flowboy

The fact that only a small percentage of web shops actually support PayPal as a payment option would indicate: no

@Angelo John Gage Did you even have biology in high school? Do you know what vitamins are and what that means? You're basically disregarding all science because sometimes research is contradicting and that's too complicated for you. Just...don't encourage people to harm themselves with dangerous uninformed advice like this. Please.

This. I love pizza too. I don't eat it more often than once a month, though. If you can't even bring yourself to stop eating pizza, better just forget about eating healthy. Pizza has wheat Pizza has cheese (and melted + reheated at that, even more trans fats) Pizza has processed meat Pizza counts as processed food (count the ingredients!) Whatever else kinda shit they put in there. Look at the ingredients list. It's a mess. No. I recommend reading this article: https://www.intense-workout.com/cravings.html I printed it out and hung it above my fridge.

Plans for today Get up at 7 (fail) Morning routine (fail) Be at work at 10 (fail) Book flight (fail) Pay student debt (fail) Work on Homeostasis Checklist (fail) So because yesterday I wanted to pretend that the day is forever long, which I often do, I overslept and missed my routine. Today, I will be in bed on time, tasks finished or not. Homeostasis Checklist I made a list of all routine things I need to keep up with. It's basically a long list of conditions that determine to what extent I'm on top of things. It includes stuff like: Are the dishes done? Are my nails clipped? Are my text messages replied to and archived? Are my letters read and processed? Are my to-do cards up to date? Do I have a year plan that I'm on track with? Do I have the next two weeks planned out? Do I have plans with my most important friends and family? Do I have festivals/vacations planned for the next 12 months? And many more. The idea is that this is stuff I don't want to clog up my to-do lists with, because it keeps coming back. There is so much to keep up with, that I don't have an overview of it and usually give up on keeping up. And then live my life, and only clean when people are coming over, and only deal with emails when there is 2000 of them. Et cetera. So I'm taking control of that. We'll see how that goes.

Don't do anything until you understand why. You haven't mentioned what her reason is for ignoring you. If you have no idea, chances are you are in denial about some stuff, that you will need to dig up and work through, in order to have a better relationship with her. People don't block people for nothing

With persistent mental patterns you have to ask yourself whether they are telling you something sane or insane. In this case, I would say it is sane to want a mate. So this neurosis makes sense. You can treat it as a disease all you want, but that would be running away. Your problem is not your mental pattern. Your issue is that you can't get a girl, and you're not taking full responsibility to change that. I've been in a similar place. Dare to value it as a goal. Allow yourself to spend a lot of time and energy getting good (enough) with girls. Get rid of the shame and judgment you absorbed from others. Get to a place where you can admit out loud that this is important to you. Then, take responsibility for your learning. If you ask 1000 girls out and all of them say no, you're doing something wrong. Do you even want to find out what that is? Are you brave enough for success? Or would you prefer to just keep doing the thing that doesn't work, so you can stay in your comfort zone? I'm not judging you. Just inviting you to be really self-honest here. Another way to think about it: are your actions and thoughts about trying to prove that you can, or that you can't? Don't listen to the people who say "Love will find you at the right time blah blah", they just got lucky a couple times and project that onto everyone.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive - Robert Cialdini Take it from a former door-to-door salesman: his stuff works. I actually applied it in my pitches and it helped me understand the process better.

Cravings I fantasize about smoking constantly. But I keep repeating this thought: "How uncomfortable am I willing to feel?" That is a question that requires feeling into my body, assessing where the discomfort of the craving is, how bad it is, trying to imagine how bad it could be to be deemed unbearable or not worth it. And by that time I've usually decided that it's much easier to walk away. It seems an effective method of dealing with cravings. But this is only the second day. Thoughts on going for "result orientedness" I'm still convinced this is the right direction for me. The diet, the yoga, the meditation, even the pickup habits are all great but NOT as a main goal. And I was trying to use them as a main goal. But that was a massive smokescreen. A distraction. Something that allowed me to feel like I was progressing a lot, while avoiding the truly hard thing: getting shit done. And, related to that: admitting which shit was never going to get done. Facing the fact that there are so few hours in the day. Cutting things out that are dear to me. Probably that's not the hard part for most people, but for me it was. Until now. I'm thinking about bringing this attitude to work. I feel empowered and awake. Like I'm learning this new skill of result-orientedness and now I can see where else I can apply it. Excerpt from: Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities, by James Clear Mail Goal Yeah, so... if becoming a regular meditator is not the main goal, and becoming a master pickup artist is not either, then what is it? It's Full Financial Independence. Scary to say out loud to people, or write down, because literally everyone I know thinks this is impossible, and I have internalised this belief as well. Or, immoral! "Why would you want so much money? *judgmental look*" So in the past 8 years I've been dreaming about it, always keeping it vague, because I secretly doubt that it is possible (for me). I've been hedging my bets. Going for pickup as a way to ensure that I've had a good time in life even if I fail in my larger goal of entrepreneurship. I know that to even have a shot at being successful I will have to let go of "having a good time". For at least a few years. My fear is this: that I spend the remainder of my twenties, and all of my thirties and forties alone, unhappy, failing business after business, never really succeeding while the rest of the people I know are having fun and starting families. I will lose touch with most people and it will all have been for nothing. Because I'm not built for success. I don't have enough focus, street smarts, people skills, connections, business insights. I'm going to get destroyed. Over and over again. And then I will discover that I wasted all my good years. That is my fear. Man, I'm scared? But also excited. Now, it's time to take a long, hard look at my strategy so far. How much does it look like a strategy for full financial independence? Not a whole lot, not a whole lot. This attachment to feeling good and having enough sex, et cetera, is my weakness and obstacle here. I decided to marginalize pickup until I'm financially independent. Marginalize means: still try to implement the habit of talking to a hot girl when I see her, but not schedule hours of my time for that specific goal. I will use apps like Tinder until I have sufficient fuckbuddies, then I will stop and leave the app alone, until one of them drops out of the rotation. Sufficient means: 3 or more. I may change this number. Financially independent means: I can drive around, eat, live, and travel without having to work. Where I currently live, that is about 2000 euros a month without putting in more than a few hours a week.

Plans for today Help friend move (done) Finish Primal homework. (done) Send an email with request to change the date (done) If not possible, make payment (done) and book flight. (postponed until tomorrow because I asked to reschedule) Make new list of tasks (done) Make next two weekly schedules and upload them to the support group (done) Add database to app (done) Make the button on the app (done) Do evening routine w/ meditation (fail) What could have gone better: Considering that it takes me a long time to get into a working flow. So the first task on the list I should allot a lot of time for. I estimated that finishing the stuff for Primal would take 45 minutes. It actually took me 3 hours! Including procrastination and eating break. Also making new todo-lists took me 1h15 instead of 30mins, and making a week schedule took 1h45 instead of 30mins Accepting when the day is over! I did some programming stuff until after 12, which is probably the reason I massively overslept the next day What went well: I actually did most of the stuff on my list I kept cutting off distractions pretty harshly (closing information and videos I had opened) until I got into a nice working flow

@Zigzag Idiot Thank you! I hope so... Right now I feel like a leaf in the wind, the wind being cravings

Habit Streaks Week 17 (Consecutive days > 2) Prayer: 3 No Alcohol: 5 Continuous Cleanliness: 3 Clean Diet: 5 No Porn: 10 Continuous Cleanliness is what I call that I clean up after myself immediately, i.e. wash a dish right after using it, leave desk clean et cetera. This is a big deal for me okay ? I'm tracking 25 habits in my phone, but I'm only posting about the ones that are going well. Positive reinforcement. I'm hoping the rest will fall into place just because of the extra awareness I'm putting on them by checking them off daily. And the most important thing for me is planning and follow-through, so I'll be reporting mostly on that, and whatever else comes to mind.

Yesterday's plans: Get up at 9 (success) Go running (success) Do morning routine (success) Evaluate past week and determine priorities (fail) Figure out where to rent suit (fail) Fill out the questionnaire for the Primal workshop (success) Work on the button and add db to the app (fail) Work on speech (fail) Make next two week schedules (fail) Wash clothes (fail) Evening routine (fail) The questionnaire was so much work that it consumed me for all of my productive time. What could have gone better: Don't watch TV next time during dinner, that wastes a lot of time because hard to stop Don't go ride your bike to the city to buy cigarettes, only to change your mind in the store, that was a waste of time Maybe postpone a phone call with Mom until after my task was done. And keep it shorter. I was happy with the distraction. More awareness of how short the day is so I could have properly wound down, meditated and washed up. It was just type until tired, then turn on TV and pass the fuck out. Not a very clean ending. Don't have such a long list. I was fooling myself, pretending the day was endless. 3 things max. What went well: I got up on time and started the day with a run I had my schedule ready and did check it I wiped all stuff off my desk into a basket, so I had no distractions I went to get cigarettes multiple times, but changed my mind in time I closed all my tabs so I had no distractions I turned off my phone I washed up multiple times, so there were less built up dirty dishes

This... look at it. Cooking up hypothetical conspiracies is apparently your ego's favourite defense mechanism. This is what's being shown to you. Be grateful for the lesson. It doesn't matter who's right, don't you see that? You are being given an opportunity to learn about yourself and you're not showing the maturity to consider it. Do you even know what Leo means by devil? Or did you jump straight to getting offended? Watch the 3 part series. Understand it. Really play devil's advocate: suppose this was actually true about me, what would that mean? This is the scary part. Get through the scary part first.

@d0ornokey Thank you, that's good to hear! No, I won't. I may drop the ball on some habits here or there, but I won't quit

So, did you?

I was a bit ill for a few days, now I'm back. I notice that checking off habits on my phone seems to be working: I spontaneously did some cleaning today, went running and did my routine. But more on that tomorrow. I still really like the idea that having a plan and executing it is the one most important habit for me. All the other ones are secondary. I've been keeping a weekly plan in a document (might as well have been Google Calendar, but this way I get to write more comments), and noting how many items I get done, and if not, what is the reason it goes wrong. It's been really clarifying. Mostly, failure starts with oversleeping for me. I bought a mechanical alarm clock from a thrift store. Maybe that will help. Today, the plans were: Get up at 8 (success, although I was so tired that I just looked for food and crawled back in bed) Exercise (success, although I waited until 3pm due to laziness) Do morning routine (success, although 4pm is not morning. Still made me feel good) Do homework for upcoming Primal Deconditioning workshop (did a little bit) Work on speech (fail, out of time) Add database to my app (fail, out of time) Make an 'add' button on my app (fail, out of time) It is now 6pm. I just cancelled my social plans and am determined to get this list done Edit: so I somehow procrastinated 4 full hours watching youtube and texting. Then it was 10 already. I read some of the homework. By now I'm so tired that it's hard to understand the words I'm reading. Also I have a lot of distraction-seeking momentum by now. Productivity seems a lost cause today. Man, I really am a serious slacker sometimes. 4 Hours of watching random videos, browsing this forum and laying around. Really.? The pomodoro method app is a good way to get me started. I'll keep using that. Tomorrow, I'll start with that, instead of watch random vids and tell myself I'm doing something. I'm really frustrated because I even cancelled social plans for this. To watch random vids, apparently. I'm pissed. This is good. I'm growing.

I'd say redefine it in the way I mentioned. "perfect" is almost by definition setting yourself up for failure. One has to wonder why to choose an impossible target. If it were me, it would be because I'd be mad at myself for slacking off and thinking that I deserve to feel some pain and stress, and also because telling myself that I'm aiming at perfection allows me to avoid having to accept that I won't reach perfection.

Toggl Update A while ago, I said that I would collect more time logging data, and post that here on the last day of March. Well, I failed to consistently track anything during the weeks that followed that, so the data is garbage. I'm starting over. Schedule In the spirit of my new resolution to focus on adherence to schedule as a primary objective, here is the plan for today. Get up at 7. (failed due to not going to bed early) Do workout (failed due to oversleeping) Do morning routine (failed due to oversleeping) 19:00 Work on speech 21:25 Meditate All the other habits I put into a habit tracker app, where I will track how I'm doing on them. Those results I plan to post here weekly on Sunday.

Great to see you pushing forward like that man! Throw that line out. Getting a girl to verbally agree to have casual sex is like getting your cat to give paw and go fetch. Most of 'em won't do that shit, doesn't mean you can't pet them Edit: as a learning experiment it may be valuable and/or fun though. Everything must be field-tested

An insight I would have been too stubborn for to gain by myself, but realised thanks to some harsh feedback from the men's circle I have been fortunate to find: I've been treating auxiliary habit goals like diet and yoga as the Most Important Thing. Actually, they are not. Time management, scheduling and getting things done are my achilles heel. I'm considering to post my weekly plans here and report progress. But that's not going to be as interesting to read, so maybe I'll leave out the actual schedule and just post my adherence to it for accountability. It just hit me that I've been so busy eating clean and preaching to those around me about avoiding wheat, that I hadn't noticed I was getting sloppy with my to-do list. I'm still missing e-mails, making excuses, and basically winging it. No use having a purpose if you fail to make time for it. I think on some level I knew that I was using the diet to distract myself from the truly hard thing, which is planning and actually doing stuff. But, I didn't realise that consciously yet. I've been growing towards it.

I'm very impressed with your progress and insights so far. Good on you for going into nature and course-correcting so quickly by doing something like that.

What a great goal! Good idea journaling on this. And 5 weeks is a very clearly bounded time. You can totally do this. I can't speak on how to study, but @Theta 's tips seem amazing to me. My two cents: There's going to be some ups and downs. Some days you'll wake up and not feel the motivation you feel right now. I would prepare for that situation, by writing down a very clear why, a mission statement/vision, and making a habit of revisiting that every morning. For me it works best not to just read it but also edit it a little bit every day. This will help get through the hard days. Anyone who has a why, can bear almost any how - Nietsche "kill it", "future" and getting a job may be too vague. If you can form a more detailed story, that would be better Clearly define what "Perfect grades" means. What do those exact grades look like? If you can visualize clearly those exact numbers on your final report, that will help a lot. Scott Adams has a crazy story about grades on this podcast: https://tim.blog/2015/09/22/scott-adams-the-man-behind-dilbert/ This will also help getting out of the "impossible" mindset. I personally have set goals of getting perfect grades in college in the past. I did pretty good, but in hindsight the impossible, perfect aspect of it was just me punishing myself for something, by setting myself up for failure. A goal has to feel possible. Keep posting about it here. Just report progress or lack thereof. Daily would be best. I find that in my direct environment it's hard to find people who want to work as hard on something, and it's easy to get infected with their excuses. That in itself is a bit of a victim mindset, but to keep it constructive, sharing with a community like this helps! I wish you the best of luck on this mission!

@LoveandPurpose Thank you so much! For the supportive words, the attention and the feedback. I believe that getting feedback from people is the only way out of one's own blind spots. Thinking and strategizing using only your own mind can only go so far. Like yesterday, friends from my support group were quite harsh in pointing out where I'm being a victim. I'm very thankful for that. And equally confused, because I truly don't see it myself (yet). There's smudges on my lense.

@LoveandPurpose I finished the video. Sort of a painful experience, because I discovered that I've been lying to myself about how far along I was. Maybe that's why I avoided it. I knew mentally that needing accomplishments for happiness doesn't work. And so I keep saying that I'm already happy. But that doesn't always feel true, because I'm still using the neurotic carrot-and-stick system. When I smoke or eat sugar, I can clearly observe my mind punishing itself. For a long time. But I wouldn't know where to start, changing this! And I'm indeed too busy being busy. Wow. He says to Go inside and inspect why you want some thing. Usually you'll find that there is some deficiency there, a hole. (Check! Indeed I found some of those. Goes back to high school stuff.) Realize that the hole is an illusion, and at any moment you are already complete. Check. I mean I realised it on shrooms. But then: what to do?! Yes, I feel like I could let go, but wouldn't that mean I become a homeless drug addict? Oh god, very little faith there. Trust that your motivation will come back. The mind is a motivation-generating machine. Some inauthentic stuff will fall away, let it. The mind will generate motivation for what's authentic for you, even if you're nonattached and already happy no matter what. Alright... Oh man. I feel like he's right but I don't know what to do with it right now. I feel very confused. And resistance. There's a voice in me saying that I'm not ready to be nonattached, I need to use the whip and the carrot for a while. Hmm. Is that just ego backlash? Probably. Letting go of conditional happiness conjures up pictures of falling face first into an abyss.

So I toootally meditated again, 10 minutes this time. Realised I'm in a state of overwhelm, and headed for a caffeine-fuelled burnout. It doesn't take much for me. The signs are there: Unable to relax my body, it's twitching and tensing up in weird places Avoiding sleep and relaxation Doing extra work at late unpaid hours for my employer Checking github right after waking up (used to be Tinder) Increase in irritability and painbody attacks So I shall quit coffee again and compile an overview of stuff to do, so I feel less overwhelmed and don't use work as an escape