How To Stop Swimming In Your Own Shit?

[illia]

For more than a year now, I am continually going from periods of when I do what I have to do (I'm productive, I go to the gym, I stay on my diet etc.) and periods when I don't do nothing and I just feel sorry for myself.

It's easy for me to stay on my journey to my dreams, but when I have a bad day I just can't resist the temptation to slack off or to eat some junk food. When I subdue to my emotions I go into a downward spiral. Sometimes I can pull myself out in just a day, but a while back I got out of a period when I was swimming in my own shit for 2 months straight. I'm not going to school this year and so I have a lot of free time on my hands.

It feels like my mind doesn't want to succeed. I love the state that I get when I work on myself, but after a while my body says "This isn't you, let's go back to how you used to be.". 
I always slacked when I was a kid, even in highschool I always took the easy way. I cheated in school and I always took the path of least resistance, but in the past year I've grown a lot and I see now that work sets a man free.

How do you get yourself out of you own shit?

Reaching my goals is what I live for, but with these low consciousness periods, my dreams are not realistic.

That one day always messes me up. If I wake up a bit cranky, if my energy levels are depleted or for whatever reason I may have, I slack off. Plus I'm a perfectionist. If I have a bad morning I always say that I already messed up my routine and so I slack for the rest of the day. From then on it just goes worse.

Do you know any material I can read on this topic, maybe you know had the same issue and you worked it out?

I've been meditating for the past year and I can see that I still have some inner issues. I can get present, but in those crucial moments, where I fall off the wagon, I just can't get myself to look inward.

Any thoughts or advice on this topic are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Edited April 9, 2018 by illia

[YaNanNallari]

The following is a wild guess. Try to see if there's anger inside of you or other "toxic masculinity" sides. Repressing them instead of transforming them can lead to you really not caring about your things. Leave a bit of the "how a spiritual person acts" and see what kind of emotions there are even if you feel like they're not you.

You don't have to act on those feelings, but just see if you're suppressing them. Same with the feeling of perfectionism etc. If you're familiar with chakras, look into the bottom 3 more.

Don't give up in the long run and things will sort themselves out even if it seems hopeless at times. For resources I recommend Leo's book list

[Akim]

You could say that you have a somewhat stable system that you fall back to when your willpower is drained. You current balance is somewhere between the lower system and your higher productive system. Each bit of effort you put in being a better version of you slightly changes you for the better. You can think about how to put your effort the best for the long term improvement of "you" system. If you have little willpower left you can at least change the type of information you consume. Like watching more productive people on Youtube, reading something inspiring. That way you slowly rewire your brain and change the baseline to fall back to. It is a long hard work, but after some time you will have a better default "you". With higher lowers and higher peaks.

Also this https://www.actualized.org/articles/mastery.

[illia]

2 hours ago, Akim said:

You could say that you have a somewhat stable system that you fall back to when your willpower is drained. You current balance is somewhere between the lower system and your higher productive system. Each bit of effort you put in being a better version of you slightly changes you for the better. You can think about how to put your effort the best for the long term improvement of "you" system. If you have little willpower left you can at least change the type of information you consume. Like watching more productive people on Youtube, reading something inspiring. That way you slowly rewire your brain and change the baseline to fall back to. It is a long hard work, but after some time you will have a better default "you". With higher lowers and higher peaks.

Also this https://www.actualized.org/articles/mastery.

You've hit it on the spot. I watched the video you linked and I've read the article. From what I've read I'm a typical "the obsessive" type. I work for a couple of weeks, the things that need to get done, get done, in my work I flow, I get into a higher consciousness, but it just isn't sustainable. I crash and I burn. I stay on my diet and I lose a couple of kilograms, but after some time I crash and I binge back to where I've started.

https://youtu.be/jymhbbZiL6A?t=37m

He talks about this problem here. My homeostasis always bumps me down to the level on where I "should be". I push through and I get pushed right back down.

 

I have all these things that I want to improve in my life (staying on my diet/going to the gym, going out and improving my social skills, reading books, studying for my graduation exams, learning how to code...) and I want to work on them at the same time.

This probably isn't the best thing to do. 

 

On how many goals should I try to focus on?

My biggest goal is for the next 3 months is getting into a college I'm applying for, but in this time I also want to cut down on my weight. This is just an idea that I had right now, but I will try to focus on only these two things. Though I still will go out at least 5 times a week (20 minutes minimum) to improve on my social skills (talking to strangers, approaching girls etc.) or am I pushing it?. It's only 20 minutes a day, right?

[Epiphany_Inspired]

@illia Welcome to the world of "backsliding" ... this happens to me at times too... I think this is the video:

 

[Akim]

Regarding one or multiple goals I think one should be strategic here. It makes sense to concentrate willpower on one most valuable goal. On the other hand if you already have genuine desire to do something else productive from time to time without using much willpower, why not. Probably the best way to answer it is with experimentation.

[StardewValley]

From seeing the title of this thread, I was hoping that you meant the title more literally.

[Staples]

You have a few options;

1. Get out of the pool,

2. Swim to the bottom of the pool, look for pockets of air.

Or my favourite: 3. Play with the shit, smear it on the walls and laugh. Don't take your bathing too seriously. 

These are not entirely 'joke answers'. From a symbolic perspective, those are some classic ways people have dealt with your issue (well, not so successfully with #2, Lol). You're clearly productive enough to be happy when things are going your way. But when you lose sight of that you fall back into indulgence. Classic ego backlash. 

I know exactly what you're talking about, I'm there more than I'd like to admit. Leo has a great technique for dealing with ego backlashes (at least that's what I use it for). You can find it here.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Staples
link broken

[Ether]

@Staples Or 4.We can eat the shit!

Metaphoracally!

Of course...

[d0ornokey]

@Staples

link is broken 

[Staples]

@d0ornokey fixed