I´m stuck in life

[Yoremo]

Hey guys,

I´ve been into self help for the past few years mostly for confidence and discipline. I don´t know how to put this but I never seem to stick with anything or make any improvement. I have no idea what I´m lacking or doing wrong. And I´ve talked to so many people in my own life and asked them for advice but I never get to the bottom of why I never seem to stop sucking in life. I feel like I need someone to help guide me through this because I´m genuinly getting scared of how stuck I am. I feel that I´m trying my hardest but not getting anywhere. I just feel like crying over how I have tried for the past few years on improving myself and not really improving my life. I have so many wants and ideas but so many things that are bad about me, like my confidence, discipline, wellbeing etc. etc.

Please if you can, help me, it would really mean the world to me. 

[mememe]

@Yoremo is confidence connected to discipline for you?

i‘m not sure but discipline is very hard to get self actualized towards if it’s not already part of your character. while confidence can be related to a lot of character traits or skills. it might be that discipline the way you perceive it, is not the method for you. by the way if you self actualize a lot, are you sure you are not already are showing discipline  in constantly self actualizing? so maybe discipline is not what you are searching for. continuity in habits might not be your streangth.

i‘m also struggling with keeping focus, my search engine tracks me better than i track myself, i use to loose focus if too many topics seem to ask for priority.

you could try focus practices, mindfulness practices, self-care practices, filtering out what you want to stick to your everyday life. 

i like „to do“ lists as simple as this sounds - maybe „to don’t“ lists are also a good idea especially connecting confidence to results, superlatives, or quantity, i‘d def put that on a to don’t list.

Edited December 29, 2021 by mememe

[Adodd]

@Yoremo Try discipline challenges or even running

[Carl-Richard]

Have you tried meditation by any chance?

[Flowerfaeiry]

@Yoremo This was me for a long time. 
 

• The little things you’re doing that you aren’t sticking with are still growing you in a way
• You need to stop telling yourself you’re sucking at life and start noticing all the ways you’ve shown up for yourself
• No more shaming yourself, we don’t improve through shaming
• Stick to small steps

[hyruga]

You need to read more fictions. It's the stories that inspire you.

For example, Frodo in The Lord of the Ring has an unwavering focus to destroy the One Ring. You cannot get that from self help books which just give the techniques most of the time.

Edited December 30, 2021 by hyruga

[Chakra Lion]

When we climb the ladder of life, often we are so focused on continuing up, that we forget to look down to see how far we’ve come.

Maybe not everything has changed or improved, but surly some parts of you or your world have. Trying to put motion into your life is much harder when your standing still. That’s why a destination or goal is ideal. You have somewhere to go and a reason to move.

You need to identify the moments of time when you feel like you are wasting it. Write it down and write down the actions or ideas you would rather be doing. Seriously think about the person and life you want to find yourself in, ponder the story you want to live. Don’t let doubts hold you back from who you are able to be.

What’s something you want to improve or balance in your Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, or Spiritually life? How do you like to express yourself? Take the Myers Briggs Personality Test or read a detailed astrology chart of yours to get inspiration. Find a new action or idea that makes you bubble with excitement when you think about it. What’s something that you want or need which seems like it would complete you? Find something so far out, but realistic enough to actually work towards it. Step by step, minute by minute, day by day.

[Gregory1]

What is your motivation for personal development? Like what is your WHY? You should only do the things that you WANT to do. You need a reason. Stop forcing yourself to do personal development. Do what you love. Doing what you love is easy. Doing what you love is natural.

[Yoremo]

@mememe Yes, when I feel good about myself and my abilities I feel a lot more "disciplined", also when things go well I have good "discipline". And I don´t focus on developing my discipline as much nowadays but that was just an example. I have filtered out a lot of stuff, so now I´m consistent with a couple of things which I like. But my problem is not discipline itself, honestly I don´t care that much about it, it´s just the abscense of results which is my main concern, hence the thread because I feel like I am doing something wrong since I don´t get a lot of results.

14 hours ago, mememe said:

i like „to do“ lists as simple as this sounds - maybe „to don’t“ lists are also a good idea especially connecting confidence to results, superlatives, or quantity, i‘d def put that on a to don’t list.

could you explain further what you meant here? I didn´t understand what you meant.

[Yoremo]

@Adodd So I was probably a bit unclear in my post, discipline is really not a problem, I am the most disciplined person I´ve ever met in my life. It´s more that I lack results and lack good feelings in my life. I´m very disciplined but I don´t really consider that a good thing because that makes me more prone to doing things that I don´t like just because I have this idea of discipline always being good no matter what. I don´t have an amazing life, nor the trajectory towards it and I´m looking for help to help sort out how I´m going to do that.

 

@Carl-Richard Yes! I´m doing atleast 30 min meditation in the evening and I usually do breathwork everyday (which is kind of meditation). And it is really getting better and better. I feel much more connected to everything in a weird way now through meditation and breathwork, and I really like it although I miss out on meditation maybe once a month or so.

 

9 hours ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

@Yoremo This was me for a long time. 
 

• The little things you’re doing that you aren’t sticking with are still growing you in a way
• You need to stop telling yourself you’re sucking at life and start noticing all the ways you’ve shown up for yourself
• No more shaming yourself, we don’t improve through shaming
• Stick to small steps

*How am I growing if I´m not sticking to what I set out to do?

*well, I´m kind of stuck in the loop that life sucks right now

*I´m trying to not shame myself but I don´t really know how to do this all the way, because I still feel shame inside of me and blame (most definitely from my parents whom still are blaming me and making me feel bad af). 

*this is something I´m learning more and more, taking a lot smaller steps than I want to.

Like I know all of this intellectually but I can´t do it practically.

 

9 hours ago, hyruga said:

You need to read more fictions. It's the stories that inspire you.

For example, Frodo in The Lord of the Ring has an unwavering focus to destroy the One Ring. You cannot get that from self help books which just give the techniques most of the time.

Well, through my experience they don´t really do that for me. I have always kind of envied the people that can get inspired from fiction. I´ve read the lord of the rings and other fictions, but I never feel really inspired. I´m probably just reading them in a suboptimal way because I´ve heard that from people that they got inspired by some book or movie or whatever but that has literally never happened to me.

 

5 hours ago, Chakra Lion said:

When we climb the ladder of life, often we are so focused on continuing up, that we forget to look down to see how far we’ve come.

Maybe not everything has changed or improved, but surly some parts of you or your world have. Trying to put motion into your life is much harder when your standing still. That’s why a destination or goal is ideal. You have somewhere to go and a reason to move.

You need to identify the moments of time when you feel like you are wasting it. Write it down and write down the actions or ideas you would rather be doing. Seriously think about the person and life you want to find yourself in, ponder the story you want to live. Don’t let doubts hold you back from who you are able to be.

What’s something you want to improve or balance in your Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, or Spiritually life? How do you like to express yourself? Take the Myers Briggs Personality Test or read a detailed astrology chart of yours to get inspiration. Find a new action or idea that makes you bubble with excitement when you think about it. What’s something that you want or need which seems like it would complete you? Find something so far out, but realistic enough to actually work towards it. Step by step, minute by minute, day by day.

I took the personality test and it said INTP-T, but my main concern for these tests is that I answer the feelings depending on how I feel right now. I actually feel very dependent on having meaningfull relationships, but my theory is that because of my upbringing I never figured out how to socialize and so I don´t.

I want to have some help with figuring this out: I always thought that my goal and purpose in life is to be a professional soccer player, I´ve been wanting to do this since I was around 12 years old. The thing though is that I have never felt a lot of emotions toward soccer, I think atleast. It feels like everything has been put on hold in my life because I wanted to be a footballer. But now I´m suspecting that I have been very bad at feeling inside for what I really want to do, so I constructed a purpose or goal of becoming a footballer intellectually and that´s the reason why I haven´t progressed in my life-- because soccer might not be something for me. I still feel this feeling that I want to do it, but at this point it feels like it´s just my ego or something which is so invested in me being a footballer that I don´t want to let it go. 

But how do I know whether I feel for soccer or no? I´m very confused about how I choose what I should do.

I have realized the past few days that even though I´ve never been social, the best memories and the best emotions I´ve felt has always been with other people. And I´ve always fantazised about doing stuff with people and developing strong emotional bonds to them (but I never have done this to the extent I´m talking about). And actually the biggest reason as to why I like soccer so much is because of the comradery and the fun with people (but I might just like football aswell which makes me confused as to if soccer is "my thing" or not). And because I´m very injured right now I had the idea of trying real hard to socialize with people. And my dream would be to have a girlfriend whom loves me (I´m 17, soon 18 and have never had sex nor a girlfriend because of the lack of social skills). And the thing is this: the most inspiration and emotional leverage and adrenaline and all of this I´ve felt naturally without TRYING to feel something (which I have kind of done with soccer) is when I have thought about being "the man" so to speak, having a loving relationship with a girl and being a charismatic and good man and having good friends and having all the good social qualities like confidence and everything. That´s making me really amped up. So I am thinking of following Leo´s video series "how to get laid" (which is basically "how to socialize" in many ways) and using my inspiration and drive to get a girl and get good friends and being a great social being to develop myself, and changing my beliefs and tidying up my life with this dream of connecting to people as a drive and inspiration. These are my thoughts right now, and like last night I couldn´t sleep for two hours because I was feeling so enthusiastic about this and just thinking about socializing which I feel has been an craving which has not been met for my whole life (maybe this is contributing to my addictions too)

4 hours ago, Gregory1 said:

What is your motivation for personal development? Like what is your WHY? You should only do the things that you WANT to do. You need a reason. Stop forcing yourself to do personal development. Do what you love. Doing what you love is easy. Doing what you love is natural.

My WHY for personal development has been because I wanted to be a footballer. But I´m confused as to if that WHY is the right WHY for me, because it feels kind of lame in some ways for me, it feels like I´m trying to make football my WHY forcefully because I´m so invested in it now because I have been trying for almost 5 years now seriously (I´ve played for soon 12 years in total). So maybe it´s the wrong WHY but as I wrote higher up in my response I´m confused if either I want football to be my why while it just isn´t or if football is my why but I just can´t do it right now because I´m injured (also football hasn´t been always so fun because my teammates haven´t been so welcoming to me, and I´m a bit shy so I was quite lonely in my club and I couldn´t change clubs because there are no more clubs around me). 

[Flowerfaeiry]

7 hours ago, Yoremo said:

How am I growing if I´m not sticking to what I set out to do?

Because you’re still out there trying new things. Even if you don’t stick with it you are putting yourself out there and exploring life

23 hours ago, Yoremo said:

*this is something I´m learning more and more, taking a lot smaller steps than I want to.

Like I know all of this intellectually but I can´t do it practically.

That’s good. It is going to feel weird taking small steps. Like you aren’t doing anything meaningful, but small steps do matter. It takes patience and faith to know they will lead somewhere good. 
 

Focus on being really kind to yourself. Notice the times you’re beating yourself up for not doing “enough” and change the narrative. 
 

You have to know that you’re in a viscous cycle right now and the way out is to actually take a step back. Slow way down. Be super nice to yourself. Take small steps. 

[NoSelfSelf]

Its usually a self image problem or you dont know who you are and just dabble in everything and getting lost...

Not defining your succes so you dont know if you progressed and looking for external validation etc.

[itachi uchiha]

U need to do selfhelp for a minimum of 4 to 5 years to get any significant benifit

[mandyjw]

A couple weeks ago I opened a new book that was wrapped with really thin, clear plastic film. I put the plastic in the trash but it was really clingy and a piece stuck to my hand. I was impatient and annoyed and I started flinging my hand over the trash can violently and the more I moved the more charged the static electricity got and the more stuck the plastic was. It wasn't until I stopped, looked, laughed at myself, realized the perfection of the metaphor and patiently picked it off and slowly placed it in the trash that I rid myself of the plastic. 

Thoughts are like this. The only way we can rid ourselves of something is to think it. However, this thinking it actually draws it into our experience. It charges the electricity. So essentially, the "bad" news is, you cannot rid yourself of anything. The more you try the more it becomes firmly stuck. The good news is that what we can do is direct our focus to what we DO want. Not a thought about what we do want, saying it's not here, but the feeling of it. 

You do not want to suck at life. You do want wellbeing. You want ease, flow, excitement. What does wellbeing feel like? What do these things feel like? Do they feel like trying? Do they feel like noticing that what I want hasn't come yet? Do they feel like beating myself up? That's just charging the static electricity of "stuck". Instead of judging where you are in thought, pay attention to how you feel. Give yourself a break. 

Make a list of things you love doing, not as means to an end, not as a means of improving the person, but just for the pleasure of them.

You ARE life. You are not a means to an end. You do not have to prove anything to anyone. You do not have to prove yourself to yourself. How could you? You are already yourself. Like the light of the sun shines without making an effort and yet all energy IS it, your wellbeing is already without you doing anything, who you really Are. Does your heart beat based on you efforting and reminding it to keep pace? No. Tap in to that intelligence and wellbeing that is prior to thought. Drop the thoughts that cling and stick that say you aren't it. Thoughts are the only thing that is stuck. Not you. 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by mandyjw

[mememe]

On 30.12.2021 at 2:21 PM, Yoremo said:

On 29.12.2021 at 11:37 PM, mememe said:

i like „to do“ lists as simple as this sounds - maybe „to don’t“ lists are also a good idea especially connecting confidence to results, superlatives, or quantity, i‘d def put that on a to don’t list.

could you explain further what you meant here? I didn´t understand what you meant.

i mean you make lists about what you need to do to get results, the confidence  is encapsulated in not forgetting what you wanted to do and keeping track on what you need to do to get results. so you get the confidence in getting results.

On 30.12.2021 at 3:13 PM, Yoremo said:

So I was probably a bit unclear in my post, discipline is really not a problem, I am the most disciplined person I´ve ever met in my life. It´s more that I lack results and lack good feelings in my life. I´m very disciplined but I don´t really consider that a good thing because that makes me more prone to doing things that I don´t like just because I have this idea of discipline always being good no matter what. I don´t have an amazing life, nor the trajectory towards it and I´m looking for help to help sort out how I´m going to do that.

this is a new twist in the story, so if you don’t like it to be disciplined you can always make a to don’t list on which you put every behavior or action you want to skip out on because it produces a negative result (feeling not confident, overly disciplined)

you can also put on a to don’t list:

•don’t connect confidence to results, superlatives or quantities

you can put on a to do list:

•do everyday something i would like to gain confidence in

Edited January 1, 2022 by mememe