edu0z
carried away by a moonlight shadow
- Aug 25, 2021
- 552
I know that there are people with quite hard problems in this forum, I'm really sorry, you deserve better. All my life I've had to struggle with depression and anxiety, but even so I'm that kind of person who can't live just to live, I must constantly be fighting for something. I have fulfilled some of the dreams I had as a child and that makes me feel proud sometimes. Over time I developed a kind of "strategy" so that I could be consistent and keep working daily despite depressions and constant anxiety. I want to share that strategy with you, because maybe it can help.
The first thing is that I suppose that all those who entered the post have the objective of recovering and therefore of improving. This is the way I do it, of course there are many. If you are a person who does not yet know if you want to live or die, I wish you a lot of strength and luck in whatever you decide.
1 - You know what you want: This is probably the hardest part because we suicides just want to die haha... It is very normal when you are still recovering that you do not like anything, or do not feel attraction to anything or nothing you are passionate about. Do not worry, it is normal, your brain is not yet ready to start craving greater things, your brain right now only knows the sadness and discomfort of depression. But that's going to be left behind. You have already made the decision to recover and get out of that darkness, in that case I recommend that you start with something simple and normal so that you can take confidence in yourself and along the way you try things until you find something you like (no one is born with a "gift", do not believe that lie, people who are good at something are good at something because they have trained so hard, and no one was born with a "skill" or something they already liked to do. All those passions are things that you get along the way, and how do you find them? experimenting). Try different things, even those you think you'd never like. And you will be surprised by the results, the world is full of interesting things.
To begin with, you can set yourself a simple goal. Like exercising or losing weight, or it can be getting a job, or getting better at something... learn to play guitar, learn to play piano, improve your physical form, increase your money... etc... The important part of this and is where most people fail is that the goal can not be something abstract, it must be a concrete thing that you can easily know how much route you lack. For example: instead of setting the goal of "exercising more", which is something vain and over time you would end up demotivating because you do not feel that you are advancing, you could propose the goal "To be able to run ten kilometers". This way you have the goal in mind at all times, and you can clearly see how you are improving (first you can run 300 meters, then 1 k, then 3k, etc.)
It is also important to add more motivation that you put an end date to the goal, a period of time. For example "Being able to run 10 km in 3 months". In this way you will not be drifting, but your brain will know that you are going against the clock and you will focus.
The goal of course must be something accessible and possible for our situation. If you've never raced in your life, you can't set a goal of winning the Olympics or running a 60-kilometer marathon, because this is only going to overwhelm you and you'll end up doing nothing. You must propose something real and that suits your situation. Do not worry, over time you will improve and you can propose greater things, this path of improvement is difficult, but at the same time exciting and fun.
2 - You have a plan: Unlike what people think, a plan doesn't have to be complicated or perfect. In fact, this would be counterproductive. If you focus on finding the "perfect plan," you could never start doing anything. It is the main excuse for people to do nothing, because they deceive themselves by saying that they do not have the best plan, but the perfect plan does not exist and the only way to improve a plan is through practice.
Continuing with the previous example, let's say you have the goal of "Being able to run 10 kilometers in 3 months". In that case a very effective and at the same time very simple plan could be the "Run 1 hour a day"... It's that simple, without complicated steps or overthinking it a lot. This strategy is based on the Japanese system and philosophy of work called "Kaizen". Which in English meant "Constant Improvement". This system is based on applying small improvements, one on top of the other to achieve an exponential final change. You would be surprised what you can achieve after a year by dedicating only 1 hour of your day to something.
3 - Accept the worst possible result: One of the things that most stops people from getting what they want is fear. Well, in this step we are going to try to eliminate fear. The first thing you must be clear about for this is the Global Objective, in the case of the example our Global Objective is "Recover". That objective goes beyond the goal, it is an objective that even if you achieve the goal or not, it will end up becoming inevitable to achieve. For example, your Global Objective is "To be the best musician", and for this you set yourself the goal of "Learn to play 50 songs in 2 months". After those two months you may have learned 50 songs or not, maybe you learned only 36, but the important thing is that you improved and therefore you are closer to achieving your Global Objective of being the best musician. As we are still in a time where we are not clear about what we want or what we like, for now our overall goal will be to recover. Then when you know what you want to dedicate your life to, this can be Global Objective, and you create small goals to make it inevitable.
Well, once we understand this and we are clear about our Global Objective and our goal. We must stop to think "What is the worst thing that could happen?"... in our example of running every day 1 hour. The worst thing that could happen is that we did not achieve the goal after 3 months, or even that one day running we hurt our leg or even broke a bone. It is a risk that all runners must be willing to take and must accept. But even so, it's a small risk, you're not going to die, none of your loved ones are going to die even if you fail in the worst possible way. We must accept that worse outcome, and understand that even if it were to happen, it was all part of an Global Objective much bigger... You understand? Even if you couldn't get to run the 10km after 3 months. You are closer to your Global Objective which is to recover, you have gained confidence in yourself, you have surpassed yourself and therefore you should be proud of that.
4 - Work for the best possible result: Once we have accepted everything bad that could happen and we agree with it. We will do everything we can to achieve the best possible result. We are going to look for youtube videos of how to run correctly so as not to injure ourselves, we are going to eat correctly, to sleep well, to run every day 1 hour as our plan says, to motivate ourselves, to surround ourselves with people who motivate us... etc.
5 - Only the next step matters: Well, we're moving forward. In the previous step (3) we got rid of the fear, now we are going to try to get rid of the anxiety. Anxiety and overwhelm are the other two problems that always prevent people from moving forward and getting what they want. There is a reason why we separate the Global Objective from the current goal, and this is psychological. We must play with long-term and short-term goals to regulate our motivation. In times where there is little motivation we can increase it by remembering our Global Objective, that Objective is the "why everything"... but in the moments when we are very motivated but there are still many things to do, if we lose our sight very much towards the front then we will be overwhelmed and we will not know what to do. In this case it is quite simple and it is something that all people also fail, since popular culture is a culture that wants everything very fast and easy.
What we need to do is forget everything and focus only on the next step, on what we're doing right now. That's the only thing that matters. For this we are going to fragment this goal into smaller goals and it is into smaller goals until our brain feels comfortable and able to carry them out. For example, if you have never exercised in your life and you go for a run with the goal in mind of "running ten kilometers in 3 months", chances are that you will be incapable and overwhelmed or you will be very anxious just to think how much you have to run to reach that goal. For this what you must do is focus only on that session of exercises, consider that day the goal of "Run 1 hour", and forget about everything else. Run as far as you can and then walk, but run and over time you will get better.
You can in turn fragment that goal into smaller goals to trick your brain and continue... for example: "I'm only going to run 5 more minutes", "I'm just going to run to that corner"... etc
6 - Immerse yourself in culture: This is a bonus tip that is very useful. Our brain is a sponge of knowledge, it absorbs everything it finds in its environment and will adapt to it. If you want to be a better musician, the best thing you can do even if you don't like music is to start watching music videos, reading music composition books, researching, etc... over time, even if at first you do not like music, you will end up being passionate since it will be part of your life. If you want to run 10 km, you must keep running daily. And for this the best thing is that you like to do it. Look for videos, interviews or documentaries of great runners and pay close attention to what they say.
Thank you very much for reading. This is my way of working and how I deal with most things. I hope it can help you. Best wishes
The first thing is that I suppose that all those who entered the post have the objective of recovering and therefore of improving. This is the way I do it, of course there are many. If you are a person who does not yet know if you want to live or die, I wish you a lot of strength and luck in whatever you decide.
1 - You know what you want: This is probably the hardest part because we suicides just want to die haha... It is very normal when you are still recovering that you do not like anything, or do not feel attraction to anything or nothing you are passionate about. Do not worry, it is normal, your brain is not yet ready to start craving greater things, your brain right now only knows the sadness and discomfort of depression. But that's going to be left behind. You have already made the decision to recover and get out of that darkness, in that case I recommend that you start with something simple and normal so that you can take confidence in yourself and along the way you try things until you find something you like (no one is born with a "gift", do not believe that lie, people who are good at something are good at something because they have trained so hard, and no one was born with a "skill" or something they already liked to do. All those passions are things that you get along the way, and how do you find them? experimenting). Try different things, even those you think you'd never like. And you will be surprised by the results, the world is full of interesting things.
To begin with, you can set yourself a simple goal. Like exercising or losing weight, or it can be getting a job, or getting better at something... learn to play guitar, learn to play piano, improve your physical form, increase your money... etc... The important part of this and is where most people fail is that the goal can not be something abstract, it must be a concrete thing that you can easily know how much route you lack. For example: instead of setting the goal of "exercising more", which is something vain and over time you would end up demotivating because you do not feel that you are advancing, you could propose the goal "To be able to run ten kilometers". This way you have the goal in mind at all times, and you can clearly see how you are improving (first you can run 300 meters, then 1 k, then 3k, etc.)
It is also important to add more motivation that you put an end date to the goal, a period of time. For example "Being able to run 10 km in 3 months". In this way you will not be drifting, but your brain will know that you are going against the clock and you will focus.
The goal of course must be something accessible and possible for our situation. If you've never raced in your life, you can't set a goal of winning the Olympics or running a 60-kilometer marathon, because this is only going to overwhelm you and you'll end up doing nothing. You must propose something real and that suits your situation. Do not worry, over time you will improve and you can propose greater things, this path of improvement is difficult, but at the same time exciting and fun.
2 - You have a plan: Unlike what people think, a plan doesn't have to be complicated or perfect. In fact, this would be counterproductive. If you focus on finding the "perfect plan," you could never start doing anything. It is the main excuse for people to do nothing, because they deceive themselves by saying that they do not have the best plan, but the perfect plan does not exist and the only way to improve a plan is through practice.
Continuing with the previous example, let's say you have the goal of "Being able to run 10 kilometers in 3 months". In that case a very effective and at the same time very simple plan could be the "Run 1 hour a day"... It's that simple, without complicated steps or overthinking it a lot. This strategy is based on the Japanese system and philosophy of work called "Kaizen". Which in English meant "Constant Improvement". This system is based on applying small improvements, one on top of the other to achieve an exponential final change. You would be surprised what you can achieve after a year by dedicating only 1 hour of your day to something.
3 - Accept the worst possible result: One of the things that most stops people from getting what they want is fear. Well, in this step we are going to try to eliminate fear. The first thing you must be clear about for this is the Global Objective, in the case of the example our Global Objective is "Recover". That objective goes beyond the goal, it is an objective that even if you achieve the goal or not, it will end up becoming inevitable to achieve. For example, your Global Objective is "To be the best musician", and for this you set yourself the goal of "Learn to play 50 songs in 2 months". After those two months you may have learned 50 songs or not, maybe you learned only 36, but the important thing is that you improved and therefore you are closer to achieving your Global Objective of being the best musician. As we are still in a time where we are not clear about what we want or what we like, for now our overall goal will be to recover. Then when you know what you want to dedicate your life to, this can be Global Objective, and you create small goals to make it inevitable.
Well, once we understand this and we are clear about our Global Objective and our goal. We must stop to think "What is the worst thing that could happen?"... in our example of running every day 1 hour. The worst thing that could happen is that we did not achieve the goal after 3 months, or even that one day running we hurt our leg or even broke a bone. It is a risk that all runners must be willing to take and must accept. But even so, it's a small risk, you're not going to die, none of your loved ones are going to die even if you fail in the worst possible way. We must accept that worse outcome, and understand that even if it were to happen, it was all part of an Global Objective much bigger... You understand? Even if you couldn't get to run the 10km after 3 months. You are closer to your Global Objective which is to recover, you have gained confidence in yourself, you have surpassed yourself and therefore you should be proud of that.
4 - Work for the best possible result: Once we have accepted everything bad that could happen and we agree with it. We will do everything we can to achieve the best possible result. We are going to look for youtube videos of how to run correctly so as not to injure ourselves, we are going to eat correctly, to sleep well, to run every day 1 hour as our plan says, to motivate ourselves, to surround ourselves with people who motivate us... etc.
5 - Only the next step matters: Well, we're moving forward. In the previous step (3) we got rid of the fear, now we are going to try to get rid of the anxiety. Anxiety and overwhelm are the other two problems that always prevent people from moving forward and getting what they want. There is a reason why we separate the Global Objective from the current goal, and this is psychological. We must play with long-term and short-term goals to regulate our motivation. In times where there is little motivation we can increase it by remembering our Global Objective, that Objective is the "why everything"... but in the moments when we are very motivated but there are still many things to do, if we lose our sight very much towards the front then we will be overwhelmed and we will not know what to do. In this case it is quite simple and it is something that all people also fail, since popular culture is a culture that wants everything very fast and easy.
What we need to do is forget everything and focus only on the next step, on what we're doing right now. That's the only thing that matters. For this we are going to fragment this goal into smaller goals and it is into smaller goals until our brain feels comfortable and able to carry them out. For example, if you have never exercised in your life and you go for a run with the goal in mind of "running ten kilometers in 3 months", chances are that you will be incapable and overwhelmed or you will be very anxious just to think how much you have to run to reach that goal. For this what you must do is focus only on that session of exercises, consider that day the goal of "Run 1 hour", and forget about everything else. Run as far as you can and then walk, but run and over time you will get better.
You can in turn fragment that goal into smaller goals to trick your brain and continue... for example: "I'm only going to run 5 more minutes", "I'm just going to run to that corner"... etc
6 - Immerse yourself in culture: This is a bonus tip that is very useful. Our brain is a sponge of knowledge, it absorbs everything it finds in its environment and will adapt to it. If you want to be a better musician, the best thing you can do even if you don't like music is to start watching music videos, reading music composition books, researching, etc... over time, even if at first you do not like music, you will end up being passionate since it will be part of your life. If you want to run 10 km, you must keep running daily. And for this the best thing is that you like to do it. Look for videos, interviews or documentaries of great runners and pay close attention to what they say.
Thank you very much for reading. This is my way of working and how I deal with most things. I hope it can help you. Best wishes
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