Discovering my potential through rebooting

Dantes

Active Member
Day 97

Perhaps a flatline, but feeling sort of unmotivated with rebooting. Maybe it's all the stress in the work and overall low energy levels, but I'm feeling a bit tired with rebooting, like my brain can't wait for rebooting to be over. I'm finding it more and more difficult to stay alert. Perhaps decent rest physically could help, as I've been exerting myself quite a bit recently. Now just trying to use this forum and the routine I've established so far to get me over this current hump.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 98

Today was maybe a better day, my sister was visiting today and we went to visit the city. Before this upon wking up in the morning, I was almost sure to PMO, but was saved by my alarm clock because I had to get up from the bed. Visiting city with my sister kept my mind off of any pmo-related things and I also got some rest. This could be a turning point to start gaining some more momentum again.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
100 day milestone post - Part 1


Day 99, 100 and 101

I decided to something different for my 100 days milestone. I hope this will do for two missing days too. I had to split it into two posts I'm currently visiting my parents in my hometown and seeing some of my childhood friends. Yesterday I save some improvement in my social skills, or rather I had more natural interest towards other people than I've had before, which lead to good conversation.

I've been a self-improvement addict for some time. The problem is, I'm constantly searching for a new "formula for success" or some other great insight. The problem is that I'm not focusing on actual things, like my work, friends, my personal projects or other people., but I spent hours searching for a new system and how to start this new phase of my life as optimally as possible. An then after the first setback or phase of boredom, the search for new system arises etc. So from all this I had this weird idea that I'll collect a list of all these little insights and wisdoms I've collected so far but that I'm not necessarily following. So the plan now is to just start listing ideas for a better life below that I can recall from my mind, my journal and perhaps internet resources. I'll add sources if I can remember them. After that, I'll take a look at the list and see if I could do something to integrate in my life long term.

Disclaimer: By writing all of these doesn't mean I subscribe to all of them, they are just things I recall and have written down. I hope I don't butcher the original ideas too much by paraphrasing, I'm just typing the ideas as I recall them. You'll see that these will vary greatly in terms of magnitude, quality and area of life... Some of them may never be applicable to you, some of them may be applicable in different time of life.)

1. "Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it." (Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, popped first into my head. Great book, and pretty short one too.)

2. Almost every time I go to listen to live music, I think I should to it more often

3. 5-hour-rule, i.e. you should spend one hour per working day learning something new.

4. You should define your dream self, and then think about the needs he/she has, and start fulfilling them now. Or otherwise, you should define your dream self and be like one, can't remember this on really well. It's from a Medium article, I think.

5. Memento mori / Deathbed exercise / Funeral exercise / Begin with the end in mind. Both from stoics and Stephen R. Coveys 7 habits book. The funeral exercise basically forces you to think about your own funeral and what people will say about you in your eulogy. So, by reminding yourself of your own mortality you automatically put things into correct perspective.

6. Eat the frog first thing in the morning. Do the most difficult thing first in the morning. Originally from a Mark Twain book, I think.

7. When I was a bit younger and we went to pick berries, my grandpa was the slowest to move and he still always picked way more berries than I did. He never rushes, but he is almost constantly on the move. I've heard that germans refer to this as "Ohne hast, aber ohne rast". (I googled it, it was von Goethe who said this).

8. No more Zero Days. This is something I wrote about earlier in this thread. Do not allow yourself any zero days when building a new routine, studying etc. Do one line, one sentence or even one word, but not nothing. In the original reddit post (google no more zero days) other ideas included: forgive your past self and start doing things for your future selfs. Keep you three selfs (past, present and future) your best buddies. Also, exercise and books.

9. Life isn't about getting rid of your problems. It's about finding new and better problems. From a Mark Manson book Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

10. Maybe a bit related to no 5, but I remember reading from a Seneca book something like this: We die once at the end of each day. When you are going to sleep, you should make a mental note that this day now dead / belongs to death.

11. I should keep my beard short and clean looking rather than longer. Learned this from old pictures.

12. When trying to calm yourself down, breathe with the following pattern through your nose: 4 counts in, 6 counts out.

13. Almost without always, doing something makes you feel better than doing nothing. And action breeds action. Action also produces motivation, not the other way around.

14. You should take advantage of globalization during younger years and work or study abroad. This is from multiple interviews of older, succesful people.

15. There is a very short list of things that are more important than getting a good sleep. The list seems longer than it is when you should start winding down and getting to bed.

16. Maybe not an idea, but a system: Getting Things Done. I didn't manage to implement it in my life, but maybe you will.

17. Wildly Important Goal: From a business-book called "The 4 Disciplines of Execution". Basically, besides from your other day-to-day stuff you should choose one wildly important goal you want to attain and go for it. Or something like that.

18. You learn by doing so much efficiently than by studying. This might be different for everyone, but is especially true for myself.

19. Meditation is something that you need the most when you don't feel like it or don't have time for it.

20. Everybody is normal as much as nobody is.

21. Things are always better when shared with someone.

22. Saying you're worse than everyone else is as bad as saying you're better than everyone else, because both mean you're special in some way that you're probably not.

23. When talking to yourself in your mind, use "you" instead of "I".

24. Most of our suffering comes from avoidance. -Naval Ravikant

25. Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. No one can compete with you being you. Intentions don't matter, actions do. -Naval Ravikant, master of tweet-long inspiration
 

Dantes

Active Member
100 day milestone post - Part 2

26. When going through a harder patch of your life, do three things: exercise, learn something new and read books. This is from podcast interview of a major business leader.

27. Everyone reading this should probably be doing some sort of investing, whether you are living on social welfare or making millions.

28. Procrastination is a routine and is structured as one: 1. Trigger 2. Routine 3. Reward 4. Belief. 1. something reminds you of work, 2. Procrastination ensues, 3. you get dopamine from browsing instagram or watching netflix instead of working and 4. You think you are lazy procrastinator and never get anything done.

29. Focus on your process rather than on your end product. Is takes less willpower.

30. Each evening plan the to do -list for the next day, so the tasks start to get processed while you sleep.

31. More Naval Ravikant: Find something you love to do, make it better than anyone, leverage your expertise and put your name on it.

32. Contradicting the above right away: Following your passion is bad advice. https://markmanson.net/screw-finding-your-passion

33. Still Naval: Don't focus on the schedule (when building yourself), focus on doing important things each day.

34. Naval: You can't hide anything from yourself. If you do bad things, your psyche and character will be molded by them. If you do things that decrease your self-worth even when nobody sees, they erode your self-respect. (This one might ring true for a lot of the readers in this forum)

35. When doing important decisions, leave identity and past behind and focus on the problem.

36. You usually get more satisfaction from doing things for other than for yourself.

37. Number 36 made me think about "12 Rules for Life" by Jordan Peterson and the rule "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping". That whole book could be included in this list on rule at a time.

38. You should keep some sort of journal.

39. The last one from Naval: There are three important decisions you need to make in life: Where are you? Who are you with? What do you do?

40. Pareto principle: 20 % of action produces 80 % of results. Use this to live more effectively.

41. What things can you do now that make a difference very long term? And: Each of us should evaluate what is the proportion of time and energy that we give up now for things in the future as opposed to time and energy we spend living and enjoying the moment. -This was actually something I came up myself in my journal, don't now if it makes any sense though.

42. "The beginner must read, but intently and choosily and not too much." From Farnam Street blog post.

43. Weird things I wrote on my journal: "What is thinking? And how do you practice it?"

44. For some time I thought that it would be good to include something about each of these things in one's life: sports/exercise, creativity, learning.

45. Some celebrity self-help gurus practice gratitude at the beginning of each day: list things that you are grateful for.

46. The most valuable things are product of time, not a moment.

47. Make your bed the first thing in the morning. There is a famous speech in youtube about this by some sort of kickass general.

48. A lot of sites and posts I've read state that you should spent some time alone. I've done it quite a bit, and I've also noticed that inside of your head can be a dangerous place if you spent too long time inside it. We are all susceptible for biases in our thinking. I noticed this, when I was fuming about an incident in the workplace for my friend which cost me loads of time. My friend listened, then kindly began: "Is there anything you could've done differently?" and explained me the perfect way to handle the situation. I was _certain_ that there was no better way of handling that case. After that, I've thought about a lot of similar situations in other areas of my life. We should strive to speak up about our beliefs and our ides to test them. Speaking about our ideas also forces us to define them more clearly than just thinking. Writing will also do.

49. To reward anyone who made it this far, I'll provide a longer quote of number 1: "Siddhartha said: Yes I have had thought and knowledge here and there. Sometimes, for an hour or for a day, I have become aware of knowledge, just as one feels life in one’s heart. I have had many thoughts, but it would be difficult for me to tell you about them. But this is one thought that has impressed me Govinda. Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish…. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."

And finally, noticing I reached 50 bits of "wisdom" it's probably a good place to end with this:

50. “I will say no more about it. Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.”



So that took about an hour. I'll return later to try to pick some of these into my daily life and that will be a different post. I anyone reads this, I hope it could bring you some value. It would be fun to hear your thoughts on these and to hear if fellow rebooters have similar sorts of bit-sized knowledge to share.

TL; DR: Life is too short to TLDR

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 
Congratulations brother. This milestone is really to be elated on.Thank you for sharing your story.
Please give me some suggestions to start rebooting!
 

Dantes

Active Member
Thank you RevenueChamp! You can find my suggestions from thi thread, for example I laid out at 90 days some keys for success this time around.

However, it does feel like I'm not the best guy to give this advice after yesterday's spectatular failure.

Day 0

So I had a pretty good weekend after all. My friend graduated and we had a party. I actually didn't drink, but I stayed up until 3 am. Being the poor sleeper I am, I woke up at 6:30 am. I was supposed to get some more sleep but I spent the whole morning in connversation with my dad. Then I had to drive from my parents place home, which meant I couldn't nap during daytime either. I was also toasted from the heat. I played some tennis in the evening and at the end of the day I had no willpower left. I couldn't get myself sleeping because of the heat. I found my way around the blocker pretty easily and ended up PMOing 3 times in total.

So yeah, 101 days. Yes it's sad to reset my streak, but I have faith in the system I've established and now the most important thing is to get back in the saddle ASAP.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
 
D

Deleted member 17609

Guest
Thank you RevenueChamp! You can find my suggestions from thi thread, for example I laid out at 90 days some keys for success this time around.

However, it does feel like I'm not the best guy to give this advice after yesterday's spectatular failure.

Day 0

So I had a pretty good weekend after all. My friend graduated and we had a party. I actually didn't drink, but I stayed up until 3 am. Being the poor sleeper I am, I woke up at 6:30 am. I was supposed to get some more sleep but I spent the whole morning in connversation with my dad. Then I had to drive from my parents place home, which meant I couldn't nap during daytime either. I was also toasted from the heat. I played some tennis in the evening and at the end of the day I had no willpower left. I couldn't get myself sleeping because of the heat. I found my way around the blocker pretty easily and ended up PMOing 3 times in total.

So yeah, 101 days. Yes it's sad to reset my streak, but I have faith in the system I've established and now the most important thing is to get back in the saddle ASAP.

See you tomorrow
Dantes
That’s right. After making it to 100 days, a single relapse won’t make you fall off the wagon. As you said, get back in the saddle and it will be all right. I’ve seen many guys get a grip on their addiction and heal their ED despite having relapsed a few times.

Good luck with this!
 
That’s right. After making it to 100 days, a single relapse won’t make you fall off the wagon. As you said, get back in the saddle and it will be all right. I’ve seen many guys get a grip on their addiction and heal their ED despite having relapsed a few times.

Good luck with this!
It is only with severe relapses that progress of even bigger streaks is trampled to ground.Relapses make us vulnerable.They are our enemies especially at the end of good milestones.
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 2

Thanks guys. That relapse was harder to shrug off than it felt in the first place. It took me two more days to get clean again. It's a strange feeling, knowing that you're cabable of abstaining from porn and then in the next moment just suddenly deciding to watch porn and it just sort of happens. I was sort of ashamed from my relapse lasting longer so didn't post yesterday and tuesday. But there's no point in being dishonest, especially in anonymous internet forum.

I had a pretty horrible week. Almost broke down in work. I've been gathering responsibilities that I've been able to hold up during my streak, but now with my self-esteem being lower and energy levels drained by relapse I felt overwhelmed by all that workload. Luckily I'm now back on the saddle. This relapse gave me some perspective on how far I had come in the hundred days. I'll try to treat the relapse as a gift and move on. I have better things to do with my life than jerk off home alone.

See you tomorrow,
Dantes
 

Redalc

Active Member
I completely understand. It’s amazing to me the problems this causes. Don’t feel ashamed to let us know what’s going on. Cause we literally all have the same struggles. The unexplainable feeling you described about knowing Porn is horrible for you and then all of a sudden all caution is thrown to the wind and you just give in then feel horrible afterward I’ve experienced often enough. Keep going one day at a time.
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 2 - again

Back at it again after a while. I've had a couple of streaks of maybe 5-6 days and then I've relapsed again when being extra tired etc. Very humbling. I think there is no way around coming back here and start posting again. Not much more to add. Let's get back on top of things.
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 3

Feeling a lot better than I have for the past two weeks, even though had the second covid vaccine yesterday. I've got plenty of sleep last 2-3 nights and life just seems more blissful and things moer clear after adequate rest. I also notice that I haven't been enough time myself. Feels weird to say that after spending the summer with my gf, but I have been super busy exercising and such so that I haven't had time to rest by myself and focus on my goals and future. That's something I should change. For now, I won't make any grandiose promises, I'll just try to get by day by day.

Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 5

So I found out yesterday about a very unfortunate event in my friend's life that will change his life for good. I feel ashamed with my first world problems when comparing our situations. It seems silly not to be able to overcome porn addiction even though people are overcoming actual horrible situations and problems of life every day. It might be because they have no choice but to overcome. I wonder how one could implement similar attitude towards rebooting.

Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 1

Typical pattern yesterday: weekend was perfectly spent with friends, but I slept like shit and just didn't care yesterday evening and gave in. Reporting back to starting point.

Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 16

Resurrecting my journal and peeking back to forum. Things are on a roll again. Holiday helped, I didn't have to spend any time alone. Now in the everyday my goal is to avoid idle moments alone again.

Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 20

Stopping by. Mind is pretty empty currently, just spent a two week long holiday and tomorrow work etc starts again. Living with girlfriend now after a while means less time alone inside our house so less chances to relapse.

Dantes
 

Dantes

Active Member
Day 6

Well hello again,

with great shame and humbled by last year's experience I announce my return. Since my last post, I've had some streaks of 14-21 days, but no real breakthrough.

I got overconfident and thought I wouldn't need this forum. I also acted like I didn't care about my constant relapses. For this year, I set the goal of 200 days nofap, but suprisingly, my efforts have failed whenever I get overstressed, sleep badly or just otherwise stop caring.

It's quite apparent that my addiction is stronger than ever and that I should restart with rebooting from here, where I've had my most succesful streak yet. So again, I'm attempting to stop by every day to revisit the reasons to nofap and remind myself about the importance of constant vigilance.

Dantes
 
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