1 Year of Developing a Foundation for a Good Life

[bazera]

For the past few years, I’ve been struggling to stay consistent with myself — with the promises I make to myself, with integrity, and with discipline. I’ve examined this many times and identified some fundamental issues that I’m working to fix.

This journal will serve as public accountability while I build the foundation for the next phase of my life. I’ve just turned 30, and I now realize how little time I have and how easy it is to waste most of it. I need to take much more action than I did in my 20s.

Currently, I’m struggling with addiction, I’m overweight, I do the bare minimum at my job as a software developer, I don’t exercise much, and I deal with some anxiety. I know how to fix all of it — and more. I know what to do to make my life unrecognizably better (at least to try my best), and inaction only makes me resent myself more.

I know what to do. I just have to do it. This thread will help me stay accountable.

I’ll be posting every Saturday with a report on the previous week. This is how it will go.

Phase 1: 3 Months

• I’ve been overconsuming pornography and engaging in compulsive masturbation. Since I’m single and somewhat isolated, I need to control this habit. I will abstain from both to reset my dopamine reward cycle.
• I’ve been slacking off at work, so I need to refocus and concentrate more. I currently work in 45-minute blocks, then rest for a few minutes, repeating this 2–3 times a day. I want to increase this to at least 6 blocks.
• Work inconsistency has caused me to sleep very late or work late into the night. As I fix my work habits, my sleep habits should improve as well. My goal is to sleep at least 7 hours, from 12:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.
• I’ve gained a lot of weight. I’m currently around 105 kg and eat a lot of junk food. The plan is to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously until I reach 72–75 kg.
  • Eat 1,800–2,000 calories with at least 160 g of protein
  • Weight train at least 3 times per week
  • Jog for 30 minutes at least 3 times per week
  • Cut out junk food at least 90% of the time
• I work as a software developer, and the industry is changing rapidly. I need to keep up. I will invest at least 1–2 hours per day in studying, building side projects, or diving deeper into AI.
• Read books for at least 1 hour per day.

Summary of Phase 1

• No porn or masturbation
• No social media
• Limited YouTube/Reddit for recreation
• 6–8 daily 45-minute work blocks
• 1–2 hours of study
• 1 hour of reading
• Fixing sleep routine
• Weight loss:
  • 1,800–2,000 calories
  • 3x weightlifting, 3x cardio weekly
  • Cut out junk food

Phase 2: 3 Months

On top of the foundation built in Phase 1:

• Add spiritual practices: Mindfulness meditation (breath-focused) and Kriya Yoga pranayama
• Add therapeutic practices such as shamanic breathwork, TRE (Trauma Release Exercises), and self-therapy journaling to work through unresolved trauma and issues from the past few years
• Continue weight loss and exercise — likely reaching target weight by the end of Phase 2
• Continue reading and studying
• Allow masturbation at most once per week after the first 90 days, since more than that negatively affects my life

Phases 3 and 4

I can’t say much about these yet. I imagine strengthening spiritual practices, making them more focused and prioritized, socializing more, and possibly starting to date — though dating may be too distracting at the moment, and I don't want it honestly since I've recently got out of a LTR.

Phases 4+

• Getting involved with psychedelics
• More socializing
• More dating experience
• Starting to work on additional income streams aside from my job
• Working on creative projects
• Traveling
• Meeting new people

Exciting things — but first, the foundation.

That’s the plan.

I won’t plan further than this because planning is a trap for me. Planning gives me a false sense of accomplishment, but it isn’t real progress. Real accomplishment comes from daily execution — day in and day out. It’s that simple.

I’ll update every Saturday. 52 updates total.

Let’s see how far I go.

See you next week.

[bazera]

Rough week. But better then last week.

What made it rough is two things:

• Couple relapses on the addiction
• Messed up sleep schedule, basically I was awake at night and asleep during the day which messed up everything

As a result I ate slight surpus on calories, only exercised 1-2 times, didn't have much performance at work, just barely did the tasks. 

I've been stuck at Phase 1 for this long because of the similar pattern for the last couple months, maybe even years.

I need to somehow take charge and responsibility over my life more and more. 

I can't move into higher creativity, deeper spirituality and understanding if I keep myself stuck on this level. And the feeling eats me from inside when I think of how much time I wasted and how I might waste much more. 

The mind is always focused on removing addictions and losing weight and all that shit that can be resolved in couple months and I'm dragging them for years, which is simply irresponsible.

Couple insights from this week:

• Dopamine addiction and sleep irregularity are the 2 killers for me. If I fix these, all else will be 10x easier
• Clean and organized environment is super critical, I have to put extra effort every evening so that I wake up in an organized environment that makes it easy to follow my routines with less friction
• When I invest in myself day after day, it all build up after weeks and months, and it's much less likely that I relapse or derail in any way. So the main focus is on investing and building up over period of many weeks. 
• Cravings for junk food doesn't come from hunger, it comes from aggitated and anxious mind. 
• Cravings for addictions mostly come late at night, and during unorganized time periods. "an idle mind is the devil's workshop" as they say.
• The planning trap. When I fail, I go back to a drawing board and plan again, which gives me a sense of accomplishment. This is an illusion. The plan is simple, it doesn't need re-planning on every relapse. I just have to eliminate root causes or understand them deeply without changing outside routines.
• All worthwhile things in life require investment over many months. Nothing great has been built with inconsistency and lazyness ever. Everything we value and consume was a product of consistent effort over time.
• I need to put in more effort. Sometimes I'm working on autopilot and trusting my habitual patterns. No, I need to put more thought and effort to actually accomplish some things.
• For me to fix sleep schedule, I have to say no to naps at least for some period of time. No naps + consistent sleep schedule from 11pm-7am, that's it. If that's met 90% of the times, it won't be issue any more.
• I have the perfect environment, job situation, finances, infrastructure and everything that I need to accomplish what I feel I need to do in 6-12 months. There is no excuse left that's not dealth with. So it's 100% on me now. 

I'll be posting here daily for the whole March, it will help me keep myself accountable daily.

• I'll be exercising 6 times in a row (cardio or weights) and 1 day rest
• 2000 calories at most with 150-160g protein
• 20m daily meditation, and 12 pranayamas (I'll be building up to more in the weeks to come)
• 1.5h reading and studying daily

And just staying mindfull all day of the fact that none of the things will get done if I don't keep myself more responsible and I'll be stuck at the same place for years and then I'll just die. That will be a huge waste, so, let's not waste life.

Edited 10 hours ago by bazera

[bazera]

Its been a relatively good day

Things I did successfully

• I'm fixing my schedule, so I got up at 6:45 with 4 hours of sleep, and now its 22:00, preparing to get to sleep so tomorrow I naturally get up early, and must resist urge to nap again, and all is goof
• No addiction relapses
• Read 1.5 hours. I read multiple books at once, today I was reading Yeonmi Park's "In Order to Live" and Ralston's old book called "Reflections of Being". Very insightful.
• Ate 1900 calories with 160g protein
• Did leg exercises, but I have a knee pain on both of my knees probably because of a sitting pose on my office chair, for months I have one leg bent in a knee and put under the second leg, which is probably the reason of the pain. I'll skip leg exercises till I feel better. Ill focus more on upper body.
• Run for 12 minutes. Oh god, I'm out of shape, 6 months ago I was running 17-18km without break, now I'm dying at 2km. Such a shame. I've to build up my endurence again, slowly.
• Walked 6000 steps
• Cleaned house and orginized working environment
• Cooked and prepared food for tomorrow

What I wanted to do and didn't do:

• Meditation and Kriya. I'm skipping days again out of pure laziness. I've to get used to doing these first thing in the morning.
• Haven't done career study, also laziness and procrastination on this front.

Those to are very important to me so I'll have to put more effort or figure out why am I resisting this much. 

Main lessons for today:

• I have to do meditation and kriya first thing in the morning, at least in this stage when I'm trying to build a consistent habit. Super important.
• Take care of my knees, I've to fix my sitting posture and observe if pain goes away or not.

Tomorrow:

• I'll wake up at 6:45 and do the practices first thing in the morning
• Then run for 20-30 minutes
• Then study for an hour
• Try to work without procrastination and have a productive day

Good luck to me.

Edited 18 hours ago by bazera

[bazera]

I've just finished reading Yeonmi Park's "In Order to Live". She is North Korean defector, who escaped with her mother. She just described unimaginable things, seeing dead bodies was an everyday normal thing for her growing up, she didn't meant what it was to not feel hungry all the time, she ate grasshoppers and fireflies to survive. She was trafficed and sold multiple times in her teenage years. She escaped North Korea 2 weeks after appendix surgery, where she woke up in the middle of surgery because the anesthetic wasn't proper dose. She saw her mother getting raped in China in front of her, and later she was raped as well. She nearly killed herself multiple times. She was ridiculed and told that she won't achieve anything. And so much more.

I can't watch this without tearing up myself. Such a brave girl. 

Her story made me so grateful for everything I've got, the fact that I have food everyday is really a privilage if I think about it. It's not something to be taken for granted.

But I forget that often. I want to remember and appriciate my life and circumstances much more. And not be complaisant. There is so much opportunity around us that we take for granted.

I will continue researching North Korea, it's such a great example of the cruelty and deception that humans can do to each other. 

Great example of when you don't have basic survival handled, you don't care about anything higher. These people were motivated by hunger and safe shelter.

To that little girl, freedom meant she could ate food. 

Edited 1 hour ago by bazera