I am really fascinated with different ways of viewing the world. Those that take a view to leisurely enjoy until the curtain closes are as interesting as those who have a driving purpose to portray genuineness in art, tell truth to power, take power, or practically any other world view.
This fascination for theories, for world views, for different perspectives on how to conceptualise the world and their (our) place in it is something that I do not get tired of.
That's why it was so strange to me that when I was trying to make serious improvements to myself, I had trouble getting even minor success. Besides martial arts, I was having little success at most other facets of my life. My sex life was more luck than skill, my professional life shambles never making more than minimum wage with little room for improvement. But worst of all were my discipline and commitment to goals.
I decided to start keeping a log of everything that I felt I was failing at. I was pretty shocked at the results.
I honestly wasn't able to focus even 2 hours a week on goals I found important if it wasn't fun or interesting to work at. I wasn't willing, or able, to sacrifice.
And I didn't even realize it before I kept a log.
When I started keeping a log I discovered the disconnect between all the world views, self-improvement methods: It's really fucking simple.
Improving yourself is simple. Practising the same punch a million times is simple. Becoming a really good musician is simple. You just have to put in the work.
Of course you can't do this mindlessly; you have to know where you are aiming a punch, what technique you want to learn.
But even if you learn a bad technique, just the practice will make picking up the right technique far easier, because you have a whole internalised system for learning techniques, a habit for training the technique, a habit of checking your technique, the endurance and strength/speed for performing the technique. Even if you do it badly, you are facilitating your improvement.
You just have to do it. And do it frequently.
It's the same with redpill. The oft given advice is: Lift. Remember you're the prize. Have a personal mission. Approach.
It isn't complex at all. It's simple.
But that doesn't mean it's easy.
But how does one take that advice? Eat the redpill? Same thing as learning a martial arts technique. Repetition. You do it when you're tired and you remember that even if you're a bit cranky, you're still prize. You internalize it when you're unwashed perhaps downright reeking in garlic sweat, and you see that you're still able to give a girl you just met tingles. When you're tired and you only lift a 3/4th of what you normally lift, but you know you're reinforcing discipline.
It's not hard to become strong. You just lift until you are. Of course there's always details to improve, healthy food, side stuff.
But improvement is not complex. And in fact, your fear, your excuses LOVE complexity. The more complex you can make things in your head, the more justified you feel in postponing or calling off goals as too hard.
And yes, they're hard. But they're not complex. They're fucking simple. You just have to fucking do them and trust that many small actions results into a huge improvement. Because they do.
SPREAD_THE_LOVE_7791 6y ago
This resonates with me strongly. What do you mean you kept a log of everything you were failing at? How do you get from there to hard, consistent work? Your post insinuates that you just "decide" to do it because you see the value in it. Well I see the value in what I'm doing, but it hasn't been that easy for me.
My whole life I've never been forced to have discipline. I have a lot of bad, lazy habits. I've done a lot of introspection on what is important to me and I think I have a pretty good handle on what those tasks are. But I still have days where I don't get shit done. Crazy procrastinating days. Too much time between stuff. I'm trying to get on that path to consistency, but it seems as soon as something messes up my schedule, I give up for the day. Some form of all-or-nothing perfectionism. I just want to be a man who's focused and gets shit done.
I rambled on a bit but I have been struggling with this for years. Any help is appreciated.
Tonyreddit88 6y ago
I have a very similar hurdle I’m working on now, it’s been three steps forward and two back.
I have noticed I am better off when I embrace my periods of productivity and maximize them as much as possible, as well as accepting my darker moments when I am in a funk. Lately I’ve been working to use the days where I just feel off, unproductive, ungrateful, whatever.... to indulge in something that’s both lazy yet healthy ( a long lunch, leisure reading, call a buddy, walk in the beach). The key is it has to be something simple that I can do easily without letting laziness perpetuate.
Honestly man, it’s helpful just reading your post and seeing someone else with a similar situation currently.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
You underestimate the effort it takes to learn discipline. You can't become michael jordan in a day. Heck, it's likely that you (like me) don't have the personality to be as hardworking. To have some idea of that I recommend the test https://www.understandmyself.com/ which has been hugely conducive to being realistic about my capabilities.
But it is certain you underestimate the difficulty of learning discipline. You don't accept working on small progress. Maybe you're not even honest enough with yourself to accept this advice from someone (That's what I expect because I don't think I would've 6 months ago). And I don't mean nodding along, I mean really accepting it, internalizing it. If you do accept small progress, then every day where you worked a little more than the previous, even if you then fuck off and procrastrinate are a success and these many small successes are what constitutes big success after 6 months and allows you to write some pithy line about logging being the key to improvement.
Even if you do everything right you probably will be still be struggling for years with it to improve it.
As to bad habits; that's what logging is good for. You log them. You try to identify their real source. Some of my bad habits only came up when I indulged in another. I don't sleep with internet ready devices in my house. If I do, I don't let myself sleep well. This means I go and bring them away to my brother's house EVERY DAY that I want to use them. This may sound ridiculous and like a waste of time, but having them in my house at night or in the morning is a bigger waste of time. And every time when I'm travelling to bring them over I am reminded that I should not underestimate these devices effect on me. And I'm also rewarded by knowing that I'm paying any price for improvement. Seeing 20+ logs where I had regrets (the biggest ones missing my niece's birthday and doing badly at an interview by being and looking tired) and where the failure could in good part be traced back to my internet device usage, makes it possible for me to bring the devices away. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard to bring them away. It seems so much simpler to "just have discipline" and to "just not touch them until lunchbreak", but it doesn't work for me. In any case not yet.
And I know the pain these devices cause me; the pain of not getting the job I want, the pain of breaking a promise to my niece.
So when you get really clear your own motivations through logging, it's easier to remind yourself (though not always easy), it's easier to know what things keep you from what you want to do.
Finally perfectionism is the enemy of doing something good, as you might well know.
I think it was Roosevelt.
SPREAD_THE_LOVE_7791 6y ago
Saved comment. Going to reread it over and take some action. Thanks for taking the time to type this out. I’ll report back with my findings.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
Remindme! 3 months "Good luck, mate"
ChadThundersmash 6y ago
It's not the will to win that matters-everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
PAUL "BEAR" BRYANT
falecf4 6y ago
Thank you. I needed this this week!
Ill_Will7 6y ago
Good post. Inspirational. The reason i wake up in the morning to read some motivational rp stuff. Instead of before which was smoke a cigarette and jerk off.
YetisInAtlanta 6y ago
its the 10,000 hours rule pretty much. as a self taught musician this is pretty much my constant montra. its helped me to be a more disciplined and mindful person. I never had all day to sit and practice so I had to use my time wisely and effectively. these lessons have stuck with me into manhood and I know im a better person for keeping this mindset
[deleted] 6y ago
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Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
I can't answer your question for you. It is something we all figure out by trial and error until we find a way that works. But maybe my own path that I described helps you find yours.
pinchymcloaf 6y ago
this is my problem with all of the self help stuff out there...wel said
biglaughingcock 6y ago
your “something else” is the blue pill disneyland fantasy. you’re still plugged in brah but fear no more because right now you can stop giving a fuck about it all and unplug just pay this low fee of $69.69 and i’ll send the red pill right to your doorstep
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
Why wouldn't you be content in top 20% instead of top 10%?
if you can't answer that question, you are telling yourself you have a goal you don't care about. Everybody wants the result of going to the gym. Who wants to pay the price?
Why WOULD you pay the price? If you don't have a motivation, you won't pay the price.
I am paying the price because I want to not die. My previous mediocrity literally led to wanting to kill myself. I feel a lot of pain and difficulty in my path to improvement. I don't typically share that. But that pain is nothing compared to the depression at mediocrity, even if I am in most things I'm working at mediocre. Because I can already sense i have the drive to get far beyond mediocre. And I desire that more than the comfort of slowly slipping into desiring suicide again.
[deleted] 6y ago
Women money and status. High school really never ends and I want to be cool
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
You get plenty of women in top 20%
0rientado 6y ago
It's funny that you still think there's "something else". Maybe the 101th post will do it.
[deleted] 6y ago
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jtedd92 6y ago
Might it be the belief in a higher power, belief in a greater good? Might it be listening to your soul and what it finds purpose and energy in? (Coming at this from a teleological perspective)
Ill_Will7 6y ago
That "something else" is a goal. If you got 5 addictions try eliminating one and see some results. There must be some woman you badly want but feel your too pathetic to get or sum job or car or skill or true desire. Use her/it as a carrot on a stick to drive you to your goal. Don't catch oneitis though. Instant gratification is the opposite of self improvement. So stay positive and keep pushing forward my friend. Just remember where forward is
0rientado 6y ago
You know what to do, but still won't do it. It is clear to me that the problem is with you, not with the info. Maybe you haven't suffered bad enough yet. I'm not judging. This world works by cause and effect, do x, get y. Just know that everything starts in the mind.
dropit_reborn 6y ago
My brothers and I have a joke: "Oh, sure, you'll ace that test if you study for it. I mean, anything is easy if you put in the work..."
[deleted] 6y ago
Shea LeBeouf wasn't shitting when he put out that "just do it" motivational speak. I know it's tongue in cheek and made as a joke but it's really not. Stop talking bout the shit you wanna do and start doing the shit you wanna do. At first, you'll only do it a little bit, but the more you go back to it and the longer you'll stick with it, the more routine it'll become.
I know a dude who makes $300 an hour as an artist... I heard him give adivce one to a guy who was trying to paint a mural... he told him "stop thinking about what you wanna do and start doing it. if it doesn't turn out the way you want it paint over it and start again."
Every day is a blank new canvas. You just gotta start doing the damn thing. You're right in that it's not easy, but it does get easy with repetition.
PunkSmell 6y ago
I would like to recommend Jeff Olson’s The Slight Edge on the compound effects of little choices and small steps in life. Here’s a quote from it:
“The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in.”
There’s also a nice video review of the book: https://youtu.be/bi7yB7wH3to
HierEncore 6y ago
Good post. I think for a lot of us, ego gets in the way of improvement.
redwineit 6y ago
Agreed. There's a great book called 'Ego is the Enemy' by Ryan Holiday. In it he advocates that truly letting go of the ego is the path to mastery and to being able to fully participate in the world. I feel it has some relevance here. Anyone who's interested should give it a shot.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
There is always another space on my reading list for another ryan holiday book
[deleted] 6y ago
The time you invest in yourself will never leave you.
Years ago, I was engaged. I thought I had "made it."
Imagine my surprise when I looked at my phone that my fiancee (for the 1000th time) was calling me on, and I proceeded to silence the call.
"I thought I was supposed to be happy. I thought this is what every man wanted."
I spent my whole life being told what I should want for my life, yet not one of them asked me what I wanted for my life.
I wanted to be strong, a fighter. A warrior.
So, I left the nag next time she fucked up and signed up for an MMA gym.
You only get one life. Make sure it's spent doing what you want to do.
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BurnoutRS 6y ago
Positive feedback loops and keystone habits
An example might be excessive pornography consumption. This is a keystone habit that the bridge of social ineptitude could come to rest upon. You suck with women so you beat off, you suck in social situatiins so you avoid them, stay home and beat off. You waste time chasing this high that never truly satisfies you, the whole time growing more disgusted with yourself for not being able to get a real girl.
Remove the keystone and the rest of the archway collapses. You stop relying on porn as your source of sexual validation and satisfaction. You start having more free time that used to be spent jacking off. You stop feeling so guilty about the habit, you dont hate yourself as much. Which Is a wonderful motivational foundation for you to start taking on more personal responsibilities. You put that JO time towards the gym, reading, meditating.
You can use the above model for anything. Junk food, drugs, mindlessly surfing the internet. Identify the cycles that occur in your life and figure out where in the cycle your agency lies. The positive feedback loop occurs when removing the keystone bolsters your resolve which in turn will hopefully see you picking up a more worthwhile pasttime. A pasttime such as lifting, which will only benefit you.
Club_dean69 6y ago
I don't believe in the "magic" of nofap nor am I an advocate of it, but I strongly agree with you that taking porn and masturbation out of the equation may benefit someone who is unhappy with their sex life and suck with girls. At some point the frustration of not being able to ejaculate will build up to the point where:
A. Our man will crack and jack off then feel super shitty
B. Start to feel angry (from the frustration of repressed sexual urges) for not being able to get what they want and start doing
C. Get used to not jacking off and stay neutral (btw I cannot see this being a realistic outcome for 99.9% of the population but just for the 0.1% I've included it in the list)
Disclaimer: if you are perfectly happy with your life and you also happen to watch porn/jack off then feel free to keep doing whatever you've been doing. I personally think a lot of the stuff that is discussed in nofap is retarded beyond words but there's sometimes a hidden gem in a pile of trash .
BurnoutRS 6y ago
Im not even necessarily a nofap advocater, the real issue when it comes to masturbation is the effect that having access to a never ending virtual harem can have on a person. Internet porn is fucky. Theres a lot of research confirming that we can get addicted to sources of stimuli just the same as drugs. Add in the fact that porn is pretty much everywhere.
To use a drug you have to actually go and get the drug, ingest it. To use porn you just have to view it. Im not saying its evil either. Its just that the majority of people think its absolutely harmless and can have no consequences on your life. Most people use the term masturbation to mean "jacking off while looking at porn"
If you lack willpower this is a much bigger problem. I had no discipline and would jack off for hours a day. While simultaneously moaning about being a beta virgin lol. So I definitely made it into an unhealthy behaviour. Getting that straightened out was a big stepping stone for me.
It also seems that a period of abstinence may be beneficial towards helping you tame your addictions. I used to smoke tobacco with my cannabis. I tried many times to quit mixing the tobacco in and just smoke straight greens, but the only time I was successful in doing so was when I quit smoking anything at all for a year. Then I gradually reintroduced the weed into my life. Been nicotine free for 3 years now.
Say what you will about pot, its taught me some good life lessons. Too much of a good thing, moderation is key, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Its just about control. If something that you once had control over begins controlling you, then you have to distance yourself from that thing and get your shit together before you can attempt to control it again.
So anyways to wrap up my main point, jack off, look at porn, do them simultaneously or separately. Just take the time to experiement and see how your behaviours and habits might be effecting you. Negatively or positively.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
This. So much this. I was barely progressing until I kept a log and noticed what I guess you would call a keystone habit interfered: facebook, email, gaming and political and historical videos.
Now i only get to use tech when I've fulfilled other (self imposed) duties first.
BurnoutRS 6y ago
Exactly, you just find something that feeds into other shit. Too much time on social media now my homework isnt done, now im staying up too late and my performance is effected. Identify the root of the weed
Ihatemoi 6y ago
how do you do a log? explain please, I try to do one, but I overcomplicate things and I dont know any better.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
or to say it in a different way: I overcomplicate things as well, but it's fine to overcomplicate when you get closer to your goals.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
My first log? I gave myself marks out of 10 on 5 fields:
It was completely unwieldy and overcomplicated. But it was better than not logging. I did this for a month before going to:
I also did that for a month. Still very unwieldy. Both of these were in addition to making daily comments, just trying to write down the things I had done, the things that worked out, the things that didn't work out.
It didn't really matter that it was unwieldy. It's what I thought was important at the time and I figured that I would learn to do it better from the way that it's shortcomings would irritate me over time. And that's what happened.
Now I log:
Perfect is the enemy of good. Overcomplicating it is fine. Having daily questions for myself (as in the #5 lists) always helps to get me started and then I write a bit.
It's about giving me historic perspective (holy shit was I really keeping those lists 6 months ago? And was I really failing on my goals that much?) It's about taking some time to remind myself what I find important It's about keeping myself on track It's about doing better than yesterday It's about feeling the reward of doing something hard
If I look at the log before and after I made clearcut rules in regards to social media/email/youtube with myself and it's a difference of night and day.
It also shows that some other changes I tried had more insignificant effects. It's mostly about helping you analyse your own behaviour, which is sometimes very different than you expect and can not be analysed unless it's logged.
[deleted] 6y ago
For me swallowing the redpill was actually about throwing up all the expectations society drilled into me, years earlier. Getting rid of all that stuff, the morals, the rules that were always benefiting somebody, but never me...That was swallowing the pill for me.
What's left is freedom. Freedom to become exactly what I want to be, one step at a time towards greater degrees of mastery. Fucking women, martial arts, lifting and art. Life has never been simpler, never been better.
You're right. Practise is easy. Determining your own direction isn't. That's why most men will always fail at life, never living up to their own potential.
smyger 6y ago
Art? How do you do art? Curious
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
This is a lesson i learned earlier: you can never perfectly know what direction your path is, but you can choose one that you think is the right path and try to walk it fully. I think choosing a bad path and walking it fully is worth it better than choosing a good path and half arsing it.
Because one can not be self satisfied without knowing you're pushing yourself beyond what you thought possible.
biglaughingcock 6y ago
that’s right brother, that’s what the greatest inspirations of this generation like zyzz have shown us. life, relationships, the whole thing is too fast and short to do it any other way than EXACTLY how you want it.
[deleted] 6y ago
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Don't think, feel....it is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
aka Bruce Lee
Five birds are perched on a wire. One decides to fly away. How many are left?
Five - because deciding to do something and actually doing it are very different things.
tranquil_af 6y ago
You sure are an endorsed contributor
[deleted] 6y ago
But do you fear the man who practiced 10,000 kicks 10,000 times?
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chinese-bible 6y ago
A nice sound byte, but if you REALLY think about it, the first man is probably in reality far more dangerous.
In reality the optimal strategy in terms of "fighting effectiveness" via "only doing 10,000 kick reps" is to practice 5 kicks 2,000 times.
The guy practicing 1 kick 10,000 times is really good at it. UNLESS, you know what that kick is. Then you can counter it.
The man who practiced 10,000 kicks one time each? Let's be honest. There WILL be overlap in those kicks. If he actually practiced 10,000 different kicks (albeit once each) -- he would effectively be practicing some effective/ common mechanisms hundreds of times each. And he would soon notice patterns and similarities and distill the pure essence of an effective kick.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
Knowing how to counter a kick is no use when someone can throw it quicker than you can react. And just like practising different kicks, practising the same kick has knock on positive effects.
It might not go for everything, but considering you're not training some fringe kick, but a practical one, like a roundhouse, spinning back kick or a low kick, then perfecting one is more worthwhile. Because you can still throw different kicks until you get the perfect opportunity to throw your perfect kick.
Though if the kick you trained was a low kick or a side kick... That shit is hard to counter at all.
I mean we're in pretty useless theorycrafting territory here, but you can't improve if you try something different everytime, because you can't learn from your mistakes. One of the advantages of that old school PUA canned material was that you could practise your delivery of the same material. The more you try to use the same method, the more you can work at the tiny imperfections.
chinese-bible 6y ago
Fair enough. In most of life though, you at least want to be an expert in two things. Or "two kicks" ... the uniqueness is much more than one thing. You will often find synergies between the two things that no one else has found before.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
Sure. Bruce lee made his comment in a world where martial arts was drowning in complexity and you would train 30 different kicks or so. Nice for demonstrations, kinda useless for fights.
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
Since my birth, there hasn't been more than 6 months without a bruce lee book being in the room I sleep in.
It's the osmosis that I'm counting on.
insanestratt 6y ago
Any good recommendations on writing I can read to learn more about this concept of osmosis? In interested and never heard of it before.
That_Deaf_Guy 6y ago
Never read any of his books, any you recommend to get started?
Kinbaku_enthusiast 6y ago
The tao of jeet kune do is the only book of his I've read. It is if I'm not mistaken the only book he wrote.
[deleted] 6y ago
Osmosis is a thing trust me. I decided I wanted to play the guitar parts from zep album 5 and Van Halen 1. I spun those albums lick by lick thousands of times and slept with them like a pillow. I was no Eddie or Jimmy, but I got damn good on the guitar.
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insanestratt 6y ago
Where can I learn more about this osmosis you're talking about? Any good resources?
YetisInAtlanta 6y ago
taught my self guitar listening to metallica/a7x/ coheed. fuck it was hard, but since then ive been in multiple bands and write my own music and taught myself drums and bass. its so damn worth making the effort to do it
Thrawy126 6y ago
I struggle to teach myself to do things, I just don't know where to start.
Once I'm started, everything is easy.
When revising, I'll start writing notes, but then halfway through I'll realise it's pointless and then go on and do something more useful.
When play guitar, I learned all those easy 1 finger riffs, but then where do I go from there?
YetisInAtlanta 6y ago
Learn scales. I recommend the pentatonic scales first, then minor and major scales. Learn chord progressions, seriously once you understand this you’ll understand how songs are put together and you’ll start to get closer to where you want to be. You can use YouTube to watch people and don’t worry if it takes you months to learn a single thing. It’s about the journey not the destination, you’ll pick things up and incorporate it into your playing little by little. Once you get a grip on your scales and some simple chord progressions, try to find some people to play with. That’s what helped me the most was having other people to play with and bounce ideas off of. Any other questions let me know dude. \m/
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[deleted] 6y ago
omg lol it's all so simple to be alpha lol i m on my way to fuking girls and stuff haha this subreddit is amazing /s
You are all fucking retards.
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