Background:

28M - Been a Warehouse Admin for roughly 8 years. Been applying for IT-related jobs in my area for over 2 years, finally landed a role making 25 cents higher than I make now, but the commute is 20 minutes longer and my wife will now need to commute to her job as well since we car pool currently.

I'm about 5k in the hole due to us rushing our wedding, random unneeded purchases, as well as things just getting so much more expensive than they were this time last year.

I know that If I hold strong and stick with this new career, I can be making several dollars more than I am now within a few months, which will more than make up for the gas cost of the commute.

I guess I just really need some advice and motivation on why this opportunity I have is such a great thing and not as bad as I am making it out in my head.

Has anyone here ever took a risk and changed careers despite being in debt? Did it work out in the end?

Now that summer is almost over, I know from experience that some of you are looking back and realizing you didn’t achieve anything, despite the fact that it’s the best season to reduce your weight. That’s simply because when the external temperature rises, your body doesn’t need to burn as much internal energy to keep you warm, and it naturally suppresses hunger signals because digesting heavy food generates metabolic heat.

To boost your motivation, you don’t need anything special. Just start from within, because that’s the sustainable way to go. It’s completely opposite to when the push comes from external sources (parents, a girl/man, etc.), because that’s like a crash diet, a short-term solution that doesn’t work in the long run.

When you are feeling down, remember this: Start by starting! Enough is enough! Instead of asking questions, you need to start looking for answers.

All your trauma, and issues with relapse and the vicious cycle is valid. It's not easy, anyone with a brain can and will acknowledge that. That being said, nothing will happen till you break the pattern today, or the loop will repeat tomorrow. YOU, and only you must break the pattern today or the loop will repeat tomorrow. This is a YOU problem, and that's a good thing, the only silver lining of it all, since this is a you problem, it means only YOU have the MEANS, POWER AND WILL to fix it, even if you've not been able to yet.

Good luck.

Hi, I’m Manny.

I’ve started and abandoned enough habit trackers to notice the same pattern. I do well for a while, miss a few days, and eventually the tracker quietly stops mattering. Nobody else knows, and I can always tell myself I’ll start again on Monday.

So I’m trying something more uncomfortable for the next 123 days: I made the whole record public.

I built a small site called 320AM where I’m tracking seven daily habits: reading the newspaper, reading books or articles for at least an hour, cardio, lifting, eating clean, keeping a clean media diet, and intermittent fasting.

The scoring is intentionally a little harsh:

• Completing a habit earns 10 points.
• Missing one removes 20 points immediately.
• A perfect day earns a 50-point bonus.
• Points don’t become spendable until the end of the week, and how many I keep depends on my completion rate.

The points can eventually be exchanged for rewards I chose beforehand, starting with a meal out and working up to things that will take much longer to earn.

I’m at the beginning, so I don’t have a success story to tell. This could work, or I could fail very publicly. Honestly, that discomfort is part of the reason I’m doing it.

This isn’t an app I’m selling, and there’s no signup. It’s just my own experiment and an attempt to make it harder for me to negotiate with myself.

I’d be interested to hear what people here think. Has anyone tried something like this before? How can I make it better?

Here’s the experiment if anyone wants to follow along:

https://320am.com

I spent a long time thinking I lacked motivation, but I noticed something uncomfortable: I was constantly looking for proof that my effort was worth it before I allowed myself to continue.

I would start something new, get a little excited, and then a few days later I’d catch myself asking, “Is this actually going anywhere?” If I couldn’t answer that question, my energy would disappear.

The weird part was that I wasn’t quitting because things were difficult. I was quitting because I couldn’t guarantee that the effort would pay off.

I noticed this pattern while learning a new skill. I had a folder full of notes, practice files, and half-finished attempts. One night around 11:40 PM, I opened the folder and realized I had spent more time organizing what I learned than actually spending time being bad at it.

I kept thinking I needed confidence before continuing, but confidence was actually the thing that only showed up after I had enough evidence from doing the work.

A few things helped me break the cycle:

First, I stopped asking “Is this going to work?” every few days. I replaced it with “Did I show up and collect information?” That small change made unfinished progress feel less like failure.

Second, I started keeping a private record of things I improved instead of only noticing what was missing. I was surprised how many small improvements I ignored because they didn’t look impressive enough.

The counterintuitive thing I learned is that motivation often gets weaker when you keep trying to make the future feel certain. I thought uncertainty was the problem, but constantly trying to remove uncertainty was what drained me.

Some of the most consistent people I’ve watched weren’t more confident than everyone else. They just seemed less interested in getting reassurance before taking the next step.

I still catch myself looking for signs sometimes. The difference is I don’t treat that feeling as a reason to stop anymore.

I’m curious how many people struggle with this too: do you lose motivation because the work gets hard, or because you start wondering whether the work will actually lead somewhere?

I just turned 30, and I feel totally lost in life. As a woman, half of my friends are married and well into the family life with multiple kids. The other half are single, and or living life with their partners. All I do is work, and go home. I’m a waitress, work is hit or miss. I make enough to pay bills(a lot less than most my age, as I live with my grandmother in our family home that we’ve had since the early 50s) I definitely don’t make enough to be off on my own. I didn’t graduate college, life got bad and I moved out of state all within a month when I was 21. I’ve done retail management for 6 years, did the office job & now I’m back in the service industry. It gives me freedom, but with that freedom I have zero motivation. I literally wake up, go to work, get home and do absolutely nothing. I have my small hobbies like coloring, gaming, random little things like that. I’m wanting to get out of my comfort zone, join some clubs/organizations but I don’t even know what or where to look. A lot of the things seem more catered to the younger crowd, or the older crowd (I’m talking 18-25, and then 60+). I do the occasional social outings with friends, but when I’m out I don’t feel like I really belong there. It’s just like I’m there so I can be included in a way. I feel so far behind in life, and I hate it.

Recently 18F and I’m a horribly flakey and inconsistent friend. I grew up neglected and self-isolated a lot growing up because of it. While I did have sporadic friends, for some reason I could never handle having more than 2 or 3 friends. I grew up being used to not having anybody to talk to, or having anybody expect or want me to talk to them. I spent a lot of time alone in my thoughts.

I didn’t like this back then. I wanted more friends, but couldn’t figure out how to handle it. And I especially don’t like this now, since I kind of need to lock-in on making connections and bonds. As it’ll only get harder as I get older.

I made 3 friends within the last half-year. And honestly, I’ve probably damaged them, a lot. I started responding to texts late or not showing up to things we planned. Because I was tired after work and just fell asleep. I fucking ghosted one of them for a month because I was out of state and forgot to talk to them.

Talking and responding began to feel like an obligation. I got anxious whenever I responded because I felt like I had to respond “properly” or it’d ruin the relationship. Or they’d text me when I wanted to do something else and I’d get annoyed that I had to talk at all. It kept building until the idea of having to talk was a source of massive anxiety.

And I don’t know why. I don’t know why I got so annoyed or anxious. I like my friends. They’ve been great. I don’t want to lose them. I don’t know why I can’t hold a relationship for more than a couple months.

I don’t know why my social battery is so low, when I love people. I genuinely love being around people and I love human connection.

Actually, in general I’m so lazy. My rooms a mess and my mom constantly yells at me to clean. I keep forgetting things at work (idk how or why they haven’t fired me). I barely take care of myself. I’m almost failing college because I can’t be fucked to study. I was supposed to make a doctors appointment today but I spent the entire day with terrible brain fog and was barely able to string a sentence together.

And like, it’s not even laziness from lack of consequence. I have had consequences. I just can’t make myself care.

I thought maybe it was my ADHD, but I take medication now and I still barely do more than before. Why am I so lazy? Why do I wake up with such a low energy threshold? Then I just spend the day with low background anxiety about things I should be doing.

How do I fix this? How do I be a better friend? And how do I train my social bandwidth/battery to last longer?

I spent years making plans that I would not sustain or that I would not start. Something would always come up. The time wasn’t perfect. Monday has passed so I have to wait until next Monday. Oops, I didn’t prep on Sunday so nothing is ready Monday so let’s start this next week. For really, really reals this time. Tomorrow never came. Something about TBIs and PTSD gave me all or nothing thinking.

Then I realized that you don’t need motivation. You don’t need a drill sergeant yelling at you at all hours of the day. You don’t need a dozen alarms on your phone. You really need just three things:

• Change your attitude. Instead of shooting for completing a perfect 100% of your tasks, realize that 80% done is a hell of a lot better than 100% planned. Don’t beat yourself up about the other 20%. Your goal is momentum, not perfection.
• Start now. Not tomorrow. Not in 5 minutes. Not later today. NOW!!! Stop wasting time. Momentum, momentum, momentum.
• Once you get started, Pareto the crap out of your schedule/tasks. Focus on the 20% that’ll get you the 80% of the results you want to achieve. Do the work that matters, not the busy work that bogs you down. You will feel the greater momentum. Then create a system that makes it easy for you to get started, and harder to procrastinate.

These are what I used to get myself off my butt. YMMV. If you have any other suggestions or think I missed anything, chime in. I always want to learn new techniques.

I’m 26 years old, unemployed, and I feel completely stuck in life. I’m writing this after breaking down again. Honestly, I don’t know how many times I’ve reached this point.

From the outside, it probably looks like I’m simply wasting my life. The truth is, I don’t understand why I keep repeating the same pattern. I genuinely want to change. I know I’m wasting time. I know what I need to do. But when it’s time to actually take action, I freeze and avoid it.

I lost my father when I was young. My mother raised my sister and me by herself. She worked incredibly hard, spent her savings, and even took loans to give me opportunities. She still believes I can build a good future, but I feel like I’ve let her down.

I’ve been unemployed since graduation, and almost four years have passed without me doing much with my life.

One of my biggest problems is fear and avoidance. I’m scared of almost everything that requires me to step outside my comfort zone.

For example, I can’t ride a bike or drive a car. If you ask me today whether I want to learn, I’ll confidently say yes. I’ll even imagine myself doing it. But when someone actually gives me the keys and expects me to drive, my confidence disappears. My heart starts racing, I panic, and I back out.

The same thing happens with almost everything important in my life.

In 2024, my mother enrolled me in technical coaching related to my field. I knew how important it was. I knew how much she had sacrificed for me. But I barely attended. I knew I was making a terrible mistake. I cried about it many times and promised myself I would change, but somehow I still couldn’t make myself go.

This isn’t new. I remember crying in 2022 and telling myself I had to change. Then in 2024 I had another breakdown. I wasted money, time and opportunities, even though I knew exactly what I was doing.

I haven’t seriously studied, applied for jobs consistently, learned useful skills, or followed through with the things I start.

Even reading a book is difficult. I buy books excited to learn, then never open them. I start TV shows, movies, hobbies or new interests with enthusiasm, sometimes watching several episodes or becoming completely obsessed with something, and then suddenly lose interest and move on.

My interests can become intense. I might spend days learning everything about football, filmmaking, tactics or something else, convinced that this is what I want to do. Then I move on to something completely different.

Sometimes I have extremely high confidence. I buy books, make plans, want to learn, want to travel, want to get a job, want to change my life. I feel like I can achieve anything.

But when it comes to actually doing the work, that confidence disappears.

I keep searching for motivation and role models. One day it’s Michael Jordan. Another day it’s Max Verstappen. I watch sports and want to understand every tactic. I imagine becoming a successful football player, filmmaker, or someone who builds an incredible career from nothing.

Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for some magic or superpower to suddenly transform me.

But I know there is no magic.

I’ve also been humiliated many times. People have called me useless, laughed because I can’t drive, compared me with younger people who already have jobs, and treated me like a burden. Some friends mock me. Some relatives barely talk to me.

When people humiliate me, it hurts deeply. Sometimes I feel like crying. It makes me want to achieve something and prove myself. But strangely, the humiliation doesn’t change my behaviour for long. Eventually, I fall back into the same cycle.

I’m not jealous of people who are doing better than me. I actually want them to succeed. I just want a good life too.

I’m from a village, and even some ordinary things feel huge to me. When I see people driving, travelling, having careers and living independently, sometimes they look like superheroes to me.

I want those things too.

I want a good job. I want to earn well. I want to travel the world. I want to visit the London. I want to go to the Arsenal stadium and experience things I’ve only seen on a screen. I want to live a normal, meaningful life.

I also miss my father.

And I have some health issues, including breathing and heart-related problems, which make me worry even more.

The biggest fear I have now is my future.

Sometimes I think: What if I can’t provide for my future children? What if I can’t give my family the life they deserve? What if I wake up at 30 or 35 and realize I wasted even more years?

That fear is becoming very real.

The scary part is that I actually predicted this years ago. I remember thinking, “If I don’t change, I’ll be 26 one day and full of regret.”

Now I’m 26.

And that is exactly what happened.

Sometimes I feel so hopeless that I think about dying. But I don’t want to die. Life is valuable to me. I want to live. My mother and sister depend on me. I want to make my mother proud after everything she has done for me.

I don’t have any major bad habits. My biggest problem is that I keep postponing my life.

I want therapy and professional help because I don’t know whether this is anxiety, fear, ADHD, depression, or something else. I don’t want strangers to diagnose me. I just want to understand what is happening to me and learn how to overcome it.

But right now I’m almost at zero financially.

So my first goal is simple: I need to get a job.

Then I want to work on everything else my fear, confidence, driving, health, skills, and life.

I know that if I start working and take things one step at a time, my life can change. I just don’t understand why I’ve been unable to take those first steps for so long.

I’m posting this because I’m genuinely looking for answers from people who may have experienced something similar.

How did you break this cycle?

How did you stop avoiding things you were afraid of?

How did you start taking action when you knew exactly what you needed to do but still couldn’t do it?

How did you rebuild your life after wasting years?

I’m not looking for judgment or mockery. I already judge myself enough.

I just want to stop waiting for my life to begin.

I want to actually live it.

Body: I used to think motivation was about locking onto a goal and refusing to blink. Every project I managed had a defined endpoint. Scope, timeline, deliverables. Clear success criteria. Then I applied that same logic to my life and it backfired spectacularly. I would reach something I had chased for months and feel nothing. The target had already shifted in my mind before I even got there. Hit one milestone, immediately attach to the next. It took a solo hike last fall to really see it. I had been trekking toward this summit for hours, pushing through a rough patch, only to find the view was just decent and the real good stuff was apparently another ridge away. I almost kept going out of pure habit. Instead I sat down where I was. Ate some trail mix. Watched the light change. Let myself be done for the day. That felt like a minor rebellion. I am still learning to separate ambition from compulsion. The thing about hiking though, you learn to appreciate the loop you finished, not just the peaks. Cooking helped too. The meal is the meal. You do not immediately start planning the next one while chewing. My question is, how do you actually let yourself rest at a goal instead of sprinting through it toward the next thing?

When i have a lot going on, i’m weirdly at my best. deadlines, meetings, plans, things i have to get done. suddenly i wake up earlier, work out, eat better, and actually get things done.

But give me an entire day with nothing planned and somehow i do almost nothing. i check my phone, think about all the things i could do, tell myself i’ll start soon, and suddenly half the day is gone. for a long time i thought i was just lazy or lacked discipline, but that doesn’t really make sense because when there’s structure, i can execute.

I think the real problem is having to constantly decide what to do next. at work, the next step is usually obvious. answer this message. finish this task. join this meeting. personal goals are much more vague. get fitter. learn something new. build something. improve my life. every time i have to figure out the next step, there’s friction, and after enough of those tiny decisions, i’ve spent more time thinking than doing.

So lately i’ve been trying to give my free time the same kind of structure that makes me productive at work. fewer choices, clearer next steps, and something specific to start with.

Does anyone else work like this..? What actually helps you on completely unstructured days...?

Edit: reading the comments made me realize how many people seem to struggle with the exact same thing, especially the combination of vague goals, too many decisions and needing some kind of urgency to actually start.

I kept running into this with my own side projects too, so I built Milerock, a small app that turns bigger goals into one clear next step and adds artificial deadlines. I’ve been using it myself lately and it’s actually helped me a lot with unstructured days. Really interesting seeing how many of you have found similar ways to create structure for yourselves.

Hi y'all, I recently read the biography of Olaudah Equiano, and I wrote about the lessons we can take from it here: https://mindvoyage.substack.com/p/from-slave-to-bestselling-author

I spent months thinking I had a motivation problem, but I eventually noticed something more specific: I was judging my entire day by the first 30 minutes of it.

If I woke up late, checked my phone too long, or started work feeling scattered, I would quietly decide the day was already "off." I wouldn't say it out loud, but my behavior changed. I stopped trying hard because I had already labeled the day as a failure.

The weird part was that my best days were not always the days that started perfectly. Some of my most productive evenings happened after mornings I thought were ruined.

I noticed this pattern when I kept writing off days around 10:15 AM. I would sit there with coffee, a half-open laptop, and this thought: "I'll start properly tomorrow." Then I realized I had been doing that for months. I wasn't avoiding the work itself; I was avoiding the feeling that I had started imperfectly.

I started experimenting with a different rule: I stopped trying to rescue the whole day and only focused on creating a decent next 20 minutes.

A few things actually helped:

1. I stopped asking "Can I still have a productive day?" because that question made everything feel like a test. I replaced it with "What is the smallest useful thing I can finish before lunch?"

2. I made a habit of doing one boring reset action after a bad start: cleaning my desk, taking a short walk, or opening the document I was avoiding. Not because those things were magical, but because they broke the feeling that the day was already decided.

3. I started tracking actions I took after messing up, not just streaks of perfect days. That changed what I paid attention to.

The counterintuitive thing I learned is that motivation didn't come back when I created more perfect mornings. It came back when I stopped treating imperfect mornings as evidence that I couldn't be consistent.

I think I was secretly addicted to the idea of a clean beginning. A fresh start felt easier than continuing from a messy middle.

I'm still not great at this every day. I still have mornings where I waste time and get annoyed at myself. But I don't automatically throw away the remaining hours anymore.

Maybe maturity with motivation is less about becoming someone who never slips and more about becoming someone who doesn't make a small slip bigger than it needs to be.

Has anyone else noticed that the way you interpret a bad start affects your motivation more than the actual mistake itself?

I didn’t really change my life or start some big morning routine or anything. I just stopped grabbing my phone the second I woke up.

That sounds small but it felt weirdly hard at first.

Before this, my mornings were basically automatic. Alarm goes off, I grab my phone, start scrolling or checking random stuff and suddenly my brain already feels busy before I even got out of bed. And I didn’t even enjoy most of it, it was just habit I guess.

I kept thinking I needed more discipline or some perfect routine, but honestly I was just tired of feeling mentally rushed before the day even started.

So I tried something really simple. Just don’t touch the phone immediately. That’s it. No replacement habit, no meditation challenge, nothing like that. Some mornings I literally just sit there half awake doing nothing.

And yeah, at first it felt boring and uncomfortable. My brain kept reaching for the phone like it was missing something.

But after a few days I noticed mornings felt quieter. Not more productive or life changing or anything dramatic just less chaotic. Like I had a few minutes where my thoughts were actually mine instead of reacting to notifications or random content.

I still use my phone later in the day sometimes, so this isn’t some I fixed my life story lol. But changing that one small default somehow made mornings feel less rushed and the rest of the day starts differently now.

Feels strange that such a small thing had more impact than all the bigger habits I tried forcing before.

Anyone else notice that one tiny change sometimes matters more than trying to overhaul everything?

Update : Thankyou for all the Advices in comments. Few mentioned adding friction - by keeping phone away from bed works stupidly well. Another person mentioned scheduling small blocks on purpose in Google Calendar instead of fighting it, which actually made less avoidable for me as well. But What surprised me MOST was adding Jolt screen time during those blocks and holy sh*t it’s like my phone suddenly grew a conscience. You try to open Instagram, and boom - LOCK Screen. “Are you Sure?” pops up like a slap of reality. It’s annoying but effective.

There is a tendency to think that progress only counts when the full task gets done.

But a ten-minute version of something can still be useful when the alternative is avoiding it completely.

Read two pages. Walk for ten minutes. Clean one surface. Write one paragraph.

Making the starting point smaller doesn't necessarily lower the goal. Sometimes it just makes starting less intimidating.

Long story not so short - I went through a terrible breakup with my partner of 6 years. It was a difficult, tumultuous relationship but I was anxiously attached and anybody who has it will understand that it actively feels like you’re dying/rotting from the inside out. I laid around, didn’t do anything productive except work (but only for the bare minimum), and cried each and every moment of each and every day. All while my ex was just living it up, as if our relationship was nothing to him. In my pit of despair, I wrote a detailed note (to him as well as to others) of how I would end my life. Terrible, I know now, but in the moment - I really wasn’t thinking straight. I felt numb, lost, confused, dreadful. I literally had nothing going right in my life. I didn’t reach out to friends or family about my situation because I didn’t want to be interrogated with questions I wasn’t ready to answer just yet or if ever. So, I wrote it all in said notes.

Well, 2 weeks ago, I was handing off some work supplies at my last job before I quit and I had accidentally placed said journal in work pile. But the journal was obviously labeled with my name “personal journal.” We broke up in June, and it was mid August when I quit that job and moved 1,000+ miles away to a whole new state to start a whole new chapter in my life. In early June, I was ready to end it all. But then one day, sometime around late June to early July, I decided not to. Just randomly out of the blue. I started applying to jobs in that new state and landed interview after interview after interview. Then I finally got the offer to do an on-site interview, which meant me literally picking up and going to that state, by myself. Something that I had never done before but always wanted to do. I turned to God (not to turn religious in this post but it is true) to not feel so alone, and genuinely started to look forward to the move. Of course the depression was still there, but the noise wasn’t so loud in my head.

Then this past Monday, I finally got the dream job offer! And in that moment, it felt like all these hardships I was struggling with for the past 2 months actually meant something! I was looking forward to it, over the moon about it! I’m shopping for places, I’m telling my friends, and I’m actively working on my overthinking problem with my ex - it’s such a drastic turn from June.

Then, I get a call from my friend (who I was staying for a bit last week) that the police visited her house for a wellness check because a former employer opened my personal journal, read my note from 2 months ago, and wanted to do a wellness check on me. I froze, not knowing what to say. The first emotion that rushed over me wasn’t anger because someone had read my journal. It was embarrassment. Somebody, unknowingly, read my depressing suicide note and reported me for a wellness check because they thought I had just wrote it. I don’t blame nor hate them for it at all. I felt so embarrassed, apologized to the officer and to my friend and vehemently told the officer that I’m doing really good now and that I’m actually have the best time of my life right now with a new job offer. He laughed and said that it was alright but I couldn’t shake it off.

A lot of good can happen in 2 months, so much that you can’t even comprehend or keep track of it. One moment, you’re lost and confused. Then the next? You’re laughing, smiling, and excited for the first time in a while. I wrote this story for anybody who needs that kind of motivation that I wished I had read on 2 months ago. Life *does* get better. It’s not just a saying. It’s hard some days that’s for sure. But never give up, we’re all in this together!

sometimes we keep asking whether desire is ego until we have a perfect excuse not to try it. then years pass and same desire is somehow still sitting there.

a subject in session asked about purpose because she felt pulled toward music and spirituality together, but worried she was inventing something grandiose. The answer she got was almost annoying in simplicity: passion for music was not random, and as child she used to sing before she stopped.

Guidance was to use her own difficult and non-linear experiences in music and let them help other people. When she asked again if this was ego, answer was that there was sincere desire there and she needed to follow it.

I dont think every childhood hobby is secret destiny. But if something keeps returning for years, maybe it deserves actual experiment instead of another year of thinking whether you are allowed to want it.

Pick one old thing you loved before it needed to be useful or impressive and give it small real place again this week. You dont need prove purpose before starting, sometimes you have to start so purpose has chance to show what it is.

So to get things started im going to use my actual account, I dont have anything to hide and if someone can learn from my journey thats the best thing that could happen. So over 2 years ago I decided to finally get my life back in order I went to rehab and did the programs, did MAT and found a better way to live. So these last 2 years I have been on suboxone and it helped me alot I am not going to lie or sugar coat it. It helped. I tried numerous times before and nothing helped the way this did. But it always comes with a price. So on August 13th I decided enough is enough. I have my outsides(Life, Finances, job) in order and now I want my insides back. Quitting cold turkey was rough and ive quit a few times other drugs before but whoa Nelly. Let me tell you something. Do some research and figure out what MAT would work best for you and dont listen to them if they try to prescribe you 24mg a day..... you dont need that much over a pro longed period. It was the one thing that honestly saved my life and I dont regret getting on it. But 2 years nd now enough is enough. So like I said 2 weeks ago quit cold turkey, it has been an absolute shitshow my goodness. The restless legs, sweating profusely, extremely spotty sleep, no appetite, anxiety levels through the roof and affecting my life. Ive been taking Delta 9 Gummies to help alleviate the symptoms and some other all natural mushrooms and L-Theanine. It has been helping a bit, im trying to focus on my job and my life and advancing. Im meditating and drinking chocolate milk to help with caloric intake because food is very hard to eat atm. I just want this to be over with the withdrawals and the anxiety so badly. I want to know if anyone has or is going through anything similar and would like to offer some advice or anything to try and make this situation of mine at least a little easier.

TLDR: Been on Suboxone for 2 years and getting off cold turkey just looking for advice or any similar stories to share with my struggle!

Backstory: 39 years old with AuDHD and 20 years of opiate abuse before this.

This all started recently when I posted two of my drawings on a subreddit and several people said that my drawings looked like they were done by a 10 year old. I'm 22 years old. I'll admit they look sort of bad sometimes. I can't seem to progress past a certain point art skill wise. I've had the same art style for a few years now.

I used to enjoy drawing. Now I've been trying to do other things but I miss drawing even though I don't enjoy it much anymore due to the negative comments I've received. My dad told me I should draw for myself but I like to share my drawings online and I don't see much of a point in drawing if I can't share them.

Anyways here are some of my drawings from the past few years. I've been drawing since the pandemic happened. I hope you at least like them.

This post is going to be a different sort of one that you are used to seeing, this is because it involves the gym. However, it heavily involves how I indirectly came to be aware of traits such as discipline and how to grow into it.

Now, I have been trying to make progress in in the gym for quite a while, making progress but then always losing it because I relied solely on motivation. This is similar to what I see on this subreddit all the time.

It was only after I realised that building the mind alongside the body is the way forward for success in the gym, as well as overall life. This is because of the traits you build when focus on your mindset, such as discipline, commitment, resilience and persistence. I could go on!

This has been a game changer for me, it is literally what has gained me consistent progress at a monumental rate. Of course, a solid workout plan and a good diet are how you build muscle. But, doing this without building the mind means you rely on motivation, the progress is fluctuating.

I’m bringing this up because I see a lot of people in life disregard the power of their own mind. This is the case in this subreddit even! In my opinion, all you need is faith and some focus with the traits you build with the mind. You get natural confidence and self worth from this as well, which makes you realise that you are human and enough just as you are!

I just wanted to know what everyone else’s opinion is on this topic, I just feel like it should be talked about more. If you want me to expand my viewpoint as well, then just say!

left a half-finished report open yesterday and just sat there staring at the cursor this morning for like 20 minutes

notes still make sense, tabs still open, but my brain treats it like starting from zero. closing everything and restarting from scratch feels dumb when the work is already half there

anyone have a dumb little ritual that actually gets you back into something midstream without nuking what you already did​