kindayellow

I feel like this is and has been my biggest issue for a while. Outside of exercise… what on should I do with my time? I spent way too much time connected to my phone and I just don’t know what to do. I’ve made some good progress in my career, I’m learning to socialise a bit more like going out to meet women and such but, I feel like i do some good things like enjoy my music, exercise, self reflection/contemplation when I go out to walk my dog but I feel there’s so much wasted time still. What do people who don’t use their phones so much do all day? I need some ideas

@flowboy @flowboy sorry I suck at formatting I didn't mean to quote but thank you for your kind words. I think when the time is right I can tell her!

I'll keep this as short as I can but earlier in the year, my neighbour and her family invited me round to their house, and that night was really transformative for me. It made me realise how empty I felt inside because I haven't been living recently, not happy etc. It occurred to me today that my neighbour, who used to work as a social worker and used to study psychology, may of done that because she recognized that I needed that. I'd like to ask her if that's the case and thank her for making a significant difference in my life. I'm curious as to whether she actually meant to do that or not. Do you think it would be worth telling her she's helped me and ask if she intended to do so?

Hi all, I'm not here to ask for help off anyone regarding this, this is just a beautiful new thing I'm experiencing what feels like for the first time that I'd like to share with anyone who's interested in reading. So for two years, a chapter ended in my life. I left school, left my toxic friend group, left my toxic romantic relationship with no concrete plans for anything. For those two years I spent a lot of time with myself learning personal development theory and just self reflecting a lot about who I am. After a year I got employed with my first proper job, I soon grew to not enjoy being a wage slave funnily enough. But every weekend, I'd do nothing pretty much. I had this idea in my head for a long time that this would be good for me in the long run and that it was healthy for me to be so concerned about me and only me, invest no time in others, I remember rejecting the idea of having friends at one point. I thought I was making myself happy. Up until recently. My next door neighbours are a family of 4, two kids that are 8 and 10 (I'm 20) and their parents are 38. They'd moved in around 2 years ago from now and my dog recently started going over the wall separating our gardens to go and play with them. Since lockdown I'd started to talk to my neighbours more and more and it's grown into this beautiful relationship where I go round to their house and we watch films, play board games, go for walks together with my dog. The day after the first time I actually spent and evening with them I felt really depressed, I then realised at that point that after all this time I've spent trying to invest in myself and be healthy in mind that it's been totally out of balance and that you need positive relationships and people you care about that care about you to achieve a certain level of fulfillment in life. It was way way way out of balance and it definitely didn't make me happy, I felt completely worthless and felt like life wasn't worth living.

I just feel like my life is so hollow. And I've been living this life where I've isolated myself from others and been trying to grow as a person but right now I've just hit this low point. The job I'm in is pointless, all the job opportunities around me don't speak to me, I have no friends, don't feel like anyone truly cares about me, I just feel like I exist and I have no plans on how to build a life for myself, I know that all this means I have lots of room for improvement, real improvement, but I don't know how to make any real improvement in a way that will help me and right now I just don't want to do anything other than escape this mindset, but I also don't want to continue distracting myself with social media for dopamine, id appreciate any of your guys' wisdom, there's lots on this website I know that much

Hey this is just an update for anyone reading I'm feeling a lot better right now, and not that I've arrived at some absolute truth, but I think I've found some type of truth. I felt low because I felt useless to the world, which tells me I'd like to be of use to the world. And as I said I spent all this time on personal development, and it's only ever involved me, and without having any type of social life, over time my self esteem has gone way down and I hadn't really realised. I understand there's other ways to think about this but right now what I want to be doing is fulfilling the desire I have to add value to other people's lives so that's what I've been focusing on this week. I just have the desire to be useful to others and I may find that's not the whole truth and there's a deeper truth which I'm open to.

Hello I've just turned 20, and I feel like in the future, I'd like to train to become a life coach, I find enjoyment in helping people. The only "problem" I guess is that I don't feel ready to do that until I have more personal growth, including life experience. Am I right in thinking I'm probably not ready for it yet? The other problem I have is, whilst waiting for my maturing happen, will I just have to be a wage slave for a few years? I currently dislike the job I'm in now and want to leave because of how it effects me mentally. Appreciate any thoughts people have here.

I second this, although I do feel like Leo has already seen this before and probably doesn't want to do it. I personally like Joe and Leo even though I think they're very different people, plus it would expand Leo's audience for sure

Something I read that I really connected with was this when it comes to the use of the word interesting in your title for this post "I really like talking to people. Everybody I talked to for this was pretty interesting. Don't let people make you feel like you're not interesting -- that's something I learned from this, everybody is interesting." Interesting people are everywhere, it's just that some people are much more openly willing to share things that are interesting about them, that's the only difficulty with finding interesting people, it's not that they don't exist it's just that sometimes we can find it hard to find people willing to be open

Thank you for all the replies everyone I appreciate your time and wisdom:)

Something important I've noticed since being away from work for nearly 2 months. For months, whilst in the work week, I've been self sabotaging my own happiness and sabotaging even more when what I do inevitably doesn't work. What I mean is. When I'm in the workweek, getting reading, working, time after work. I've found it impossible to relax and have peace of mind at the weekend. And it's been a never ending battle. Because I can never achieve this calm mindset it's always busy. I try and maximize the amount "freedom" once I get home from work by telling myself that I just go walk the dog, I must workout, I must spend time with the family. And then I simply notice that I feel no better. So I dig down and become even more rigid in my winding down activities after work, which does the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve! It's been a problem for at least 6 months. I set all these expectations for myself, and I get frustrated when I feel like I'm incapable of controlling my mind, so I control it even more. Just perfect example of neuroticism. Just wanted to share my experience and it's been a really relieving breakthrough.

@IJB063 well it's funny because my goals are to relax. Like I get home from work and I'm subconsciously just saying like. Okay...RELAX! RELAX!!!! do this to relax!!!! Why aren't you relaxed yet! And then that stresses me out. And yes I've had some success with the win hof method, I like that one, feels like it reduces anxiety levels for me.

Hello all I've recently become aware of how much I try and neurotically control myself to relax all the time, which is quite funny, because that's not what relaxation is at all. Leo mentioned in his "big picture of self actualisation" video and I can't really find a video other than maybe his video '40 signs you're neurotic' & 'the power of letting go...' which I will be watching again and making some notes on. But I was wondering if there was a direct video that can help me work on this.

Hello all I'm currently in lockdown in the UK, was wondering if I could have some tips for good ways to pass the time through the day, I currently waste it on my phone almost entirely

To start off, in recent times with the Coronavirus, I've felt better, it's nice to see the world coming together, kids drawing rainbows and sticking them on the front windows so people can see them. It's nice. I've been forced to take a weeks holiday (back in work tomorrow) and it's been a nice break from work. Whilst I am working though, I just feel absent minded in terms of, I have nothing im really working towards that is not work related. I feel like my life revolves around work, I've put lots of effort into stress management and making my time in work as nice as possible for me (main problem for me is it's rather boring and I feel like I wouldn't like to stay in the company long term even if I could get a promotion, I have been looking for new work). The only upside of all this is that for the past 10 months I've been working there (it's my first real job I'm 19), I've just saved over 60% of my monthly earnings. Which will help me in that future which is nice and will reap the benefits of further down the line. I really do very little with my free time, I have no friends I physically go out and see. No girlfriend. I like playing basketball, I go down to the park and just shoot hoops on my own, there are no teams near me and it's not a popular sport in the UK lol. I believe what I want is friendship, I almost feel longing for my school life and school friends even though those friendships I did have, were toxic and I cut off my friendgroup about 2 years ago now. And I don't know where to find friends that I'd like, that are also people that self actualise and even if they do drink, or watch TV or whatever! They're at least working on it. I think that's what I'd like. I also feel resistant to these feelings a little, a feeling of... needing emotional support? And I almost don't want to admit that, maybe I do need friends, because I would like to be as independent as possible. My posts on here always do end up sort of answering my initial questions. But if anyone can speak from experience on this type of situation and give me any sort of insight I'd very much value that:)

@Husseinisdoingfine I've considered the life purpose course, and then forgot about it. In one way I want to set concrete goals, but I end up just shifting from one topic in personal development to another, which rationally I know isn't as beneficial.

Okay so I tend to ruminate a lot, especially at work, and obviously it has a negative effect on my life. This past week however, I've distracted myself in work by being more engaged in my work, so I've ruminated less. The effect of this has been great for me so far, I used to often get tension headaches but as of the last week I've had none. My only concern is that, my solution is distraction, sure it depends what the distraction is I guess but I just don't know how sustainable this is long term, plus I don't want to ignore my thoughts.

@Eph75 my rumination is all work related, it's all about not wanting to be in work, I am looking for new work, in what way is thoughts about how much I dislike my current workplace help to me?

I haven't found MBTI to be helpful, moreso intruiging. What I felt really helped was the ennegram test.

I could leave right away, I still live with my parents and have good money in savings so right now I'm in a very fortunate position

Hi all I'm writing to maybe get some second opinions on my situation I've been working in a manufacturing laboratory for 8 ish months now, it's my first real job (19 y/o) and it's been a good opportunity for me to earn some money and I've had some personal development growth from the whole process. But now they're going to be changing the hours to 6-4 12-10 and basically it means it'll reduce my quality of life with unsocialable hours with no sort of compensation. Not a fan. I've struggled for some time with light to moderate headaches on a frequent basis. My boss used to stress me out but I've done some stress management work and I now feel much better about being around him. I want to now change jobs because I think I experience stress from being aprehensive of having a possibility busy, but boring day in which I'm not very engaged with what I'm doing. The only upside is some of the people I work with there. I believe this is what brings me stress. I think now is a good time for me to start looking for a job that is closer to me (current job is 27 miles away). Does anyone experience similar circumstances that could share with me on what you've done to get past this?

Overall I would say 8/10 The good was that I finally got employed and that I got a driver's license and a car which I pay for (these are by no means fulfilling but it allows me to support myself and save some money for the future). But I've benefited from employment in the sense that I feel like I have matured and it feels good to have structure in my life and build career skills. I've also been working on my physical health a bit this year, trying to increase flexibility and doing more physical exercise. The bad was I guess dealing with the struggles of working some time, stress management has been a main goal of mine, also trying to live around my brother who I don't have a good relationship with unfortunately. Goals I set for myself were to get a car, a job, get fitter physically, manage stress better, body awareness and meditation which I think I've completed, still working on body awareness and meditation still. I'm not sure what goals to set, maybe working on some soft skills for my idea of becoming a life coach. Further increasing my fitness too.

Okay so to begin with, I often will talk to myself about the events of the day, any issues that came up, how certain things made me feel, and sometimes thinking about what may happen tomorrow, this is often concerning work. I like doing this because I like to hear myself talk, and i find it to be good to vent sometimes and de-stress, and I also get answers out of myself sometimes. I believe a better option would to be learning to truly accept the events of the day like accepting I spent my day working, and that I'll be there tomorrow, and that I don't get on with my boss very well etc. My main issue is that I have struggles being truly relaxed during a work week and feel a little strapped for time. And I think acceptance may go a long way to helping me in my daily life. Thoughts?

It's difficult because I'm in a job where I need to listen out for people coming to the window for us to test a sample (work in a lab) and it's less so that it's loud, the speakers they come from are in another room but with door open, I'd love to find away to have a lower level of silence without disrupting them and still being able to listen out for people, probably too much of an ask lol

Hello all, I'm just curious as to what other people may think and could relate. In my current job, my boss and coworker have the radio playing the entire day and I find it frustrating to always have something new going on in the background but they seem to love it. When I'm on my own I work in silence, but I'll sometimes play relaxing music, my coworkers listen to mainly rock, which kinda drills into my head lol. I'm also looking for a way to muffle the sound but still be able to hear my surroundings? If anyone knows some sort of way I can do that, because I don't really want to stop them from listening to the radio. Grateful for any replies lol