Story I think I need encouragement to have a routine

[unperson]

I don't know if this will work or not but I'll be honest about the results regardless.

I can't seem to self-motivate very well. I know a lot about the theory behind building habits, motivation, etc., but knowledge ain't enough sometimes to overcome mental health issues (just ask David Foster Wallace). So my hope is that this post will give me a push toward having enough motivation and resolve—the summoning of which might necessitate some socially-facilitated sense of purpose/value—to have a consistent daily self-care routine which from past experience seems to be the best thing for my mental health.

Basically it means getting outa bed even when I don't feel like it to eat breakfast, doing a little exercise everyday even if it's just 5-10 push-ups, etc. every so often I'll stick to a routine for a few weeks or months. I really want to get back to it but have been flapping around like a fish only to get almost immediately ejected from the water every time I forcefully push myself in, or maybe I flap around through some puddles of weekly showering and breakfast eating and sleeping at night but feel like I'm just being tormented with short bursts of functionality that are like a snail trailing by—compared to the ant-speed necessary to just do the basics of taking care of myself, or the butterfly-fucking level of functioning necessary to work, change the cars oil, have a love-life, file taxes, have a fucking credit score, etc.

so anyway maybe just encouragement to like idk eat a decent breakfast and then walk the dogs every morning, instead of eating cereal with my hands and taking the dogs just to potty on the front lawn and then lying in bed for 5 hours on a device despite the psychostimulant meds and coffee sitting in my slow-paced blood-stream doing fuck all

ok thanks for reading!

 

[aWishNotTrue]

Yea, I can totally get behind this. Self motivating is an incredible skill and absolutely worth working on.

I like to have a blog/journal where I just check mark the stuff I did on my schedule/routine/motivation list.

Posting it publicly (but not searchable by google) makes me feel a sense of accountability towards following my goals (guess I don't want to disappoint all the bots visiting my blog lol). I needed that extra push of just imaging some random dude looking at my website and seeing me be flagrant on these routines I'm genuinely working towards.

I mean, just imaging wasn't enough tho, until I actually set up the blog, I just didn't really push myself, but now it's all real, and all the more easy, in a sense.

I had some trouble with initially beating myself up for not following the routine, I got over it but it helps to allow yourself an amount of leeway. You don't have to be perfect, but you can't let yourself just be pardoned every time. Missing one check mark isn't that big of a deal but missing a few over a period of time means something needs to change. I also had to scale back the amount of things I had on my routine list, I was just trying to fix myself too much and without understand how that change comes in the first place. It's not that baby steps are necessary but building a foundation for how you want to implement these structural changes requires time and understanding. Gradually building up my routine, making myself accountable, and not going crazy over just missing one thing really helped cement the routine change into my life.

May I ask about these 5 hour phone sessions? Maybe you can chunk them up rather then just watch all at one time. Like, after this episode, I'm going to change my oil, and then reward myself with another episode. Or some reward system like that. it usually motivates me, and recategorises leisure time as a reward rather then a default. But these things are largely personal, no one size solution.

As for encouragement, I definitely believe in you! With your past success, you understand exactly what it takes to implement these habits and the positive effects they have on your mental health. I also find your resolve encouraging, for posting about it publicly and all

 

[BlankUser]

Start with small baby steps. Take short breaks between tasks if you find it too overwhelming. It takes a lot of energy to push yourself to do stuff when you're depressed, unmotivated. So for example after doing one task, sit down, have a cup of coffee/tea, read some news and then move onto another task. I used to do that when I felt I can't even do simple chores without getting anxiety and panic. It helps a little. Same with walking your dogs. Every day increase the time and distance you go, even just by a few minutes and a few more steps. Your dogs will appreciate that as well. Seeing them happy might make you feel better.

 

[unperson]

Yea, I can totally get behind this. Self motivating is an incredible skill and absolutely worth working on.

I like to have a blog/journal where I just check mark the stuff I did on my schedule/routine/motivation list.

Posting it publicly (but not searchable by google) makes me feel a sense of accountability towards following my goals (guess I don't want to disappoint all the bots visiting my blog lol). I needed that extra push of just imaging some random dude looking at my website and seeing me be flagrant on these routines I'm genuinely working towards.

I mean, just imaging wasn't enough tho, until I actually set up the blog, I just didn't really push myself, but now it's all real, and all the more easy, in a sense.

I had some trouble with initially beating myself up for not following the routine, I got over it but it helps to allow yourself an amount of leeway. You don't have to be perfect, but you can't let yourself just be pardoned every time. Missing one check mark isn't that big of a deal but missing a few over a period of time means something needs to change. I also had to scale back the amount of things I had on my routine list, I was just trying to fix myself too much and without understand how that change comes in the first place. It's not that baby steps are necessary but building a foundation for how you want to implement these structural changes requires time and understanding. Gradually building up my routine, making myself accountable, and not going crazy over just missing one thing really helped cement the routine change into my life.

May I ask about these 5 hour phone sessions? Maybe you can chunk them up rather then just watch all at one time. Like, after this episode, I'm going to change my oil, and then reward myself with another episode. Or some reward system like that. it usually motivates me, and recategorises leisure time as a reward rather then a default. But these things are largely personal, no one size solution.

As for encouragement, I definitely believe in you! With your past success, you understand exactly what it takes to implement these habits and the positive effects they have on your mental health. I also find your resolve encouraging, for posting about it publicly and all

That was such a well thought out reply, thank you.

I like the blog idea.

I'm sure you might tell from my response my mental energy is kinda faded right now haha

And yeah, media/tv/video games/etc is the most addicting thing for me; my self-control is practically nonexistent sho my brain just doesn't want to executive-function, nor does it retain a consistent sense of meaning or purpose or hope or confidence or passion or whatever. So that's always a good time lol

Change the oil?!, that's like next-level stuff, I'm still trying to get myself to more regularly shower, brush teeth, eat real food, cut back on media and caffeine and nicotine, actually open my mail, text and call people back, print & fill out the ssi forms that I think I'm maybe even to mentally impared to fill out (not intellectually, but my discipline or emotional-resilliance or frustration-tolerance is nowhere to be found)—the irony of which is fucking hillarious & tragic when you consider the reality of the system being set up so that the people most likely to get benefits are simply the ones who pursue them most strategically and adamenttly regardless of whether or not they meet the level of impairment-qualifications, and someone like myself gets to suffer not only possibly being too impaired to make myself pursue it properly but also have the pertetual experience of being misunderstood and invalidated by people who seem to (based on my point-of-view) have a common societal bias that wrongfully conflates intelligence with overall-potential, leading to the most isolating, alienating horiffically lonely experience of feeling completely weak and powerless in a way that one can't every expect very many but perhaps a small few to understand; essentially having a significant disparity between certain cognitive strengths that are somewhat socially obvious, and the most debillitating abject fucking dysfunction that one could only see from the outside if they were living with and observing me—and so, possibly not even being able to do what I need to do to get proper assistance, and spiritually devolving to a state of nihilistic meaningless but nonetheless subjectively tormenting emotional volatility, I am here: on this site (yay!) and idk if somehow I'll ever get the fuck out of his endless hamster wheel of repeated attempts to ameliorate my dysfunction; at least while I'm alive, and in a more long-term and consistent fassion than what's been the typical annual status-quo of my dysfunctional life.

^ hey look at that the adderall and caffeine kicked in. It's good to use the energy on time-wasting angsty diatribes and not, like, ya know, actually doing anything useful with myself xD fucking hilarious right?

Ok, please don't be upset or see any of that as anything to do with you or your reply, I just needed to be completely authentic about my view of my life and why it's so frustrating.

The routine-restart is still a plan being processed internally and externally, there's just some difficulties getting fully on board and dealing with stressors.

Start with small baby steps. Take short breaks between tasks if you find it too overwhelming. It takes a lot of energy to push yourself to do stuff when you're depressed, unmotivated. So for example after doing one task, sit down, have a cup of coffee/tea, read some news and then move onto another task. I used to do that when I felt I can't even do simple chores without getting anxiety and panic. It helps a little. Same with walking your dogs. Every day increase the time and distance you go, even just by a few minutes and a few more steps. Your dogs will appreciate that as well. Seeing them happy might make you feel better.

Thanks, I think what's tough is retaining the aspect of even continuously being willing and determined to simply maintain the intention just to try to do these things. Like, a different person takes my place and says 'i dun give a fuck about nuthin! ima do whatever i want'. It's such an insidious thing to experience, which leeds me to then find it more realisitic to NOT have trust or faith or confidence in myself.

 

[signifying nothing]

You can write long, detailed posts - so that's something. I find even that quite difficult these days.

 

[unperson]

You can write long, detailed posts - so that's something. I find even that quite difficult these days.

Yeah, I relate. It seems like that changed for me after getting into journaling more and reading more during a recent phase. The whole system or business and monetization though is a-whole-nother monster I don't think I could face... I'd like to at least post my journal entries somewhere at some point though. Idk who would read them

 

[nopointofliving]

Hello,

I was in the same situation a month ago. I couldn't get out of bed, I still struggle with that. I make some small steps such as:
1. having a shower
2. studying for some time (less than 30 minutes).
3. taking long rests (because seriously making other small steps can be energy draining)
4. Sleeping whenever I couldn't take anymore

The fourth point sounds silly, but it's effective. The technique is you do less and rest/sleep more, as time passes on, you would do more and rest a little less.

The key thing: don't stress yourself, if you take a shower, celebrate it, it's your winning battle. If you couldn't do anything, it'd be totally fine. Just try again.

I considered myself as a warrior and every step I make is one of my battles. This analogy helped me a lot to build a study habit. Here is the link of the post I wrote describing that analogy: Every Step Is a Battle and We All Are Warriors

 

[BlankUser]

Thanks, I think what's tough is retaining the aspect of even continuously being willing and determined to simply maintain the intention just to try to do these things. Like, a different person takes my place and says 'i dun give a fuck about nuthin! ima do whatever i want'. It's such an insidious thing to experience, which leeds me to then find it more realisitic to NOT have trust or faith or confidence in myself.

I understand what you mean. I feel the same. I'm struggling a lot just to make some kind of routine. But then again, what options do we have? Lay in bed which makes our suffering even worse, or try once more to do something to endure our lives. You're on the right track. Don't expect a change to happen overnight. There will be times when we fail and have setbacks. But trying in small steps is better than nothing. Good luck!

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Same...except I'm quite picky as to where that encouragement ought to come from before I listen to it otherwise positivity and encouragement just becomes empty static to me.