ill in my whole body, (yes I ate something) and my brain is telling me to just give in and lay down and rot in bed. That there's no point in trying to be better because I will fail, and that I'll never even get better because of how much I "enjoy" failure. How do I not feel like a massive hypocrite?

Denzel Washington: “If you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud too.”

Getting what you asked for includes the mess that comes with it.

Turning 30 this month. Contract for job ending in 6 months. Just had a broken engagement/breakup. Feeling like life is turning upside down… how to reinvent myself now, is it even possible?

Edit: I have 2 degrees + an established career/title.

I am probably the most delusional person you could meet. I genuinely believe, with all my heart, that I’ll achieve all of my future goals and that I can literally do anything if I actually try. Here’s the problem… I don’t try.
Is it because I don’t want it enough? No. If anything, it’s the only thing I want. So what is it?

I’m 18, I’ve just finished school and, to be honest, I’m pretty lost. I haven’t managed to get a job yet because I’ve been travelling and have a few more trips coming up, which makes it difficult for employers to hire me when I need extended periods of time off. After October, though, I should be completely free.

I’ve always had big dreams and aspirations, with a core passion for building something of my own and eventually providing myself with a good income. I care a lot about happiness and freedom, and I genuinely don’t want to spend my life working a conventional career that I already know I wouldn’t enjoy. What’s the point of living if I can’t live according to my own values and principles? Of course, I don’t mind getting a typical job at this age and having a few jobs for a while. I just don’t want to become tied down to one, get comfortable and eventually find myself stuck in the corporate game with no time or resources left to build something of my own.

My biggest flaw is starting things. I’m constantly thinking about what I could do, where I could go and what I could build, but I never know where to start, how to start, or sometimes even what to start. I know I’ll achieve everything I want eventually, but I also know I need to start now if I actually want to get there.

The frustrating part is that I feel somewhat comfortable, well, I’m not sure if it’s comfortability or something else but where I am right now I’m not extremely extremely stressed even though I know I really don’t want to stay here. I’m fully aware that I’m wasting time, yet I still struggle to actually do something about it.

So, for anyone who has been in a similar position, how did you motivate yourself to finally just start?